Ours was Frankie & Bennies, especially as the bathroom music taught you another language, being educated on foreign languages in the toilet seemed super classy. We didn’t live in a town with the biggest range of restaurants tbf.

46 comments

  7. If our town even had restaurants we never knew they existed. The Chippery opened a large dining area where you could eat pie chips and peas on a plate and that was well posh. I ate in my first restaurant after I left the town at 17.

  9. Safeways. Me and my brother would share a chicken nugget and chips meal and my mum would watch with a smile on her face and have a slice of toast when we got in.

  14. Berni Inn. You could choose between jacket potato or chips and ice cream was included!

  19. There was a ” posh ” restaurant called the Clipper in Poole Arndale shopping centre. My Nan treated us to a meal for her retirement ( retired at 60 in those days, in the late 1970’s). I thought it was posh because they did a 3 course meal. Years later I went there as an adult and realised it wasn’t that classy at all!

  20. Wimpy ftw, getting a wimpy bender breakfast was a special day,. I know it was just a hot dog but when you’re young and care free, that bender was the best thing in the world.

    And a lime milkshake! Used to love those before my body decided it hates dairy.

  21. DiMaggios. Went as an adult to a weird 50th, realised that the food was just an expensive worse Bella Italia

  22. Not a restaurant, but always thought a Vienetta was the height of luxury when I was a kid.

    Turns out it’s some of the cheapest branded ice cream you can get.

  24. Pizza hut. Heck, if you had an icecream factory station as a kid in a store I would automatically say it was amazing and upper class. As an adult though, those things are laced with puddles of icecream on, sprinkles etc. Not pretty!

  26. Chicken in a basket from a pub in Cornwall. We would go for 10 days each summer and have that 3 or 4 times at the same pub, and it was he absolute peak of luxury. Never ate out in my life otherwise – no takeaways, no fish and chips. We weren’t poor, just my father was a spectacularly tight git. The first meal ‘out’ I had otherwise was around age 14 at an Indian restaurant when someone else paid, absolutely blew my mind.

  27. TGI Fridays. It was near the cinema in soton so we’d go there for dinner, watch a film, then head back to TGIs for pudding. Good times!

  31. Harvester

    Used to go once or twice per year.

    Typically either for my birthday or one of my parents birthdays

    It’s sad thinking about it now. Hadn’t done so until I read this question

  33. Windy ridge.

    Now if you live anywhere near the Cornwall/Devon border, you will know exactly where I’m on about.

    But going here for a meal for someone’s birthday or the like felt so upper class for me. Until I went in one day with someone I was seeing at the time(their treat to me for my birthday) and the wooden table we were seated at had a crack in it, and there was mould in the crack… I started to get visions of my childhood visits and a memory unlocked of this double decker bus outside but it was full of, like, soft play equipment. There were hardly any lights outside at this place, and looking back at the time made me realise just how shady it seemed.

    Under new management now tho, and the bus is long gone.

  34. Harvesters

    It used to be such a big deal, and the idea of a salad buffet seemed so luxurious.

    Looking back… lol

  35. Our rare treat was a basket of chips at dad’s local. We didn’t tend to eat out at all except maybe mothers day before she left, but i was too young to remember.

    I’d love to enjoy a basket of chips now. The things they call chips in pubs now are laughable. Get about 6 chips.

  36. Frankie and bennys was good though back then, now you only go if you want to wait 3 hours for cold food and the shits lol. We used to go a pizza place in Warrington centre that’s long gone, it wasn’t Pizza Hut or any of the famous chains but I’m gusssing it must’ve been a chain but you got a slinky with the kids meals so we loved it

  38. TGI Fridays. I’ve actually never been but always thought it was the height of class from the TV ads. Nowadays I refuse to go so as to not spoil the illusion

  39. Berni Inn. Prawn cocktail starter, steak and Black forest Gateau for dessert, followed by a floater cream coffee. Loved it!

  40. The Damn Yankee in Guiseley, Leeds.

    The pinnacle of social currency in the early 90s was to have your birthday party there. Next door was the OG Harry Ramsdens yet we all eschewed it in favour of crappy knock off TGI Fridays!

  43. Garfunkels. Not sure if it was a national chain, they were in major towns in the SE of England. It had a great salad bar. The food was like Franky & Benny’s. It was such a treat to go there in the 1980s.

  45. None. I grew up dirt poor. Never had fish and chips till I was an adult. Didn’t even have a takeaway till I was 17 and got my first job. Had my first Mcdonalds at 18. Only had KFC 6 years ago. I’m 38.

  46. Every Christmas when we were kids my Nan would take us Christmas shopping super early in the morning to the cascades shopping centre in Portsmouth (if you know, you know 😂) and we’d have breakfast in the BHS cafe. we never ever went out for food, so this seemed the most luxurious glorious event and was a highlight of my childhood. My nan’s been dead nearly 20 years and I cherish those memories there, pretty sure the rock solid sausages are still repeating on me too 😂

Leave a Reply
You May Also Like