True Story 3
This occurred during the business trip to San Francisco that I mentioned in the previous post.
Any time I'm visiting a different part of the country, I try to make a point of having breakfast, lunch or dinner at some local establishment, rather than going to some national chain. I was passing through Oakland on my way to another customer when I realized that I hadn't had any breakfast, just some coffee, and no matter what the local clocks might say my own internal clock was quite insistent that I was now well past lunchtime, and getting well on towards dinnertime. Briefly, I considered getting a burger at some national chain.
I was passing through an industrial park when I saw a small restaurant that advertised itself as 'The Swiss Chalet'. It sat in the middle of a vast plain of asphalt parking lot, and it looked very out of place among the squat, utilitarian buildings surrounding it. In keeping with its name, it was build to look very much like a Swiss mountain chalet, complete with a very high peaked roof designed to keep all the Alpine snow from dangerous accumulations. It appeared to be open, though it was somewhere between lunchtime and dinner in California and there were no cars parked in front of the building. I figured that they had to serve at least passable food, or they would not have survived long, even in an industrial park,and it was certainly a local establishment, so I took a shot and went in.
The first thing I noticed was the decor. Seating was provided by rows of wooden picnic tables with the benches attached, each table covered by a checkered red-and-white plastic tablecloth. There was a jukebox on one wall, offering both kinds of music: Country AND Western. To top it all off, they served only Chinese food, cafeteria style.
The food was pretty good, as I recall, but I came away from The Swiss Chalet with something more than a full stomach: I came away with another travel story. I couldn't have gotten that at any fast-food chain outlet.
Any time I'm visiting a different part of the country, I try to make a point of having breakfast, lunch or dinner at some local establishment, rather than going to some national chain. I was passing through Oakland on my way to another customer when I realized that I hadn't had any breakfast, just some coffee, and no matter what the local clocks might say my own internal clock was quite insistent that I was now well past lunchtime, and getting well on towards dinnertime. Briefly, I considered getting a burger at some national chain.
I was passing through an industrial park when I saw a small restaurant that advertised itself as 'The Swiss Chalet'. It sat in the middle of a vast plain of asphalt parking lot, and it looked very out of place among the squat, utilitarian buildings surrounding it. In keeping with its name, it was build to look very much like a Swiss mountain chalet, complete with a very high peaked roof designed to keep all the Alpine snow from dangerous accumulations. It appeared to be open, though it was somewhere between lunchtime and dinner in California and there were no cars parked in front of the building. I figured that they had to serve at least passable food, or they would not have survived long, even in an industrial park,and it was certainly a local establishment, so I took a shot and went in.
The first thing I noticed was the decor. Seating was provided by rows of wooden picnic tables with the benches attached, each table covered by a checkered red-and-white plastic tablecloth. There was a jukebox on one wall, offering both kinds of music: Country AND Western. To top it all off, they served only Chinese food, cafeteria style.
The food was pretty good, as I recall, but I came away from The Swiss Chalet with something more than a full stomach: I came away with another travel story. I couldn't have gotten that at any fast-food chain outlet.
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