Are You Ready To Order?

When I go out to eat, it’s almost always to Ollie’s. You will find many of these around the country, but they have no connection at all with each other; they are just restaurants with the same name and probably the same signs. More on that later.

Ollie’s is a nice family restaurant; the food is good and the prices are reasonable. It’s also clean and in compliance with the health inspector’s demands. The bathrooms are clean, too; always a sign of a well-run place.

“What,” you might ask, “is the difference between a small restaurant and a diner?” In a diner, the waitresses call you “honey” or “hon” and they usually keep a pencil in their hair. In a restaurant, they are more obviously reserved and it’s not quite the family atmosphere you find in the local corner diner.

These are also good places to order the bigger dishes that aren’t that expensive. You can’t finish them at the table, but you can get a container to take them home for another meal (or two, or a second meal and a later snack).

So why all the Ollie’s around the country with, possibly, the same signs but otherwise completely unrelated? Perkins Family Restaurants had a line of Ollie’s Restaurants (which I think may have been a spin-off of their “Ollie’s Trolley” sites). When they sold the business to whoever wanted to buy the units, I suspect that the Moms & Pops found they could (a) save money on signs and (b) keep the known business name. Just a guess on my part, but the local owner says he is completely independent of the others.