The Okey Dokey Incident 

What follows is a true account of what happened at this establishment, although it has nothing to do with the food, service or management. I've patronized it many times, although not lately, for reasons which will become obvious. It had a split personality: a fun place for kids, (low prices on the kids menu), with some nights having cartoon or TV characters entertaining in the dining room (wanna eat with Barney?). But it also had a large bar, catering to a twenty something crowd as well.

For a little background, several years ago, Ken used to travel pretty regularly on business. Typically about twice a month for about 3 or 4 days at a time. He'd call me from these domestic ports of call, and regale me with what exotic food he was eating at the moment. (I came to the conclusion that some men have women in every city; mine has *restaurants* in every city! I can compete with another woman, but not with a restaurant!) So, I began to feel sorry for myself. Here I was stuck home with two small kids, and he was eating all over the country on an expense account! So, I thought, screw it! I'm eating out! Of course, I couldn't very well frequent too many exotic places, so I'd look for establishments catering to people like me: "Kids Eat Free!", "Kids Eat $.99". I was there! My definition of fine dining at that time was anyplace I didn't have to carry my own tray!

Okey Dokey was one of these places. This was many years ago, and my daughter was probably around 4 or so, and Jeff would have been about 7 or 8. He had a baseball game several miles from where we lived. After the game was over, we wanted to eat dinner, as I had given up trying to force feed them at 4:30 before the game. Ken was traveling, of course, so I was on my own. I got in the car and started driving. After a while, I saw Okey Dokey, and thought, good, we'll go there. However, my daughter had (and still has) a problem with getting car sick. From all the driving, and with her empty stomach, she got rather queasy. We made it to the restaurant and I thought she'd be OK as soon as she got some food into her. We sat down, and ordered. So what does she order in her present state? Macaroni and Cheese! (She is extremely picky, so, whatever she wanted to eat, I usually went along with it.)

I can't remember if this was before or after the *entree* was served, but she didn't look well, and was complaining she didn't feel well. A mother always knows when her kid is about to heave, and she looked ready. Instinctively I grabbed an empty salad bowl and placed it under her face, and voila! Up she chucked, but everything was contained in the salad bowl! Before I even had the chance to congratulate myself on my quick thinking, the waitress appeared. I handed her the now full salad bowl, and said, "OK, we're finished with this; you can take this now.", while doing my best to avoid direct eye contact with her! Hey, what else could I do? There was no time to take her to the ladies room, and it beat having her vomit all over the table!

Believe it or not, we then proceeded to eat the next course. (After all, Jeff and I had to eat dinner.) Cindy did eat some more food at this point, and I thought she was OK, with her upset just from being car sick. As we were getting ready to leave, she again told me she didn't feel well, so I rushed her outside. However, my timing wasn't quite as good this time. She made a *collage* of the various food stuffs from dinner outside, right at the entrance way into the restaurant! At that point, I figured my luck had run out, (among other things) so I made a clean getaway to the parking lot. I've never been back. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a picture of me and my kids in the window of this establishment, banning our patronage, to this very day!