Too Much is Never Enough at Maple Street Biscuit Company

Maple Street Biscuit Company
2004 San Marco Blvd.
Jacksonville, FL





You ever meet one of those stick-in-the-mud type people who complain, “Oh, that’s too much for me?”

Yeah. Me neither.

I don’t hang out with people like that.

For me, there’s no such thing as too much of a good thing.

Lots of people who agree with me crowd into Maple Street Biscuit Company every day for ludicrous gastronomical combinations of good food.

The vibe at Maple Street Biscuit Company is one of a place trying to keep things upbeat and fun.

Aforementioned stick-in-the-muds need not apply.

Instead of giving you a number to remember when you place your order, the perky girls at the order counter ask you a question.

Every customer gets the same question -- but the question changes every day.

Today it was “What is your favorite game?”

Apparently I just looked at her blankly.

“Huh? Game?”

“You know, video game, computer game, card game,” my order taker explained cheerfully.

Um, Suit757 doesn’t have time for games.

“Okay, well, what was the last game you remember playing?”

Followed by a perky, patient head tilt.

Uhhhh. Monopoly? During the Carter Administration, maybe?

“Great! When we call Monopoly, come get your order!”

More perky smiling.

Look, you better be in a good mood when you come in here. Because a meal at Maple Street Biscuit Company is like a trip to Disney World for your taste buds and arteries.

Everything here is cheerfully over-the-top.

Such as my “Five and Dime”, a teetering tower of heart-clogging comfort food.

As the name on the door implies, the specialty at Maple Street Biscuit Company is…

…well…

…biscuits.

And I’m sure Maple Street Biscuit Company makes fantastic biscuits…

…it’s just kinda hard to tell for sure with all that other goodness piled on top on my Five and Dime Biscuit.

Fried chicken.

Melted cheese.

Pecan smoked bacon.

A drippy over-easy egg.

Whew!

All topped off with a healthy ladling of sausage gravy!

Holy quadruple bypass, Batman, this just might be the single most over-the-top concoction to ever slide by my taste buds!

If you are disgusted, well…

…why exactly are you even reading this website?

If you are thinking, “Well, Suit757, does the Five and Dime taste as good as it sounds?”…

…the answer is a resounding YES!

What might be a tad over-whelming in the hands of mere mortals turns into delicious at Maple Street Biscuit Company because this place takes each and every one of the components of its culinary creations seriously.

Fluffy but firm biscuits, all-natural fried chicken, organic eggs, gourmet thick-cut bacon, quality real cheese.

All smothered with an off-the-hook sausage gravy.

Some sausage gravies served at those little chain joints along Southern interstate exit ramps camouflage the bits of sausage in a bland cream gravy.

There’s nothing subtle about the sausage in Maple Street’s sausage gravy.

This place doesn’t do subtle.

Generous chunks of zesty sausage make their presence known in every delicious forkful of creamy gravy.

And with a nice hint of spicy kick, this sausage gravy perfectly complements the smoky flavor of the bacon and the earthy warmth of the scratch-made biscuit.

Likewise, the runny egg lends a nice textural contrast to its crispy fried chicken kissin’ cousin.

Needless to say, this isn’t a Hardee’s biscuit sandwich you could eat one handed driving down I-95.

Even with a knife and a fork, there is no conceivable way to get even a small sampling of all the various components onto one forkful. Thus every bite offers a new and different thrill ride for the taste buds.

Most folks who come here don’t have much room for the side dishes.

Most folks are missing out.

And Suit757 definitely isn’t most folks.

The macaroni and cheese is a crock of melty cheesy goodness topped with crumbled Cheese Itz crackers. Like everything else here -- over-the-top good.

The collard greens deserve a spot in the vegetable Hall of Fame.

Both sweeter and spicier than any greens that have ever before graced my taste buds, these collards were swimming in a wicked broth of flavor and seasoning.

Biscuits, fried chicken, eggs, cheese, bacon, sausage gravy, collard greens and mac and cheese?

All for one suit’s lunch?

Too much?

Nope. If it’s good, there’s no such thing.

Rating: Bought the Shirt!

Going Downtown to Get My Irish Up

Fionn MacCool’s
2 Independent Drive
Jacksonville, FL




I like going “downtown”.

Every city should have one. A center of gravity. A sense of identity. A place to point to.

Downtown is where the business is done, where the pace is quicker, where the fun is at.

Maybe I read too many Batman comics as a kid. But the idea of exploring the vast side streets and alleyways of Gotham has a romantic appeal to me.

Of course, not every city has a downtown.

The largest city in Virginia, for example, has no downtown.

That’s because Virginia Beach isn’t really a city. It’s just a sprawling suburb of Norfolk, which has a population half the size of Virginia Beach.

Of course that wasn’t good enough for the Virginia Beach city fathers. They didn’t want to preside over a city with no “there” there.

So they spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to build a fake “downtown”.

I’m sorry. A couple taxpayer financed high rises next to some busy intersection does not a downtown make.

Some cities, like Norfolk, have figured this out. In 60 years Norfolk’s downtown has gone from thriving, to dead, to down right scary, back to happening – if not quite thriving again, thanks in part to simply kicking the bums off the park benches.

Other cities like Knoxville, Greenville and Indianapolis have nice resurrected downtowns too.

Then you have cities like Jacksonville.

Hardly anybody comes to downtown Jacksonville after 6pm unless they want to get mugged or score something illicit.

It’s a barren wasteland of parking lots and empty bank buildings, evacuated by weekday workers at the stroke of quitin’ time.

That means there are very few options for dinner and drinks.

I guess that’s how I ended up at Fionn MacCool's at “The Jacksonville Landing” – the city’s modest taxpayer financed attempt at urban renewal.

“The Landing” is one of those touristy places on the river stocked with places like the obligatory Hooters.

Hey, Suit757 likes Hooters (and hooters) as much as any other red blooded heterosexual male, but I was looking for something different.

The turnover at these types of taxpayer funded “festival marketplaces” tends to be pretty high. And sure enough, Fionn MacCool’s is a fairly recent addition to the Jacksonville skyline.

And they did a nice job with it.

The place has a huge rectangular bar set in the middle of the restaurant with lots of taps. And plenty of obligatory Irish paraphernalia and dark wood accents.

Fionn MacCool’s also sports two outdoor dining areas – one with a small stage for live music (non-Irish, of course) and another lined up along the Jacksonville Riverwalk with a spectacular view.

That view is what baffles me about why Jacksonville’s downtown isn’t more happening.

Sitting outside with the breezes coming off the St. John’s River with boats gliding by, cars rumbling over the lit-up Main Street Bridge and surrounded by Jaguar teal accented bank towers makes you realize the potential of this spot.

Jacksonville certainly LOOKS good.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t take long sitting out by the river before you realize the problem with this town.

Before I enjoyed my first sip of beer, some homeless dude reached over the railing toward my table and asked me for money.

I can’t even patronize a decent establishment downtown without being accosted by some bum?

Forget all the taxpayer subsidies. The city politicians need to solve THAT problem first.

It kind of takes away from the festive atmosphere and the view when you have to fend off hoards of drugged out bums hitting you up for money.

Especially after reading in the local paper that over half the downtown Jacksonville homeless population has contracted tuberculosis – a highly contagious and deadly disease. And that the city had tried to cover it up for a year to avoid panic in the streets.

As it turns out, there’s nothing to panic over. Nobody comes downtown anyway.

I moved back inside to a table by the bar to enjoy my beer in peace.

As a Suit of Irish decent, I always feel obligated while patronizing an Irish bar to at least start the evening off with an Irish beer.

Somehow, I feel like I’m turning my back on my homeland if I don’t.

The problem is that the “Irish Corporate Triumvirate”, as I call it, of Guinness, Harp and Smithwicks can become a bit monotonous.

One thing Suit757 doesn’t tolerate in his beer drinking is monotony.

Well, recently, the London-based (how’s that to get your Irish up?) alcohol conglomerate Diageo has added a fourth beer to its Irish Corporate Triumvirate. (I guess that makes it a quadumvirate?)

Kilkenny is an Irish cream ale that is nitrogenated like Guinness. That means it goes down silky smooth.

Five minutes later my pint glass was empty (how’d that happen?) and I was ready to move on from my Irish obligations and try one of Fionn MacCool’s good selection of local brews.

I’m happy to report that despite its blue collar/Southern Rock birthplace reputation, Jacksonville has not been left behind by the craft beer revolution. Several local breweries have popped up in the last few years here in the land of Lynyrd Skynyrd and Anheuser Busch.

The best of them is Intuition Ale Works, whose flagship People’s Pale Ale is a full-flavored repudiation of all those masses of Florida Bud Light and Yuengling drinkers.

But thanks to Fionn MacCool’s extensive beer selection, I had the option to sample some of Intuition’s more obscure offerings.

Like the light colored, but generously hopped I-10 India Pale Ale. Similar to the People’s Pale Ale, but with just a notch more hoppy flavor.

As a dead pig connoisseur, I couldn’t pass up Fionn MacCool’s sausage rolls as an appetizer. Bite sized chunks of savory sausage wrapped in mini croissants, the sausage rolls were tasty, especially dipped in the accompanying clear-your-sinuses horseradish sauce.

Dining at an Irish pub is always a risky proposition.

Let’s face it, we Irish might be known for our witty way with words and alcohol tolerance. But culinary creativity?

Uh, not so much.

But I rolled the dice on Fionn MacCool’s Irish boxty, a traditional Irish potato pancake stuffed with various meats and vegetables.

Think a potato-based Irish burrito.

As if to authenticate the Irishness of the dish, Fionn MacCool’s includes this little Irish folk rhyme on the menu:

“Boxty on the griddle, Boxty in the pan,
If you can't make a boxty, you’ll never get your man.”

I opted for the Ha’penny Bridge Boxty stuffed with corned beef and buttered cabbage, which sounds like the most traditionally Irish option, until you realize that nobody actually eats corned beef and cabbage in Ireland. That’s strictly an Irish-American creation.

But I don’t care who gets credit for its origins, this was one delicious dish.

It was bursting at the seams with delightfully fork tender corned beef. The cabbage was soft and buttery, perfectly complimented by the accompanying mustard-based cream sauce.

If anyone in Ireland could actually make food taste this good, none of us would have left in the first place.

A salad was supposed to come on the side.

Fortunately, I was able to talk my waitress into substituting a side of Fionn MacCool’s homemade macaroni and cheese.

(Suit757 has never voluntarily eaten a salad. Ever.)

Good call. The mac and cheese came out of the oven piping hot with lots of gooey cheese and even few pieces of Irish bacon thrown in for good measure.

Fionn MacCool’s brags that it is “An Irish Pub that doesn’t skimp on the Irish.”

That might be a bit of an exaggeration.

A true Irish pub would feature real Irish music.

But that’s probably asking too much for the home town of Ronnie Van Zant.

As I paid my tab and headed back out into the streets of downtown Jacksonville, I felt satisfied that I had finally found a decent place to eat and drink down along the St. John’s River.

As I walked under the Main Street Bridge and admired the truly spectacular view of the downtown skyline reflecting on the water, I thought to myself that more people should come down here.

I love downtown – it’s the heart of finance and industry, the center of activity, the hub of the city.

Unfortunately, by the time I got to my car three blocks away, I was accosted two more times by homeless beggars.

That’s how a few hundred people who refuse to join the productive segment of society can destroy the heart and soul of a city.

The political leaders of Jacksonville can pour as much taxpayer money down the drain as they want to on subsidized Hooters, but until they solve THAT problem, nobody else is going to share my enthusiasm for downtown.

Oh well. I guess that just means more Kilkenny and Irish boxties for me.

Rating: Seriously Thought About Buying Shirt.

Suit757 is Down with his Yellow Mess in the ‘Hood

Jenkins’ Bar-B-Q
830 N. Pearl St.
Jacksonville, FL



I had my first conversation with a black person when I was 20 years old.

Yeah, Suit757 lived a sheltered upbringing.

I told that person that everything I knew about black people came from The Cosby Show.

When she recovered from her wild convulsions of laughter – about ten minutes later, if I recall – she said that probably wasn’t the most representative depiction of black lifestyle.

I’m pretty sure she meant that to be an understatement.

But I have friends who claim to be experts on the latest comings and goings of hip hop culture who won’t so much as drive through the black neighborhood in their town in broad daylight with the doors locked.

And yet they claim to be connoisseurs of real barbeque.

I may still be confused about that guy who got shot. Six Pack? Two Pack?

Or how many “Doggies” are in Snoop Doggie Doggie Doggie’s(?) name.

Or is it no Doggies now?

No clue.

But I know enough to know that some of the best barbeque in America can almost always be found within a few miles of Martin Luther King Boulevard. And I don’t have a problem going there to get some.

Come to think of it, maybe I did spend too much time watching The Cosby Show.

Or just maybe, being a Suit in Strange Places conditions you to being out of place in pursuit of great food.

I mean really, the friendly folks at Jenkins' Bar-B-Que in the black section of downtown Jacksonville certainly don’t cause me any more concern than the collective head swivels from the natives at the backwoods redneck bars I’ve patronized in Mississippi.

You know Charlie Daniels’ song “Uneasy Rider”? Yeah. Been there. Done that. All the time. In a suit, no less.

So I don’t have any problem standing in line with the regulars at Jenkins to give my order to the lady behind the counter.

Especially when the barbeque is this good.

The specialty here? Ribs slow smoked over hickory.

Your choices are a large rack, a small rack, a double order or a “rib sandwich”.

The most popular order is the sandwich. I’ve ordered that before.

If I didn’t feel out of place being the only white guy in the joint, I would have if I actually tried to pick my “sandwich” up and eat it.

Um…don’t do that.

That’s because a rib sandwich in Jacksonville isn’t a sandwich at all. It’s a slice of white bread under three ribs (bone in, of course) and another slice or two on top.

These ribs may be slow smoked and tender, but you still can’t eat the bones!

The double order is six bones. Small rack is 10 or 11. Large rack is 13 or 14.

Since I had a dining companion with me, I knew I needed to go bigger than the “sandwich”. But how much bigger?

“Get a double order,” the friendly lady behind the counter advised. “If you get a small rack, you’ll have left overs for lunch tomorrow and dinner on Saturday!”

Hmm. Left overs aren’t an option for a Suit in a Strange Places. Ribs don’t travel well.

But, since I wasn’t planning to order any sides, I took a chance and ordered the small rack any way.

Good move.

Apparently the Jenkins’ lady must get all her knowledge of white culture by watching people starve on Survivor.

We had no problem polishing off the entire rack.

“Next time, we’re getting the large”, I said.

An absolute mess.

That is the only way to describe Jenkins’ ribs.

But messy in a good way.

For about twenty bucks I was handed a giant package of butcher paper that smelled like heaven.

Like a four year old on Christmas morning, I gleefully plopped down at a vacant booth and tore into the package.

At first I thought she had given me a loaf of Wonder bread. That’s all I could see.

Tossing aside my slices of white bread like superfluous ribbons and bows, the real reason I came to the “bad” side of town revealed itself to me.

A rack of ribs submerged in a pool of signature yellow barbeque sauce.

The sauce is yellow because it is mustard-based. And that’s the way folks like their barbeque here along the Southeast Atlantic coast.

“Most Northerners don’t like it,” is the way Jenkins’ owner Meltonia Jenkins-DuBois, describes her famous sauce. “But they get used to it.”

I don’t even like mustard. But I love Jenkins’ mustard barbeque sauce.

The sugar, vinegar and spice take the tart mustardy flavor to whole new -- and better -- place.

Providing more spicy kick than most mustard-based sauces, the sugar and spice are perfectly balanced. It’s sweet, but you get that enjoyable tingle on your lips too.

Jenkins’ offers a “spicy” version too for the hardened regulars.

Under that avalanche of sauce are some pretty good ribs.

I noticed that one end of the rack was smoky, tender and meaty. The other end offered a bit more tooth resistance while contributing more flavor from the smoke kissed “bark” of the meat.

Under the ribs was yet another half a loaf of Wonder Bread soaking up all that mustardy goodness.

I went through a small forest of napkins to keep the yellow sauce from running down my arms. Despite five minutes of scrubbing in the men’s room, my fingernails were permanently polished yellow.

By the time I gnawed the meat off the last precious rib and pushed back my mountain of bones and yellow stained napkins, I was feeling perfectly comfortable being the only white dude in Jenkins.

After all, I had proved myself worthy. I polished off a whole rack. Enjoyed the heck out of the quirky yellow sauce.

And knew enough not to eat the bones in my Wonder Bread sandwich.

Yeah. Suit757 fits in here. No problem.

I can hang in the black part of town.

Just don’t ask me what Snoop Doggie Dog sings.

Rating: Seriously Thought About Buying Shirt.

Camel Riders Welcome at the Whiteway

Whiteway Delicatessen
1237 King St.
Jacksonville, FL
Visited August 30, 2010

Beer Selection: None

Food: Deli style sandwiches served in pita bread

"Camel Rider.”

Well, I’ve been called a mackerel-snapper, paddy and bog-trotter.

Whether you’re Middle-Eastern or Irish. Catholic, Protestant or Muslim. Someone’s going to have a name for you.

But in our politically correct, post-9/11 America, calling an Arab “a camel rider” might get you a knuckle sandwich – or worse.

But not in Jacksonville, Florida.

You’ll get a different sandwich all together if you call out “Camel Rider” in the dozen or so competing Arab-run lunch spots around town.

The Whiteway Deli is the most famous of these, tucking salami, ham, bologna, cheese, lettuce and tomato into a pita for their version of the “Camel Rider”, something Sam Salem and his family have been doing here for over 80 years.

While it might seem strange to experience such a stab at culinary exotica (awkward though it may be) smack dab in the middle of the city most famous as the birthplace of Southern Rock, it actually all fits together nicely into a story about American success and assimilation when you think about it.

Arab Christians fled Muslim persecution in the Middle East and began settling in Jacksonville over a century ago, a city that takes pretty serious claim to being the most redneck metro area in the South.

So why Jacksonville?

I have no idea.

Maybe these folks figured handling pick-up driving good ol’ boys would be a breeze compared to the Taliban of the Ottoman Empire.

Now, obviously there is nothing exotic or remotely Middle-Eastern about salami, ham or bologna. And that’s the point.

These newly transplanted small business owners figured out quickly that if you want to sell lunch to the locals, sell them what they are already comfortable with.

Then stuff it all into some Mediterranean looking pita bread and call it a “Camel Rider”.

Hey, don’t laugh. Pita bread can be exotic if all you’ve ever eaten is fried catfish and hush puppies!

Then -- wink, wink -- all of a sudden the natives come to think that maybe that dark-complected lunch guy down the street knows what he is doing after all.

It’s been a formula for success, as the Whiteway has been the see-and-be-seen lunch spot for Jacksonville movers and shakers for decades.

Unfortunately, the Whiteway was evicted in a dispute with the landlord a couple years ago, so I missed my chance to dine in the old historic location a few doors down.

The new digs lack that nostalgic feel of weathered counters and worn stools that adds so much to the experience of dining in an eight decade old institution.

The new ambiance can be best described as recently-built-high-school-cafeteria. But the paintings of historic Jacksonville buildings decorating the pristine white walls lend a little local flavor.

At 11am on a Monday, I pretty much had the place to myself. But an hour or two later, I’m sure it was full of office workers and politicians.

Sure enough, there were pictures of Republican establishmentarians like Bill McCollum and John Thrasher decorating the cash register.


The Whiteway is a necessary photo-op stop for all pols trudging across the Sunshine State for votes.

Unfortunately for McCollum, who somehow managed to lose last week in the GOP primary for governor to a crook who oversaw the largest defrauding of taxpayers in American history, it wasn’t enough votes.

Maybe he should have ordered a few more Camel Riders.

But its establishment popularity is what makes the Whiteway such a perfect case study in American assimilation.

The affection between the Salem family and their customers is obvious and mutual, as evidenced by the boxes and boxes of photos of Whiteway customers Mr. Salem keeps by the front door and the fact that the entire place is basically run on the honor system.

No one brings a check to the table.

When I was done eating, I wandered up to the cash register and flipped through a few dog-eared pictures and waited for Mr. Salem, who was busy entertaining the two year old daughter of a regular customer.

I told him what I ordered. “Camel Rider.” He smiled, told me the price and thanked me for coming by in an accent that sounded more North Florida than North Palestine.

Simple, good quality, familiar food, served with a smile, a touch of non-threatening pita bread ethnicity and a just a dash of self-depreciation. It’s a recipe for success all newcomers could copy.

Even mackerel-snappers like me.

Rating: Would Wear Shirt If It Were Free

O’Brothers Proves the Key to Happiness is Low Expectations

O’Brothers Irish Pub
1521 Margaret St.
Jacksonville, FL
Visited August 4, 2010

Beer selection: Great cross section of imports, local beers and Oregon microbrews

Food: Good enough to line your stomach for a night of drinking

I can be somewhat of a stickler about “authentic” Irish pubs.

Lots of them claim the “authentic” label, but really, how authentic can you be if your bartender is named Bruno Goldstein, doesn’t know how to properly pour a Guinness and can’t carry on a conversation about Irish legends like Brian Boru or Paul Hornung?

A few plastic Budweiser shamrocks hanging from the black and white TV, a Notre Dame pennant on the wall and a green sign out front doesn’t cut it.

No, real Irish pubs play real Irish music and are populated by at least a few hosts and patrons who are actually Irish.

The latest gimmick for Irish pubs to prove their authenticity is to claim that the entire bar, booths, stools, fixtures, woodwork, everything, was shipped over from Ireland.

The first time I stumbled into a place that made such a claim, I actually thought that sounded kind of cool.

By the time I’d patronized a half dozen of them, I thought this is what our fiat-money printing-press-obsessed-Federal-Reserve-created house-of-cards economy has led us to. Bar owners willing to ship an entire bar piece by piece across the planet and customers willing to shell out $8 per pint to pay for it all.

I guess that’s why a place with a tongue-in-cheek name like O’Brothers doesn’t get my Irish up.

You know they aren’t going for the Irish purity test.

In fact, located in the edgy, hip, light-in-the-loafers section of a city best know as the birthplace of Ronnie Van Zant, I’m pretty sure I might be the first patron of Irish descent to step foot in the place since it opened a year or two ago.

But that’s OK. In the part of town where hippies go to hide out from rednecks, O’Brothers isn’t trying that hard.

Oh, sure, they have the corporate Irish beer triumvirate on tap (Guinness, Harp & Smithwicks), a few pictures of rolling Irish hills on the walls and a couple dark cozy nooks to enjoy a pint.

But by 7pm, after a long day of zigzagging across America’s largest city by land mass to four meetings, I was ready to relax – even if I was the only one in the state of Florida on this August day wearing a suit.

For an Irish pub, authentic or not, O’Brothers has a good beer selection. The waitress told me the Rogue Dead Guy Ale was just $3.50 per pint.

Sold.

What a great way to kick off an evening of beer drinking – with one of my favorites! (And the glow-in-the-dark skeleton dude on the big 22 oz bottles is pretty cool too. In fact, an empty, recently enjoyed bottle of Dead Guy Ale is my favorite Halloween decoration. Scares the little trick-or-treaters every time.)

After following up my Dead Guy Ale with two or three Guinnesses, I was starting to get a little hungry.

That’s where the trouble usually begins in an Irish pub.

The Irish are known for good drink, good times and a good way with words.

Good food? Not so much.

So I was intrigued when my waitress handed me a “tapas” menu.

Tapas? In an Irish pub?

Just as I was about to go into a Guinness-fueled rant about serving Spanish food in an Irish pub, I calmed down, took and deep breath and came to my senses.

Of course, O’Brothers doesn’t really serve Spanish food.

They mean tapas in the gimmicky, trendy sense of “small plates”. In this case, small plates of pub food.

The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea.

The last thing anyone wants to do is make a big financial commitment to food in an Irish pub. By the third or fourth pint, beer munchies are kicking in. So order a few plates of food, and if you screw up and one of them is lousy, you’re only out four or five bucks.

Brilliant!

First up was the “Banger in a Blanket” – basically a big corn dog cut up like your mommy did for you when you were three so that no big blocks of processed pig blocked your esophagus and killed you. It was just okay, with the cornbread part a little stale tasting.

Feeling healthy, I guess, I ordered both versions of green beans – pan seared, with bacon; and fried, with horseradish sauce.

The pan seared version was better in writing than in reality. It was just some string beans with a few bits of bacon and cheese chunks sprinkled on top.

The fried green beans were pretty good – and filling. Not the best fried green beans I’ve ever had, that’s for sure, but you know, they were breaded and deep fried. I mean, what’s not to like?

The best dish, by far, was the “Guinness Mac & Cheese”. I don’t know where the Guinness comes in, but this was some good cheesy macaroni, making me regret not ordering the $10 entre version which the waitress said was four times bigger than my $5 tapas version.

But that’s okay. Even though I spent $20 on food – and another $20 on beer, I felt like I got my money’s worth. It wasn’t like I was expecting the Capital Grille.

And that’s why all Irish pubs could learn a key lesson from a place like O’Brothers.

It’s like maintaining a healthy relationship. Make sure you keep the expectations in check, and you’ll do just fine.

Rating: Would Wear Shirt If It Were Free