If you didn't pound one of these things after a swim meet or baseball game, did you even live?
If you didn't pound one of these things after a swim meet or baseball game, did you even live?
it was always pizza, but our local joint was Shakey's
We had Ground Round–one of those “peanut shells on the floor” places.
David S. Wallens said:We had Ground Round–one of those “peanut shells on the floor” places.
Every place is a "peanut shells on the floor" place if you bring your own peanuts.
I immediately thought "it's gotta be Pizza Hut" and wow, I was correct for once...
I don't know why I saw the thread's title and author and expected it to be about something very much not edible, like lead paint chips or something.
That said, that pizza looks wonderful. I'll take two.
David S. Wallens said:We had Ground Round–one of those “peanut shells on the floor” places.
Huh. Our Ground Round was a kind of sleepy pseudo-upscale joint with piano jazz.
Pizza Hut has had such a massive fall since my childhood. From salad bars and personal pan pizzas to bland private equity hell, it's no longer even a shadow of what it used to be. I swear their pizza was actually good! Maybe not gourmet, but a far sight better than Domino's.
dculberson said:Pizza Hut has had such a massive fall since my childhood. From salad bars and personal pan pizzas to bland private equity hell, it's no longer even a shadow of what it used to be. I swear their pizza was actually good! Maybe not gourmet, but a far sight better than Domino's.
Concur.
Although, earlier this week I got a pizza from the café in my Sam's Club. It was $9 and 1000X better than any $9 pizza had any right to be. Between that and the $5 rotisserie chickens I'm not even sure why I cook anymore.
1988RedT2 said:David S. Wallens said:We had Ground Round–one of those “peanut shells on the floor” places.
Huh. Our Ground Round was a kind of sleepy pseudo-upscale joint with piano jazz.
We had a Ground Round nearby, and it was PURE CHAOS.
They had a popcorn machine right out front which was self-serve, so there was naturally popcorn all over the place. They also had a weird retro movie/clown theme, so they were always playing old B&W cartoons (think Bosco, Steamboat Willie, Betty Boop, etc.) and random clown decor. You also paid whatever you weighed for your meal price as a kid (they had a scale up front) and ice cream sundaes were served in those cool little MLB batting helmets. It was WILD and I loved it as a kid.
There's actually a NEW Ground Round being built in MA, and they are getting ready to open soon, which is cool. I doubt it will be unhinged chaos like the old days, but I'm happy to see it.
David S. Wallens said:We had Ground Round–one of those “peanut shells on the floor” places.
Ground Round existed outside of the Midwest?
Tony Sestito said:1988RedT2 said:David S. Wallens said:We had Ground Round–one of those “peanut shells on the floor” places.
Huh. Our Ground Round was a kind of sleepy pseudo-upscale joint with piano jazz.
We had a Ground Round nearby, and it was PURE CHAOS.
They had a popcorn machine right out front which was self-serve, so there was naturally popcorn all over the place. They also had a weird retro movie/clown theme, so they were always playing old B&W cartoons (think Bosco, Steamboat Willie, Betty Boop, etc.) and random clown decor. You also paid whatever you weighed for your meal price as a kid (they had a scale up front) and ice cream sundaes were served in those cool little MLB batting helmets. It was WILD and I loved it as a kid.
There's actually a NEW Ground Round being built in MA, and they are getting ready to open soon, which is cool. I doubt it will be unhinged chaos like the old days, but I'm happy to see it.
That sounds like the ground round in Greensburg, PA. Your post brought back lots of memories.
Mndsm said:David S. Wallens said:We had Ground Round–one of those “peanut shells on the floor” places.
Ground Round existed outside of the Midwest?
Yup. There was at least one Richmond, VA location up until maybe late 1990's?
Our local Ground Round was in Norwell, MA. It's now a Not-Your-Average-Joe's, which is not great. We had a bunch of them in the Boston area. And that makes sense, because according to Wikipedia, the Ground Round got its start as an offshoot of Howard Johnson's right here in MA. I had no idea!
The new one that I mentioned earlier is in Shrewsbury, MA. I'm hoping I can make it over there at some point when it opens. I can guarantee the chaos will be gone, though.
Tony Sestito said:They had a popcorn machine right out front which was self-serve, so there was naturally popcorn all over the place. They also had a weird retro movie/clown theme, so they were always playing old B&W cartoons (think Bosco, Steamboat Willie, Betty Boop, etc.) and random clown decor. You also paid whatever you weighed for your meal price as a kid (they had a scale up front) and ice cream sundaes were served in those cool little MLB batting helmets.
This sounds like the most amazing unhinged fever dream imaginable. Any food is at least 20% better when eaten from a hat.
In reply to JG Pasterjak :
Looking back, it was truly wild that that place existed in that form. And wild it was! Check out this excerpt from a local newspaper talking about the restaurant from a few years ago and how unhinged it was:
In 1983, the death of a 20-year-old Weymouth woman in the parking lot of the Braintree Ground Round led to a ban on "happy hours" - the practice of offering discounted or free drinks - that is still in effect today in Massachusetts. The woman had won free drinks during a trivia game at the restaurant, and later, was sitting on the hood of a car when the driver put the car in motion, and she fell beneath the chassis and was killed.
We still can't have happy hour in MA because of that.
And I am pretty sure I still have a couple of those little batting helmets kicking around in storage!
dculberson said:Pizza Hut has had such a massive fall since my childhood. From salad bars and personal pan pizzas to bland private equity hell, it's no longer even a shadow of what it used to be. I swear their pizza was actually good! Maybe not gourmet, but a far sight better than Domino's.
Pizza has been in a chaos for me for a while now. It used to be that Papa John's was consistently top notch delivery pizza. Although deep dish or stuffed crust is different pizza than PJ, Pizza Hut could match or perhaps exceed the quality of PJ on occasion ORRRR it could be indiscernible from the cardboard box it came in. Total hit or miss. Dominoes was total has-been that was somewhat revived in the mid-2010s, but still basically pointlessly in 3rd. Little Caesars was and probably always will remain the true wild card. Sometimes, it was a $5 pizza for $5. Sometimes, if the workers were just right it was a glorious steal of a deal with lots of sauce, toppings, cheese and - most importantly - crazy crust. This happened more commonly in lower-income parts of town where the management was less effective at making the workers stingy.
But now? There's not even a Papa John's in town, the also-ran gang of Cottage Inn, Marco's, and Crazy Harry's (or whatever) are all a more expensive version of Costco's generic, uninteresting pizza, and Dominoes exists only because Pizza Hut is across town and PJ is absent. BUT -- the true winner here is Little Caesars. At $7 for their upgraded "Extra, Mostest, Bestest" pepperoni pizza, and with the local LCs being exceptionally generous, they're unbeatable. Truly. And their stuffed crust pizza is great, too, and only like $11.
Back to PH, I've picked up pan pizza from them twice in the last 6 years and it was cardboard bad. Just bleh.
Now, if a Cici's came to town, I'd be up to include them in the review.
Anyway, yes, old school Pizza Hut was where it was at. And I will sometimes still crave a personal pan pizza, just like BookIt used to give me.
Not just post-game, but pretty much post-anything. Games, beach runs, youth group, Scouts, Key Club, camping trips, hydrosliding, you name it, Pizza Hut was the next stop.
Pizza Hut used to be incredible. We had one (right around the corner from that Ground Round I was talking about!) that was great. I used to go there all the time with one of my friends. Personal pan pizza, a cup of Coke in one of those frosted red glasses, and a side of Nintendo PlayChoice-10 arcade action after we ate.
I haven't seen a Pizza Hut with my own eyes around here in probably 20 years. They are all gone. We only had one Little Caesars, and it wasn't in a great area, so we avoided that. It's likely gone now. Same with Papa John's; we had one. That's gone too.
National Chain Pizza spots don't do well here, save for Dominos. We have a lot of local "House of Pizza" joints in every town; my town has like 15 local pizza spots alone. We also have a semi-local New England chain called Papa Gino's, and in their heyday, they were fantastic. Traditional style Italian pizza, and they had other food, too. They have gone way downhill in the past 10-15 years, and are teetering on full closure at this point.Come to think of it, that was also "the place" for after-game pizza back in the day.
We also have a great Dominos that they opened a few years back that is super quick and they make a decent pizza. Their pan pizza is as good as the old Pizza Hut pan pizza was. It's right next to a great local spot, and they both thrive. Sometimes, you want the fancy Italian style the local place offers, or you just want the "fast food" version.
In reply to Tony Sestito :
Our first date was at the Ground Round in Latham NY. It was pretty much the chaos you described. It was an odd choice for a date but her parents thankfully set a low bar for going out so she thought self serve popcorn was a sign of fine dining.
We had and still have Round Table as our go to pizza place. Amazing pizza unlike any other chain. Straw Hat was around back then, but I haven't seen one in years. The only other sit in chain style left near me is Mountain Mikes. Good, but no Round Table. Everyone else is carry out. We do have Amichi's but not really kid pizza and expensive.
We have a small local chain that is very good, Skipolini's. Local but received national attention because they serve a pizza that many pregnant women believe can induce labor.
1988RedT2 said:Mndsm said:David S. Wallens said:We had Ground Round–one of those “peanut shells on the floor” places.
Ground Round existed outside of the Midwest?
Yup. There was at least one Richmond, VA location up until maybe late 1990's?
So that wasn't just some fever dream for me. Always popcorn shrimp. For some reason it was the only place in Minneapolis I could get it.
Tony Sestito said:Our local Ground Round was in Norwell, MA. It's now a Not-Your-Average-Joe's, which is not great. We had a bunch of them in the Boston area. And that makes sense, because according to Wikipedia, the Ground Round got its start as an offshoot of Howard Johnson's right here in MA. I had no idea!
The new one that I mentioned earlier is in Shrewsbury, MA. I'm hoping I can make it over there at some point when it opens. I can guarantee the chaos will be gone, though.
I should probably be embarrassed to admit that I did know this, but only because I got a book about the history of Howard Johnson's last Christmas and that's the sort of thing I apparently enjoy learning about.
Tony Sestito said:Our local Ground Round was in Norwell, MA. It's now a Not-Your-Average-Joe's, which is not great. We had a bunch of them in the Boston area. And that makes sense, because according to Wikipedia, the Ground Round got its start as an offshoot of Howard Johnson's right here in MA. I had no idea!
The new one that I mentioned earlier is in Shrewsbury, MA. I'm hoping I can make it over there at some point when it opens. I can guarantee the chaos will be gone, though.
I was going to bet you were talking about the Norwell one, that was local to me in the day too. (Went to high school in Norwell)
I was driving my (now) BIL's '86 Fox body Mustang and got off at the southbound Rt 3 exit at Rockland / Rt. 228 one Saturday. There was a stop sign at the bottom then, he sees one of our other friends coming from the Rockland direction and heading towards Norwell and says " I bet he's going to the Ground Round for lunch, catch him!" The old Fox body kicked the rear out pretty good when I nailed it as I made the left turn and yep, that's where we had lunch. The good old days. I'd have been caught on camera and in handcuffs if I tried that today.
Everything you said about popcorn / chaos / etc. was all true but we were more into beer than the sundae helmets at the time.
In reply to Tony Sestito :
Chain pizza will never make it around here, we have too many great local options. With that said, what are your opinions on "South Shore Bar Pizza" and if you have opinions, which "tribe" do you belong too? 
The correct answer is of course "Town Spa" but Poopsies in Pembroke will work if you don't want to hack all the way over to Stoughton. My good friend's wife grew up in Braintree and she's a Lynnwood Cafe girl (Randolph). (I've never been and we all keep threatening to go there together and then go to the Spa as a group another time.) I've been working on doing a version at home from some recipes on line and I've gotten some pretty decent results, Lynnwood girl approves so I must be doing something right.
While I'm completely derailing the thread, one of my parent's first dates was at the Town Spa at their original location in the 1955-1956 time frame. I'm very fortunate to have met them last Sunday afternoon at "The Spa" for a couple of pizzas on an otherwise dreary rainy day. Good times. Apologies to everyone else who's not in eastern MA, carry on....
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