Did you ever watch “Northern Exposure” in the early 90’s?
Well, you should have.
I did, but only vaguely remembered it (since I was like, uh, 9 years old when it started), but remembered enough to know that it was a fun show with super-quirky characters. So Chris (who had never seen it) and I bought the season DVD’s one by one, and have been watching it over the past few years as if it were a new show. And he has declared it one of his all-time favorite shows. It is truly timeless.
However, this post has NOTHING to do with Northern Exposure except to reference one of the quirky characters in there. Maggie. Poor thing, she was a 30-something year old who had a boyfriend curse. She had 5 boyfriends who were killed by crazy-freak accidents (getting hit by a crashing satellite, getting frozen on a glacier, etc).
Like Maggie, Chris and I have a bit of a curse.
Luckily, no one dies from it.
It is a restaurant curse. All restaurants that we love, close.
This has been going on for our whole married life, and it is quite discouraging to us. More so, I daresay, to the owners of said restaurants, but at least they only have one restaurant each closing. ALL of ours close.
The first occurance, which we thought was just an odd fluke, was Ruby Tuesday at the Colonnade. When Chris and I were dating, he lived in Cahaba Heights and I worked in Cahaba Heights. So we would often meet at R.T. after work and have dinner, so we would consider it one of the places that we fell in love. Then, after we got married, we went there often for dates.
However, a year after we got married, it closed. When does a Ruby Tuesday’s EVER close??!!
The most painful closing was Wing Stop. I have blogged about it before (pitiful, I know). We were absolutely, 100% in love with it. And it was hands-down the best wing place in town, so it had no reason to close. However, due to us, it did. Luckily, our curse only has a localized reach, so only the ones in Birmingham closed. Therefore, we often plan trips around being in the vicinity of Wing Stops at meal-times.
The most ironic closure definitely has to be Sarris’ Steakhouse. We didn’t go there a lot, but it was important in our history because we had our wedding rehearsal dinner there. It is now the classy store, “Love Stuff”. Oh yeah. That beautiful brick, ivy-painted back room that we had our dinner in now holds the French Maid outfits, Fireman jackets, and Thigh high boots. Err, not that we would know.
Anyway.
Just in case you don’t grasp the depth of this problem, other restaurants affected by our curse include El Tapatio, our favorite Mexican restaurant; Mozzarella’s (also known as The American Cafe); The Heights Cafe; Copeland’s and Bahama Breeze, both of which had been around for a LONG time before we “discovered them”, then they shortly went out of business; Costa’s Bar-B-Que – we had only gone there twice and had made it our new favorite place to meet for lunch on a weekday, and then they closed; Bear Rock Cafe; Purple Onion’s Late Night Cafe (the home of our first date); and even poor Ralph and Kacoo’s got caught by the curse – it closed within a week of our first time going there, even though I didn’t even like it because of the huge fishtanks as walls (quirk – I don’t like seeing alive what I’m eating dead).
Besides restaurants, other important things in our relationship also seemed to get cursed.
They gutted and completely rebuilt the townhome that was our newlywed house, so it kind of “doesn’t exist” anymore (although we DID randomly knock on the door a few months ago and the very nice lady who lives there now showed us around and pushed us to vote for her son, who was running for judge. Which we did, of course.).
Also, we spent a lot of time at Overton Park when we were “just friends”. Then, shortly after we got married, they gutted the park and completely rebuilt it. That merry-go-round that we spent much time on is lonely somewhere in an abandoned junk yard. That gazebo that we first discussed being more than just friends is now firewood. Sad, sad, sad.
So basically, everywhere that has anything to do with our relationship is GONE. And we’re pretty darn sentimental people, so it is even more ironic that it would happen to us.
So, if any restaurant owners are reading this, you may want to have a “No Callahan’s” sign on your door. . .
And if we closed down one of your favorite restaurants also, I am dearly sorry.
Too funny! I’m like this with sports teams. When I went to Auburn and was in the band, we stunk. As soon as I left the band, Auburn started winning again. Until this year. Don’t take this the wrong way, but please don’t ever stop by my place of business. In this economy, I need my job :)
so you’re the ones i can blame for copeland’s closing. :) just kidding. that is pretty funny though. and you are right. i’ve never heard of a ruby tuesday closing. :)
And this is my husband’s business partner?????????? LYB, kitty
Huh. Preston and I thought it was us that was closing the restaurants. We too loved Bahama Breeze, Copelands, and Ralph and Kacoo’s. Mozzarella/aka American Cafe was sentimental to me because Preston and I had lunch there the day of our first wedding shower, and it’s where I got hit on one day after I was married. I didn’t respond of course, but it was hilarious that I NEVER got hit on when I was single, but I get married and BAM! someone tries to hit on me. Talk about ironic…
Okay, I digress.. anyway. Nice to know it’s not our fault, but perhaps I need to rethink this friendship. We can’t,for instance, take you to any of our favorite restaurtants now because you’ll close them down. And do me a favor, do NOT vist Olive Garden, Johnny Carino’s, or Bonefish Grill!
Funny you mention the Olive Garden. That has always been on of our all-time favorites, and so we’re surprised that they have been invincible to our curse. They did, however, have one temporary caving to the curse a couple of years ago when they had to close for a few months due to some bad health department review. We were worried quite a bit that we had shut them down, and were relieved when they came back and better than ever!
I remember that!!! I didn’t know why they closed down, so I just assumed it was to remodel. It is way better than before, so I’ll forgive you for that one.
Ooh, I miss Bear Rock and I desperately miss American Cafe. The service was horrible but the food was great! Did you ever make it to Fudruckers? Tim would take me there when we were dating.
Oh yes, we loved Fuddruckers, although I think it closed before we started dating, so we can’t be blamed for that one. We have visited the Atlanta and Pigeon Forge ones, though.
Ha! I forgot about that! Very sad about Sarriss, particularly..that was such a good rehearsal dinner! :)
The old Salvatores restaurant that was in vestavia closed several years ago and we were SOOO sad, as that was home to our 1sta date dinner! :(
Those poor restaurants.
That is unbelievable!! What a bummer for you. Just a thought here, maybe it’s your town. Maybe you should think about moving. It could work. LOL
I didn’t know anyone else had this curse!! Blake and I have suffered from this for our entire relationship. Yen Shing: the Chinese restaurant where we had our first date – closed. Grammas: the amazing restaurant where B took me the night he proposed – closed. Asagio’s : the fabulous local Italian restaurant with seared scallops that made you weep with joy…our favorite date night place – closed. The Mill: another date night fave – closed. Alfredo’s Pizza: the quick easy choice for family pizza night that had the cheesy bread that the boys loved – closed. We swapped family pizza night to Pasquale’s – closed. The truly sad thing about all this? I’m only listing about half the places that we seem to have shut down. Any meaningful restaurant – gone.
I feel your pain. It’s so hurtful, isn’t it? Our latest curse victim was Outtakes in Homewood. We’re still mourning our loss…
I didn’t even talk about Bahama Breeze which was so beloved because it reminded us of our honeymoon. We’re worried about Hot and Hot…
wow. that’s a lot of restaurants. and funny thing about that show. the guy who came up with it went to our church in gothenburg, ne before we moved! he gave us his book to read about it but we never did. :)
Wow! I didn’t know there was a book – I’m going to have to check that out! Is it just called Northern Exposure??
hmmmm. i am not sure at all. when we unpack our books i’ll look for it.