Typically I like to sleep in until the last minute before having to go to work, but when a friend asks me if I want to go to a buffet with them, I’ll wake up with the Sun if I have to. Thankfully, I got to sleep in until 8:30am (even though I didn’t have to work till 11am.) I hopped out of bed, brushed my teeth, and got dressed. I let my dog outside to do his morning routine, filled his bowl with food, and headed out the door to have breakfast I won’t ever forget.

When I entered the Shoney’s parking lot, I’m flooded with memories of going there with my parents and grandparents when I was a kid. I wondered if Shoney Bear would remember me. If he did, we would have so much to catch up on (and he would be proud of everything I’ve done with my life). Will the piece of chewed gum I stuck inside the lollipop tree still be there 20-some years later? I find a parking spot (they have the worst parking lot I’ve had to navigate) and I go inside.

I walk in and am smacked in the face with the scent of breakfast food. I was both pleased and surprised. My friend isn’t there yet so I take a seat on the bench in the lobby. I notice the restaurant is pretty empty for 9:30 on a Friday morning. I also notice that everyone walking in to dine is at least 30 years my senior. We all gotta eat, I guess, and this was probably their lunch. As I continued to wait, I started noticing more things. Mainly, the lollipop tree was gone, and so was the gum. It had been replaced my a claw machine, which I was excited about, but didn’t have any cash on me. It took me about 5 minutes to realize there was no music playing. None at all, which was very weird to me. But I guess if their main clientele can’t hear anyways, what’s the point on spending money on a sound system?

FINALLY my friend arrives and we are taken to a table. I realized the restaurant was way bigger than I remember and how it looks from the outside. There were tons of people there and not all of them were old enough to be my grandparents, but could definitely be my parents older siblings.

The waitress hands us menus. MENUS?! I had no idea they had more food than just the buffet. We decline the menus, say “we’re having the buffet”, and place our order for coffee and water.

I walk up to the buffet and grab a plate, completely ignore the salad bar portion. What? It’s 9:30 in the morning, I don’t want a salad. No one does. GET OFF MY BACK! I load up with scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage (links, not my favorite but seasoned ground pork was entering my body, no matter what shape), a biscuit covered with gravy and I was out space. My only real complaint at this point is how small the plates are. I only got through one side of the buffet and there were two more to explore. Even though my plate was full, I still browsed the other options. It was the usual suspects…grits, hashbrowns, corned beef hash, French toast sticks (YES!), and baby pancakes. I’m sure there was more but something caught my eye and confused the shit out of me. Fried rice. Fried rice…for breakfast? I couldn’t tell if it was a bit Shoney’s was doing (you know, the whole “Chinese food isn’t for breakfast! Then what do people in China eat in the morning??!?! lolololololololololol lmao) or if they were getting ready for lunch…really early. Anyway, we’ll get back to that.

Back at the table I set my plate down and have a seat myself. I take a sip of my water, followed by coffee, and I’m ready to dine. I start with the biscuit and gravy and am disappointed. The biscuit was great, fluffy, and full of butter flavor, but the gravy was…well, it’s hard to describe. After I scarf that down, I inhale the sausage, take an egg break, and move on the bacon and finish off the eggs. The eggs ruled. I figured they would be the dehydrated egg powder that you just add hot water too, but nope. They were real eggs! Maybe they were liquid eggs that come out of a carton, but either way, they were delicious and found themselves on my plate again later on in the morning.

Round Two. This time, I get another biscuit, hold the gravy. More bacon (I can’t help myself!), corned beef hash, grits, and French toast sticks with plenty of maple flavored corn syrup product. No fried rice. Not yet, mostly because my plate was again, too full too soon.

The bacon hardly even got to meet the table before it was eaten. I mixed together the grits and the corned beef hash because I’m a monster but it’s delicious, especially served on a biscuit. The French toast sticks were a perfect finale to this course.

I mustered up the courage. My third trip consisted of you guessed it, fried rice. Joining the rice were more scrambled eggs, bacon, and corned beef has. I might have had another biscuit, I can’t remember. I kinda…avoided the fried rice and stuck to what I know. I moved a little slower with the bacon this time, because I had a feeling I’d need it later. I picked at the eggs, but I know it needed to be done. I pushed everything away from the fried rice and dug in.

What the fuck did I just put in my mouth, chew and swallow? You’re familiar with fried rice, right? It tastes like soy sauce, maybe hints of spices such as clove, kind of nutty tasting too, right? Yeah. This wasn’t that. This wasn’t pleasant, at all. I was so bummed. It tasted like someone threw in a bunch of out of date “southwest spice” in some 3-4 day old rice, mixed in red peppers and corn (I hate corn) and something green. “Oh shit!” they thought after it was finished, “fried rice has soy sauce in it!” and they put in one little packet from Chinese take out. Yeah that should be enough to flavor a 4qt pan full of shitty rice. Luckily I had bacon still hanging around to make up for it.

I was about tapped out. My coffee was running low and my water hadn’t been refilled. I was still bummed about the fried rice, but I didn’t let that stop me. I needed more French toast sticks, so I forced down three more. I was done. I had to go to work and make food for the masses.

Other than feeling weird about how much younger I was than everyone else there, the weird silence due to the lack of music, and the god awful fried rice, Shoney’s is a solid place to go in you want to get really full for $12 and some change (not including tip!)