A trip to Chick-fil-A in Orland Park

I went to Chick-fil-A in Orland Park this morning. I've been putting it off for months. The place has been here but I just didn't feel inspired to go eat there. I'm not sure why though maybe it has to do with my attitude that chicken is best served from the barbecue, why pay for it at a restaurant? I don't know.

But leave it to my wife to figure out a way to get me there. She heard that Chick-fil-A was giving away a free breakfast and all you had to do to qualify was to go online and register. Sounded like a gimmick but she got two full page printouts one for each of us giving us a free breakfast.

So she dragged me there this morning. Had to be between 9:30 and 10:30 am. Okay. I was free.

The place is nestled near Red Robin and Lowes between 94th Avenue and LaGrange Road. The counter was busy with people waiting for their orders. We got in one line and then ordered. She handed the cashier the two sheets of paper reservations and the cashier put them on this huge pile.

Impressive so far. Lots of people coming here for this promotion.

But I got a crumby muffin with eggs and bacon and cheese. What? Why would I go to Chick-fil-A to order some high fat breakfast sandwich that I can get at McDonalds, if I didn't care much about my cholesterol levels? Fine. Throw in the little round hash browns and some coffee. Alison got her free little McDonald's like muffin sandwich and so did I. And we got coffee. We ended up spending another $5. Okay.

It really tasted just like a McDonald's sandwich. So why would I come here? Why didn't they just offer or push as a promotion the chicken breakfast sandwich. It's Chick-fill-A, after all? It's a chicken restaurant, I mean. Right?

Not smart. After I got the McDonald's breakfast muffin, I started to wonder what the chicken here taste's like. The egg and bacon and cheese muffin tasted pretty routine. Nothing to cluck about.

But a nice waitress walked around with a little tray of chicken chunks on small little slices of bread offering them as samples. And that tasted great. I almost walked out thinking why come back? I don't like McDonalds. Why would I like Chick-fil-A? The chicken tasted good, so maybe I'll go back.

That got me in to a conversation about another place opening soon, Dave and Busters. They're taking over the long abandoned eyesore that used to be the Orland theaters on the south end of the Orland Park Mall. I figured, oh, another big hamburger place? But no. It's a kids hangout, like Chuck-E-Cheese with the big Rat where kids plow a fortune in change in to worthless electronic pinball games. What a waste, but fun for the kids, of course.

They have 55 locations and number 56 will be landing in Orland soon, Mayor McLaughlin's idea of economic boon. (Not!) I can just see all the rich people who are going to plunk down their retirement fortunes to land one of those nifty Ninety7fifty luxury apartments that everyone is complaining about, lining up to get in to Dave and Busters to play the video game machines.

Their slogan is "play your little heart out," a message to the "little" kids who will plop in coin after coin eating up their parents disposable income or grandparent's retirement funds on junk time.

Hey, whatever brings in the sales tax money to the village.

By the way, where is my annual sales tax rebate check? I miss that. Bad move getting rid of it. It's the little things that really count and what little we got made me feel great. They then got rid of it and now what? I have no plans to move in to Niety7Fifty any time soon. And I am not sure how many people are, although I know that the money to build the place is coming out of taxdollars I've paid to the village that could go to do something else.

-- Ray Hanania