Monday, November 17, 2008

Bear with me...

Sculpture of a bear in front of a restaurant.That's Gus, according to a plaque in the sidewalk, standing in front of the Melting Pot restaurant, near the intersection of Germantown and Southampton Avenues, in Chestnut Hill. I like to think of him as the ambassador of fondue.

Bear with me. This is the beginning of a theme...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Neat idea and Gus looks pretty good.

We used to have a large restaurant that was perched high up on the side of a large hill right along side of Interstate 70.

On top of it was a giant fiberglass Buffalo. And that was associated with the restaurant in some way that I have forgotten.

Being up in the air like that the views out over the valley were just magnificent. I could set there all day and drink coffee, smoke cigarettes and think about all kinds of things. (That was before 1995 when I had aortic aneurysm surgery and was still smoking).

Then the owner sold out to a greedy business person who saw it as a sweet ticket to a fortune. The food quality went down and the homemade things were suddenly being delivered by truck.

Finally, the place was turned into a Buffet style place to eat with no ambiances at all. The cooks were teenagers. The waitresses vanished. The food was out or running out and seldom hot in the pots on the hot water steam tables.

One day we went and the place was empty. We sat there watching the food going to waste. Nobody was eating except us and it was a time to be picky.

And then the Buffalo disappeared.

And then the place fell to the demolition ball and now it is an empty place high up on the side of the hill along Interstate 70.

So much for greed.

Carl said...

Is that an actual career, ambassador for weird food?

Dan Allen said...

No Carl, not a career. More along the lines of an appointment.

Wayfaring Wanderer said...

The ambassador of fondue...love that!