The Road to Christmas was Paved with Unusual Restaurants

It had been ages since we left Florida for Christmas but missing our grandchildren in Virginia was a force we could not fight. They are eight and four—more perfect ages of Christmas wonderment cannot be found. When Bob and I realized that the window of Christmas morning amazement through their young eyes is not going to be open much longer, we decided to venture north. North to the cold. North to the potential of snow. North to where you need socks every day. That is the pull of grandchildren.

Our other grands all lived close-by when they were young, so holidays were easy. This year we would celebrate four different days in order to encompass our whole family, beginning with the youngest grands and their parents on Christmas morning.

We headed north on I-95, which is always a treat. We chose to leave on the Wednesday before Christmas and take two days to drive there. We quickly discovered that we weren’t the only ones hitting the road. It was crazy crowded with a lot of stop-and-go. We reminisced about making the trip from Orlando to Maryland when we were raising our four kids. We would do it in one long shot just to avoid checking into a hotel. We have concluded that not only were we younger then, but there were less cars on the road – or is that our age talking? We can’t be sure.

We had a hotel reservation in Florence, SC, which should have been about a seven-hour trip. It took us ten. Side note: What is wrong with the South Carolina interstate road system? Everyone else has more than two lanes. Get with the program!

You never know what you will encounter on a road trip. We sure didn’t expect to find a Quincy’s Family Steakhouse across the highway from our South Carolina hotel. The last one in the Orlando area closed in the 1990s. Our memories of taking our children there were as sweet as honey butter, so resistance was futile. (Plus, they were the only open restaurant on the strip.) The big draw was their yeast rolls. I swear mouth memory clicked in as soon as I saw their sign. As we parked our car, I began to salivate. Would they still have those fluffy sweet rolls and honey butter? Are the steaks still mediocre? Does my mouth have a memory? Enquiring minds and hungry tummies had to know.

It looked exactly like the Florida ones of 30 years ago.

Quincy’s was a welcome beacon in Florence, which we guessed was a city that was on nobody’s foodie travel list. It was a restaurant that time and HGTV had forgotten. I was giddy with nostalgic delight.

The crowd was light, and technically not a crowd.

They advertised a Wednesday special, steak strips and peppers and onions, but they were out of it. The only steak they had was a ribeye, so that’s what I got. It was the skinniest ribeye that I had ever seen, but you pour A-1 Sauce on it, and you’ve really got something. A mouth full of memories. I haven’t poured sauce on a steak in years, but here in Florence, it was the right thing to do. So when in Rome, or Florence, ask for the A-1.

Yummy yeast rolls – worth it!

I think we beat the crowd or perhaps the crowd had come and gone and eaten most of the steaks before we arrived. Either way, we had a blast—a blast from the past—and great yeast rolls and a skinny steak. The staff was friendly in that Southern way that you can’t help but love, no matter how much you had to smother your steak in A-1.

That night as we slept in our warm hotel bed, the sky opened up and rain came down in torrents, which continued for the first five hours of our drive. We were grateful when it gave way to a light rain, but it turned our 5.5 hour trip into 8 hours. But four or five hours along the way came another restaurant surprise just in time for lunch.

We got off the road at Colonial Heights, VA, ready for fast food and needing to get out of the car. Chick-fil-A was out of the question. The line was looped around the building and intersecting in three different points with Walmart pre-Christmas crowds. This was far more dangerous than driving the interstate in rain.

We exited that line fast, and that’s when we saw it—another beacon of light in the form of fast-food delight. Arby’s. And not just your regular, run-of-the-mill Arby’s—the world’s largest Arby’s!

There was plenty of parking and practically no line inside, begging the question, why is everyone at Chick-fil-A when you can sit in a ski lodge setting with a hot roast beef sandwich? Granted, we waited in the short line nearly as long as we usually wait at the Chick-fil-A, but why wouldn’t we?

Check out the size of the dining room. This is only part of it.

Bob waiting in a short line that probably took as long as the Chick-fil-A line. But the roast beef and curly fries were yummy.

Yes, they even have a fire place. All us chilly Floridians wished it was burning.

Finally we reached our destination and were reunited with our son and his family. Warm hugs were all we needed at that point, that is until the temperatures plummeted and the pipes froze and I remembered why we moved to Florida. I had not experienced single digit temperatures in a very long time, not to mention the -15-degree wind-chill factor, which kept me from entertaining the idea of leaving their house. I’m pretty sure I went into a hibernation stupor that was only relieved by my son and sweet daughter-in-law providing me with a wearable blanket for the day and an electric blanket for night.

But it was worth it to see those faces Christmas morning.