Hitting “the diner” for breakfast at totally random intervals has been a thing here on LI for all of my adult life. But after getting a bill recently of nearly fifty dollars for basically two omelette plates I really have no desire to do it again. That kind of money just takes all the desire out of it. Back when I was in highschool those two plates were probably less than four dollars.
I meet longtime friends once a month or once every two months at Turning Stone Casino near me. We have lunch, then go play the penny slots. We’ve been doing it for years. Before the lockdown, they had a nice, affordable buffet, with discounts for senior citizens, but they used the lockdown to get rid of it, and took a large part of the seating area from the buffet, and turned it into a sports betting center. The casino used to offer other things like free plays and $10 a month voucher that you could use to buy things or put toward meals. They got rid of those too, and got rid of senior citizen discounts, which is rather stupid since so many seniors use their services. Other than a food center like the ones you find in shopping malls, they only have two restaurants available during the day for sit-down service. One has horrible food. The other is a pub-like restaurant with good food, but high prices. We met two weeks ago, and the blue-cheese burger I usually get was $22.50. It comes with fries. The month before it had been $20.50. Their chicken breast sandwich was the same price as the burger. They did reopen a buffet, but it is only open for a limited number of hours for brunch and dinner, and only for four evenings a week...and they want $39.00 a person. $16.99 for children ages 5-12. I’ve never gone, nor would I ever