MURFREESBORO, TN – The Murfreesboro Tribune Food Blog is in development, but has been delayed by excessive drug use by our Food Blog Writer, which spurred the Food Blog to propose content solely focused on late night snacking.

While the Food Blog gets it act together, the Tribune Staff decided to start a series of Food Reviews here in Murfreesboro. We aren’t ruling out drugs, but we figured we need to survey some restaurants that the public may enjoy, which means we can’t just write about Eddie Poe’s fridge after burning down some green.

First up is Cheddar’s, the restaurant where everything is three dollars and all guests receive a complimentary head start towards heart disease at a young age.

Parking
Well, half of the parking spots in the parking lot are handicap spaces. Honestly, it’s hard to tell whether the spaces are for handicap or handifat, like the perfectly-healthy-but-still-gonna-ride-this-thing people at Kroger who scoot around in the motorized carts. On that topic, it might not be a bad idea to start a business to rent motorized scooters to haul these plus-sized foodies into the building.

After finding a parking space about three thousand feet from the front door, we wowed the crowd by walking to the front door without a cane, a water break, or a taxi cab to haul us across the lot.

Customer Service
At first, the waiting area was a bit crowded, as the entire Lane Bryant catalog appeared to shuffle through the door at the same time. However, the service was much more friendly once we managed to navigate the maximum-elevator-weight crowd and find a table.

Our waitress was pleasantly surprised when we ordered waters. She expressed frustration that she usually serves sweet tea, one gallon jug at a time, only to find her first delivery guzzled into oblivion by the time she returns to the table.

Menu
The menu offers a great variety of artery-blocking grease buckets, including heavyweight favorites such as double breaded chicken tenders, fried butter cubes, and lard-in-a-bucket. They also have a “lighter side” menu, as if anyone in the building is counting calories today.

To be honest, we aren’t sure whether those items are on the menu. We are just guessing based on the clientele of this place. We couldn’t read the menu because the lettering on the pages is so worn. We assume that, patron after patron, people have wiped their brow in exhaustion after walking from the waiting area to their table or some other light calisthenics, and that the sweat slowly wore the letters down.

Overall
We were unable to complete our experience at Cheddar’s. After ordering waters and a house salad, we were told that the restaurant does not serve lettuce, only bacon. Then, as we contemplated how to order food here without knowingly shortening our lives in the process, a portly fellow entered the restaurant and demanded to be seated.

After the man became violent (he hadn’t eaten in three hours), we volunteered our table so the he could be pacified. The kitchen rushed some fried cheese (because they sell fried cheese, of course) to the table and everyone was happy.

In all, let’s be honest: fat people love this place, so it must be good.

Rating (Out of Five Spades): ♠♠♠♠