Fuddruckers & Bennigans: St. Louis Park, MN

I don’t like Fuddruckers. I can spew vile towards this restaurant chain like nobody’s business. But much like a crack addict twitching on the corner, I find myself returning on occasion – usually under extreme protest and a gun held to my head — translation: I am going here because of an obligatory work function.

Birthdays, new employee welcome lunches, promotion celebrations, Mardi Gras – no matter what the occasion, it’s always Fuddruckers. There are dozens of other restaurants in the St. Louis Park/Golden Valley/Minnetonka area, but for some unholy reason, the admin thinks our team loves this place, so we keep going back.

Well, for the most part, our team does enjoy a good Ruddfucking. It’s just another coworker and I who have a stick up our ass about this place.

Get Gordon Ramsey in this joint!

You’d be surprised on how many business guy-type assholes come in here to “touch base” with each other over lunch. I don’t get it – find all your clients and whip out that expense account and take them to…Fuddruckers? Whatever floats your boat “at the end of the day”, I guess.  If you don’t believe me, come here around noon on Friday and watch them drink the corporate kool-aid in action.

I’ve been called a “snob” by a few coworkers over my hate for Fuddruckers.  Oh, I’m a snob alright. Because, you know, I only go to five-star restaurants where I can go pick out a chicken from the coop myself and hobnob with my high-powered friends, all of whom I’ve invited to a mixer on Saturday night at my estate, where you can overhear me saying things like this:

“Ahem! Thurston, could you please bring me some Grey Poupon? My finger sandwich is a bit dry. Oh, look! The Wentworths have arrived. Oh, hello Biff, that’s a beautiful polo you’re wearing…”

Fuddruckers is dirty, it’s grimy, I don’t like their grease bomb food, and it’s just not worth getting fat over. They used to hang dead meat carcasses in the windows for crying out loud! I can’t, for the life of me, get that picture out of my head. Not to mention that the last time I was there, I spotted a giant centipede scaling the wall.

It’s kind of expensive too, for what it is. I don’t mind paying $$ for a decent meal. Keyword = DECENT. If I’m eating at this place, it’s because of a work function, not by choice. Work never pays for our lunch; it’s out of our own pockets. I hate spending money on food I don’t like. One

You've never been fucked until you've been Rudd-fucked. (Sorry, I *had* to go there)

time, my Fuddruckers-hating coworker and I both had ONLY water and got hateful looks from everyone. So now I succumb to peer pressure and always order something.  I’m in the corporate world and ‘ya gotta play the game.

I should mention that there’s no waitstaff here – you order at a counter and they call your name over a loudspeaker when your food is ready. Fuck, if I’m going to pay $8.00 for a burger, $3.00 for fries and $2.25 for a soda, somebody had better bring it to me!

The folks who like this place go here for the burgers. I’m not a big burger fan (obviously, otherwise I’d probably luvvv this place). You can add your own toppings on your burger, allowing you to stack the tomatoes 5 feet high or if you want, you can put enough mayo on your burger to make it look like the money shot in a porn flick.

With the smoking ban firmly in place, you don’t have to worry about walking out of a restaurant anymore, smelling like an ashtray. That doesn’t mean you can walk out of an eating establishment odor-free though. Especially at Ruddfuckers. Yep, you’ll end up walking out of the place smelling like a hot, filthy short-order kitchen. I had to take my jacket to the drycleaners after the last time I was here – the french fry grease + slaughterhouse stench followed me home like a feral cat.

I think Fuddruckers struggles a bit with its identity – at least the St. Louis Park location does.  It’s supposed to have 50’s diner type atmosphere, but I really didn’t notice it much. Some of the decor does give out that “1950’s era/get-in-the-kitchen, woman!” vibe. However, there’s video games (BIG BUCK HUNTER, w00T!), tons of TVs tuned to ESPN, NASCAR flags hanging from the ceiling, a wall created with cases of beer (classy!), and, oh — and a giant bug crawling up the wall. Lest we forget.

Bless those doomed souls inside the Fuddruckers

Really, what the hell is this place supposed to be? A 50’s diner or ESPN Zone? They weren’t even playing 50’s music in the background. I heard TI’s “Whatever You Like” not once, but twice when we were eating here. Which isn’t a bad thing because I do like that song. Speaking of which, have you heard the Weird Al parody? Classic!

For all the bashing I just did, Fuddruckers isn’t ALL bad. Their milkshakes are large and thick (that’s what she said) and WILL get the boys to the yard. And BIG BUCK HUNTER. Can’t go wrong there. They have Golden Tee too – if I want me some cooties, all I have to do is touch the ball. It’s my preferred method of getting sick.

Bennigan’s

One crappy food chain down, 30,000 more to go!

The St. Louis Park Bennigan’s closed down (along with almost all Bennigan’s nationwide) in July 2008.  What will poor Butters do?

I shed a tiny tear along with Butters when I learned of the chain’s closing. Really, I did. I liked their baked potato soup and their Turkey O’Toole. Mmm…baked potato soup. Nobody did it better.

About 6 or 7 years ago, the guy I was dating at the time and I would come here for dinner occasionally. We’d always get in fights about the Minnesota Twins. It was like clockwork -the baked potato soup we’d share would arrive, we’d each take two sips, and the baseball bout would begin.

Bennigan's is closed. OH NO! I'll have to go to TGIF's. Or Ruby Tuesdays. Or Red Lobster. Or Chilis

He was such a homer that he’d get pissed over the not-so-nice nicknames I gave our players. Luis “0-for-3” Vas, Brian BuCAN’Tan, Brad “First Inning Rally” Radke, “There’s no I in team, but there are 2 in” Torii Hunter (thanks Chris Berman!), Ron GardenFIRE, and so on. There was one in particular that would really throw him over the edge (it also was the most childish): Matt LeSuck (LeCroy). Oh yeah, that’d really piss him off. So much so that he told me I might as well just become a Chicago White Sox fan. 😦

Oooh BURN.

Anyway, it’s not surprising that a nationwide restaurant chain would shut down in this economy. After all, how many damn burger sports bars do we need?

I always figured Applebee’s would be the first to go, not Bennigan’s. At least Bennigan’s TRIED to be different, with its St. Patrick’s Day theme and all. Applebee’s, on the other hand, is the most bland and generic of all the major chains and doesn’t specialize in any particular theme – unless you count “neighborhood grill with random shit glued to the wall.” Say what?

The inside looked like a you stepped into 1984. They didn’t even have flat screen TVs in here! We’re almost 10 years into the 21st century and this

Butters is going to starve.

place still had CRT televisions. I thought it was a requirement for all restaurants to have flat screens these days. Hell, if this Bennigan’s were still in business, all their TVs were probably still getting an analog signal and the screens would turn to snow next month. (**Note to all wannabe hipsters: February 2009 is the perfect time to join the pretentious “I don’t own a TV” clique.)

The St. Louis Park location had an upstairs “party” area, with another bar, a bunch more uber modern CRT TVs, and a few pool tables. I’m not sure if this is common at all Bennigan’s locations (the SLP location is the only one I’ve been to).  Sometimes this area is sealed off for VIP private parties, where they whisk people in with  high 5’s and secret handshakes. Most of the time, the area is open and it’s a happy hour free-for-all.  The upstairs is like a pigpen of 40-something year old nerds who went “AFK” long enough to get a Miller Chill + a game of pool in before returning to World of

Too bad this wasn't for sale in 2005. I'm sure Countrywide would have financed me.

Warcraft.  It’s just as gloomy as the main dining area too – even more so since some guy was killed up there in 2004 in a fight over a game of pool :(.
This whole area of SLP is beyond depressing. On this service road, we’ve got a few hotels, train tracks, some abandoned buildings, weedy parking lots, ugly-duckling office buildings from 1975, a shady gas station with prices well above the MN average, and — for fuck’s sake — a gun pawn shop.

Plus there’s all those white-elephant eyesore city internet wifi solar panels on every damn block that I don’t think ever got used. I feel bad for those folks who had one of those planted in their front lawn. Yuck.

Another view of Bennigan's. You can see the "Alaska Eatery" (formerly Shelly's) next door.

Photos taken November, 2008. Much apologizes for the bad photos. It was a gloomy day.