Richards Family Restaurants

Yeah - I'm kind of a Richards fan - at least on the fried chicken and the breaded tenderloin sandwich.

The two of us stopped at 7:30 on a Friday eve.  Not busy and not surprised - most of the crowd probably hits this place at 4:15p - if you know what I mean.

We both chose breaded tenderloins - she with fries - me with salad bar.  I eye-balled the salad first having been stung before.  Pretty freshly made up this go 'round - not a huge selection - but this is what passed for a salad bar circa 1979 (as it was it is).

Both sandwiches served piping hot quickly from the fryer. Tasty, thin breading, thicker pork with a nice bite (not beat to death). No complaints. $13.50 all in w/ tip.

Here's the key to tolerating the Richards chain - think of it as a dive and you won't be disappointed with the outdated decor and ripped vinyl upholstery seats.

This isn't fine dining but the food (at least what I gets) is perfectly fine and priced well.

(and I remember Ember's when I was a wee lad - and it was a fave)

My wonderful beyond words Grandpa was in Decatur (from Florida) having his bigass motor home serviced last week so I decided to drive over from Chicago and spend a day with him.

We ate here for lunch.  He has been coming to this service place for years and knows the area well so he gave me a few options for lunch, this being one of them.  I chose this one because he said he and my beloved late Grandma ate here many times in the past.  

It's definitely a place that caters to the elderly, and that's cool because I absolutely adore old people.  

Our waitress was not very friendly, almost cold at times.  I was surprised how much it bothered me.  Be like that to me, I don't care, but not to my Grandpa who is a 92 year old retired 3 star general in the Air Force.  I'd feel the same way if he was a career fry cook but geeeeezus.  Apparently I'm a bit overprotective of Grandpa.  His hearing isn't the greatest because he flew fighter jets for 40 years so cut him some slack if he asks you to repeat something.  Rant over.

Grandpa ordered liver and onions (ewww) which came with 2 side items.  Oh, rant not completely over.  He asked for a baked potato but was snippily informed that they don't have those until after 4pm.  He so sweetly chose carrots and some other side that I cannot recall.  

I ordered a grilled cheese with the salad bar.  

The salad bar... Ha.  It was pretty sad, but a nice touch that they had one at all.  It was basically bagged iceberg lettuce dumped into a metal tray, the usual selection of vegetables, some pasta and potato salads, several tubs of unmarked dressing (the kind where you can always tell what they are by the color) and a tray of orange jello as a dessert option.  

My salad consisted of rubbery lettuce, a couple rings of onion, stale croutons and some French dressing.  I passed on the jello.

Our entire bill was $10.77.  Hahaha.  Oh, so we got back to the motor home place and my Grandpa realized that he'd forgotten to leave a tip on the credit card slip so we got back in his car and drove back to the restaurant so he could apologize and tip the lady.  The lady who was short and impatient with him.  Bless his heart...

Not a fan. The food is ok but nothing to brag about. The service is inconsistent. Sometimes it is ok but other times it is awful. I usually don't go here as there are plenty of other restaurants in town with much better food and service.