Twitter Users Are Feeling Nostalgic Over Childhood Restaurant Experiences

We’ve all been there: dunking on a younger sibling or cousin for celebrating their gross high school relationship “monthiversary” at Olive Garden because they think it’s fancy. And we’ve been the roasted cousin in that scenario, too. Accidentally believing that chain restaurants are the height of fine dining is a rite of passage, precisely because it’s a universal experience — as evidenced by a now-viral tweet shared by comedian John Crist early Sunday morning.

Crist’s tweet posed a simple question but had Twitter users debating the merits of their childhood favorites and looking fondly at some lost and forgotten culinary experiences. You know, like eating at a sit-down Pizza Hut. Don’t get us wrong, we are by no means saying places like Olive Garden, P.F. Changs, Red Lobster, Cheesecake Factory, and the like don’t have anything to offer. They often do.

But they aren’t haute cuisine.

Under no circumstance is a restaurant with a kid’s menu fancy, because nobody wants kids at a genuinely fancy restaurant. So which restaurant did your childhood brain lead you to believe was fancy? For me, P.F. Changs was once a culinary mecca and the only restaurant I had ever been to with a statue of a horse. And for a 10-year-old, that was something!

Check more of the chatter below.

https://twitter.com/bryandavidk/status/1343389983265189890

https://twitter.com/Junioretc_/status/1343467406350413824

At the end of the day, whether you still love these restaurants or not, I think we can all agree that being able to sit down at a table, being served by a person that isn’t wearing a blast shield and gloves, and eating without fear of killing each other is a day we all desperately want to get back to. Regardless of where.