Cory has garnered quite a few hits and gotten quite a bit of mileage out of his "20 reasons you know you grew up in Waco in the 80s and 90s" posts and deservedly so. I too enjoyed the walk down memory lane like many of you.
The past is more romantic than the present.
Like many of you, I wanted to remark on the items and bring up my own additions to the list. Unlike many of you, I have access to our username and password and therefore can write my own post on the matter. Ha. Ha. Ha.
Cory's most recent list made me think about departed restaurants and restaurant experiences that I miss. For the sake of not overlapping, I'll leave out J.T. McCords, though that may be the all-time coolest place that's not here anymore. There's also a very good chance it might have been pretty lame if I hadn't been 10 years old when I went there.
The past is more romantic than the present.
All of this also makes me think of an Austin restaurant that might still be there (not sure and kind of don't care) called, coincidentally, The Magic Time Machine. About once every two years when I was a kid, my parents would take me and my sisters down to Austin to dine at this fantastical place as a reward for something. It was amazing. I have no idea what the food tasted like, but all of the waiters and waitresses wore costumes of people like Mae West or Peter Pan. They played the roles of those characters like method actors and the tables and booths were as themed out as they could possibly be. I have the feeling if I went there right now, if it still exists, it would be a massive eye roll for mid-30s me. But I dug it as a kid.
The past is … well, you get it. Anyway, here are five restaurants that I miss.
1. Water Works
Like Magic Time Machine, my family dined there on special occasions, which probably upped the ante for coolness. However, my memory and sense of these things tells me it had the best actual cuisine of any of Waco's bygone restaurants.
2. Mr. Gatti's in Diamond Point shopping center
Every youth sports team party that mattered happened here. This was the time to gain elementary-school credibility by showing off how well you could play Centipede.
3. Mazzio's on Valley Mills
No pizza will ever taste as good as a sausage pizza from this specific Mazzio's tastes in my memory. Plus, this restaurant on Sunday nights between 1991 and 1995 will always be the nexus of my metaphorical, social universe. The ideas of liking girls, wanting to sit at the coolest table and the ethical dilemma of swiping bread sticks from the salad bar (i.e., the metaphor for all ethical dilemmas) generates from this time at this restaurant within the confines of my brain.
4. Big Daddy's on Bagby across from Baylor
Is there any better place for a guy who just got his driver's license than somewhere you can obtain a cheeseburger in the vicinity of college girls?
5. Leslie's Chicken Shack
It's kind of funny that Cory left this place off the list because fried chicken, and actually poultry in general, gives Cory a severe problem. He said it's a poultry intolerance. I constantly make fun of him for this. Maybe I should have just done "20 reasons you know you grew up in Waco in the 80s and 90s and you eat chicken" list. Anyway, when my parents used to take the family here, I got a similar kind of weird upper-stomach ache from the chicken (according to Cory this doesn't qualify as the same thing because it doesn't feel like a heart attack; drama queen). That was then, though. I've since put my gut through boot camp a few times and think I could handle it. It's actually the kind of homegrown, greasy spoon chicken place I wish we had more of now.
