[speaker001:] dining out seems to be a uh uh something we do off and on through our lives I guess as economics and as kids come and go and uh situations change uh we used to do
[speaker002:] right um-hum
[speaker001:] quite a bit of dining out before the children and then as they came along and uh additional expenses sitting came into every dinner out um that that halted a lot of it as well as just the the uh oh I guess the lifestyle changes a little bit slows down a little bit and
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] now even the atmosphere that that we would seek uh when we go out is often more quiet and uh
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] a little bit more uh subdued uh not smoke filled or or bar uh dance floor type yeah so
[speaker002:] yeah funny how that happens after kids right
[speaker001:] that uh those type of qualities have uh moved into the picture and then there's there's some economic concern but usually it's if if it's going to be a night out it's going to be a a decent meal and and uh fortunately for us there's not a whole lot of places in the immediate area that's totally really expensive you have to go a ways to get to a really
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] high dollar uh hundred and fifty dollar dinner type deal which they're forty to fifty miles away and they're they're all around but they're just a ways so we can do a good um
[speaker002:] yeah yes
[speaker001:] twenty twenty five dollar night out and have a decent steak and it comes out okay
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] uh we look for I guess uh service uh you know I'm not I'm not in eating at McDonald's long enough the fastest the speed of it doesn't bother me you know I'm not looking for fast food at that night so the fact that it took them twenty thirty minutes to get it there that's that's okay I'm that's twenty minutes away from the kids or however long you know you're out for the evening or it doesn't really matter that they not get it there right away but um
[speaker002:] right that's right right
[speaker001:] have a little chime little hard time finding a place that'll cook the steak just right I have to remember how to ask for it for this given restaurant to get it just the way I like it without too much pink in there and uh get it cooked good
[speaker002:] I imagine uh in in Texas there would be uh a lot of steak restaurants is that right
[speaker001:] yeah there seem to be quite a few quite a few
[speaker002:] yes um-hum and now on this area of course here in Maryland you're close to the Chesapeake there seems to there is some there are some steak restaurants but they lean more towards seafood here
[speaker001:] um-hum steak and lobster type
[speaker002:] uh you probably have seafood a lot also
[speaker001:] yeah they do oddly enough even being near near the gulf uh they tend to advertise the the main the whole east coast uh seafood for some reason it tends to be a draw I don't know particularly why I mean to me it tastes pretty much the same once you do to it whatever you're going to do to it you know like
[speaker002:] oh is that right right well do you have crabs and lobster in that area that's
[speaker001:] yeah yeah yeah crab and lobster and and uh
[speaker002:] yeah that's that's hum that's funny that they would
[speaker001:] yeah they withdraw from that I guess you know you can ship stuff anywhere pretty much and uh
[speaker002:] right right right and you probably have crawfish would you have crawfish
[speaker001:] uh probably I'm not a big fan of that so I wouldn't wouldn't be paying much attention to it um
[speaker002:] yeah yeah well a lot of what you said uh sounds similar to us I remember that uh before before we had children we have two boys that are like nine and six and actually the oldest one is just starting to learn to behave in a restaurant so before we had kids we would definitely dine out more frequently probably several times a week and it didn't have to be necessarily anything fancy but it was more uh a matter of before children say we were both working we didn't feel like cooking we just went out and now you know as you said once you've children that's not always an option uh I worked off and on um you know because they were little and and and also you know once you're home and you have them um places that you went before spur of the moment that might be nice but casual um sometimes it's not worth it to go through the trouble of digging the sitters and everything just to go and so what I have found now that um
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] when we do go out uh as you said you out on the town now when we go out it's it's you want it to be more special
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] you don't want to just uh necessarily run out for you know a one hour and come back I noticed with us it's more when we do go out then we do try to make it something nice maybe a dinner theater or nice restaurant with friends um sometimes lunches when we can do that that's okay too but um it definitely you know it definitely changes is changed we maybe eat in somewhat nicer places now but that's because when we do go
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] there's so there's like a special quality to that because it is a few hours away from the kids
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] and um but not as often we don't do it as often um and what I'm finding now is they're finally getting to the age where we're venturing into going again with them and of course when you take them though you're going to go to something like a McDonald's level or maybe a little bit of a family style restaurant
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] uh but in this area there there are quite a few decent restaurants that are not too expensive and uh I I I tend to agree with you too we look for more um uh quiet type more of a subdued atmosphere now and I think part of that is after you have kids you're you're not as interested in going to uh Georgetown type places where you know you go in every place and there's a lot of uh noise
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] yelling and uh you know you look for different things and that crowd seems to change and you know you're not as much part of it um and you don't there are more decent restaurants moving out to the suburbs you know and that type of thing uh you don't necessarily have to go downtown DC to to find decent restaurants and uh there's a lot that are moderately priced also whether you're in the suburbs or go downtown so there's there's quite a selection in this area
[speaker001:] there's a uh one place that really not sure if the marketing concept is is carried throughout it's chain but in this particular town um I live about two suburbs north of Dallas actually and in this particular town we're about two miles from this uh
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] this steak house that has a oh I don't know a motif to the entire uh shopping center it's the anchor for this entire strip shopping center I guess and they'll the entire place is
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] um has covered walkways all around to all the little shops that are they're not they're not even individual shops in some cases some cases are just kind of you they they put it all out in a little store shed out on to an area and then they put it all away at night um then there are there's one two whole rows actually of
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] of just what we would call a stall of flat concrete place with little posts and they're all marked off with little lines and so if you want to rent this little spot though the farmers bring their stuff down and have a farmers market type
[speaker002:] oh I see
[speaker001:] so we went to this steak house once uh well several times but the most particular time that we were away from the kids and and had a a good length of time and it was on a Friday night and we knew the place would be really busy but we we got there about uh six or six thirty and put our names on the list of of the waiting list and then we walked around the uh the place that has there were still some farmers there at the time there was a lot of hand uh craft type stuff being sold uh there was a blacksmith and he's showing off his little traits and things that he could sell as well as uh
[speaker002:] yeah that's nice
[speaker001:] uh the hallways between the places that were of of business the hallways were decorated with uh old pictures and history of the of the town as it were
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] we killed about a an hour or so doing that because it was about an hour and a half wait to get into the restaurant and uh then about thirty minutes worth of a meal or so thirty or forty five minutes there and then
[speaker002:] wow
[speaker001:] uh came back out and walked around a little bit more and went home so it it's quite an interesting uh deal they don't even take reservations because they're so booked like that that uh
[speaker002:] wow jeez well if I'm here also there's been such a growth in in housing uh not in the last year but before that it was just I don't know if you've been in this area in the last few years but it's just been incredible and and has it's gone crazy I mean where we are was basically a farm ten years ago and it's houses are stacked and what has happened really is that um some of the commercial um uh places have not caught up with the population here and so we do have a problem of the the half decent restaurants when you go on a Friday or Saturday night you're looking for quite a long wait
[speaker001:] hum
[speaker002:] and um not all of them do take reservations either so so you sometimes have to allot yourself uh enough time um you know to go out uh you can't figure on going out and being back in two hours you know um the other thing that's changing here is because of the um the age set here uh a lot mostly people in they're I'd say late twenties to early forties in these neighborhoods that uh we haven't done it because I don't think it will work well with us having two boys but um some of the more expensive restaurants now I understand are catering um to children and making half price menus for them whereas before um they would be totally discouraged from bringing children in and they're doing this basically because they're so many working parents in this area and that they were losing the business because once all these younger people were having children they weren't going to the restaurants
[speaker001:] right