When I was a kid and we used to come back east to visit the fam in NY I remember that my dad always used to take us to two restaurants.  I thought these were the coolest restaurants in the world!

The first was a place called The Ground Round and it had to be the greatest place on earth because they used to let you get big baskets of popcorn and peanuts and THROW THE SHELLS ON THE FLOOR.  Oh yeah, that was classy!

The second was a little eatery called Friendly’s.  Now this was the creme de la creme.  Not only did they make a mean grilled cheese with tomato BUT they had an ice cream selection that went on for days, highlighted by my favorite, Black Raspberry.  We just didn’t have ice cream like this out west.  Sure we had 31 flavors but it was nothing like this!

Now in my head I thought these amazing little eateries only existed in the small sphere around my Grandma’s house.  I was floored when I got to college and saw that not only were there Friendly’s all over the eastern seaboard but Ground Round’s as well, and in college while I didn’t find their food as spectacular as I remembered, they did serve a lot of beer…that’ll work!

But now being a recent transplant back to the Northeast I got to take my boys out for their first taste of Friendly’s.  To say they loved it is an understatement…check this boy out.

He along with Brady and Keegan gave it a big ol’ thumbs up.  Looks like we may be regulars.

Do you have any memories of restaurants you visited as a kid?