Day 19 in the City Girl to Farm Wife series. >>View the entire series so far here<<
Today I am going to share with you the change in eating out when you move from the city to the country. And can I just say up front that yes, this really is a good change for me!
In the city {or town or suburbs, remember I’m using this term loosely in this series} you have so many choices for eating out. From fast food on every corner, lots of family friendly restaurants, and nice restaurants for special occasions. When you don’t feel like cooking there are so many choices. Let me list the choices we have from our house out in the country:
5 minutes – gas station & sit down old fashioned dairy bar.
12 minutes – Subway, Irish Pub style restaurant {open most days}, pizza, family restaurant
20 minutes – Subway, Pizza, 2 different family restaurants
35 minutes – McDonalds, Subway, mexican restaurant, Chinese take out, Grill, Culvers {one for the win there!}
1 hour + If we want the selection I would be used to in the city that means driving an hour. But there are good choices when we make that drive!
So a few things to learn from this:
First – Forget fast food. “Fast” food only happens when you call the family style restaurants ahead and order to go, or if you go to subway or the gas station. But really, this is a good thing! I can only imagine the weight I would have put on when pregnant if there was a McDonalds near by. The only true fast food in our entire county is Subway.
Second – Date night either means a drive to go out to eat, or pizza or burgers at a local restaurant. Once again, not horrible, just not the variety I was used to.
Third – Delivery. Oh sweet delivery. Kiss that one goodbye. True story – When I visited my brother and sister-in-law, and I babysat for one night, I was literally squealing when I realized I could order Chinese food and have it delivered right to my door while babysitting. It had been so long I almost didn’t know what to say when I called to order.
Now I don’t tell you this to scare you away from country living. But just to let you know what to expect before a visit to the country. And in all reality, who can say that having less options for eating out is really a bad thing? I know that for me it keeps me from relying on eating out, a good change!
But for real, city girls, stop instagramming your elaborate meals. Your making me hungry!
Katie @ On the Banks of Squaw Creek says
Another Iowan!
I’m smack in central Iowa. Just 22 minutes from the grocery store on the north side of Ames. We have a carnival food stand “up town” open during spring/summer/fall for lunch and a bar/restaurant that reopened last summer after 5 years closed. But our favorite thing is Tuesday night kids eat free at Pizza Ranch buffet in the rival school district. So glamorous. 🙂
Becky says
oh Pizza Ranch! My husband *loves* to eat there. Our closest Pizza Ranch would be about 40 minutes away. Not too bad. 🙂