Harry's failure
 

Drive up for an Anniversary dinner. No Blue Cheese dressing. No French fries. No Bananas Foster. Not worth the drive.

Too far to drive for dinner anyway.

Missing out on many good restaurants if your not willing to occasionally take a drive. Went to Cocoa Beach for dinner yesterday evening.

Who is Harry.

Harry's Seafood Bar and Grille
24 S.E. 1st Avenue
Ocala, FL 34471
352-840-0900

How do you run out of potatoes?

Can always buy frozen in an emergency

I have enough trouble driving back from the squares to our village when I am drunk, let alone from restaurants and bars outside the bubble! :)

Maybe it was Healthy Day at Harry's.

Harry's
 

Unfortunately, last 2 times we went, we were disappointed. We always enjoyed going there.

Raise ya one or two: Darrells in Spanish Spring this morning; no home fries(potatoes), no cream/half half(offered powdered ‘creamer’), no pancakes(flour), etc. blamed it on a delivery…they are 50 yards from full service grocery store….also messed up order to boot.

Welcome to COVID Supply Chain fiascos. Try buying a brick of Cream Cheese in Publix (or any where else).

Toilet Paper? We have tons of it now. Not going to let that happen again.

Skip

We have 5 favorite, locally owned restaurants that we go to when we are back home. Each of them is having problems with suppliers and help.

One of them is closing its doors after 46 years. Their announcement brought with it a flashback of a part of our married lives. . .

When Mr. Boomer and I were first married in the 1970s, we could not afford to go there.

Later we could afford go there, but only on special occasions — for their award-winning brunch.

(When they re-opened “after” the pandemic, the brunch was gone. One of the servers told us that brunches require a lot of staff which they did not have. (I hope all of us always tipped well at a brunch because a lot of people were working their butts off for you — but maybe you did not notice.)

I think also that brunches, no matter how higher-end, how beautifully presented and inviting, are now a thing of the past, forever, because of how some fellow-diners, in line, too, are not the most careful with health precautions.)

Now, in our “mature” years, we could go to this restaurant whenever we wanted to and had started back.

We were there recently, and although the food was just as good, the servers were very young. They did fine, but we missed seeing the older servers who had been there for a long time.

(I suspect that many older servers who have worked for years in well-known local restaurants — where the tips were especially good and the management treated them with respect and knew how to build a team — have decided it is time to protect their health and so have hung up their sensible shoes.)

I have heard supplies were becoming more impossible to get. This place was known for their desserts, especially cheesecake, and now I hear that cream cheese is really hard to find. I have also heard the supply truck is making only a centralized stop so managers have to drive to one spot to pick up their orders — and that their orders are not always everything they need.

The restaurant I am talking about here is called The Grand Finale. . .how sadly ironic it is that. . .they must end. . .”not with a bang but a whimper.”

Boomer. (with a nod to T. S. Eliot)

I can accept a lot but no cream cheese for my morning breakfast is just too much.

We have been to Harry’s a couple of times and enjoyed it. One of those times, we also went to the art museum in Ocala and took the scenic route home.

I just read an article in Ocala Magazine magazine. It was an old article from a few years ago. I found it online. It said Harry’s is a family-owned restaurant that keeps the same servers forever. (I assume that is still the case, even though the article was an old one.)

I hope Harry’s gets past these supply issues soon.

We are losing so many things we have enjoyed in the past and taken for granted — including many of our small restaurants that seem to be under siege, like the one I posted about earlier. One of my longtime favorites, at home, gave up last week — forever.

I cringe to think that this mess we have been in for two years will leave us with only fast food, big chain restaurants that will turn us into pillars of salt — I guess I should say pillars of sodium — but that does not have quite the same ring to it.

So many places are taking a huge hit.

Damn. This thing needs to be done.

Grouchy Boomer

Between supply line issues and lack of employees in manufacturing and food processing plants, lack of Covid tests, lack of willing and available workers... and now with cases absolutely soaring everywhere.... I guess that's the new "normal"... what did D.C. tell us a couple years ago... something about 60 days or 90 says to "stem the tide" or some such thing... :ohdear::ohdear:

Found one..... at Aldi, surprise surprise... I won the pantry lottery

We have all taken how good life is in America for us 5 percenters. Until 2 years ago nobody thought about the fact that there are truck drivers that bring everything to your local store or supermarket that probably has over 50,000 items. Nobody was really concerned over the restaurant servers at your average diner trying to get by on lousy tips. We had plenty of everything and everybody enjoyed the good life. Well life has changed for all of us now whether you have the money or not this is the way it's going to be for the next 5 or 10 years. If you can't get cream cheese buy some butter or American cheese slices and just rough it. God bless America things will get better

Here's a funny story, about 25 years ago we went to Los Angeles to visit my brothers and were taken out to PF Chang's which I'm sure you all know it's a Chinese restaurant. My wife wanted tea, and was told they had none! PF Chang being a fancy place served in heavy metal tea pots and they had no one at the time washing the tea pots after they came back into the kitchen which of course is ridiculous. We will comment that of course that the supermarket was next door and they could just buy tea bags and bring it to us. I probably haven't thought about that for 25 years but it's very similar to going out to buy French fries or dressing at the supermarket next door to Harry's. But of course no one ever has common sense

Complain, complain......look around and see what's happening in todays world. A little understanding and compassion might brighten your life. Do you think Harry's wants to be bashed on this platform over blue cheese dressing, fries and a fattening bananas foster? Very sad.......speaks to who you are!

Went to Harry's on the 27th. Use to live in Louisiana and luv Cajun cuisine. Waited approximately 90 minutes for our dinner and the when it came 3 of the 4 dishes were cold. The waiter did keep checking on us and was obviously embarrassed. Too bad.

We went to Harry's last spring. It was not good. Kitchen or server forgot half our order. By the time we got it we had already finished the rest of the meal. The food itself was nothing great. Will not go back anytime soon considering the drive and the difficulty parking.

We tried Harry's about 12 yrs. ago. Never went back.

Darrell's Spanish Springs
 

My wife and I like Darrell's but we have found the Spanish Springs location lacking. The other locations are pretty good considering they are struggling to get staff like every other food service location in the country,

Different point of view.
 

OP goes out of their area to have a special Anniversary dinner. They were disappointed when simple menu items were not available. They drove a long way, only to be disappointed. They share the experience so others may not also be disappointed if they are thinking about going. I thank them for info so I and my wife would be able to make other arrangements, while you choose to scold them complaining and criticize them for their choice of "fattening bananas foster".
"Very sad......speaks to who YOU are!"

Harry's should want to be bashed if they are driving customers away with bad service. I like reading restaurant reviews, both negative and positive. I think they are entertaining and useful.

Reminds me of the shortages of everything that occurred in Russia when the Soviet Union existed

Ha, reading the OP's title I thought this thread was going to be another tabloid article about that red headed royal that left town

Sad to hear. Always one of my favorite restaurants. They must really be struggling 😕

They actually do go into Winn Dixie for things when they need them. Both grocery stores open at 7 AM so before that no dice.

Who the hell is Harry???

Your humor meter may need an adjustment...

Wow ! If you went to Harry’s for French fries, then you really missed what they are all about !!

We go there often, probably every other month and as recently as 2 weeks ago and the food and service was outstanding as it usually is ! It’s been that way for years !

Happy Anniversary anyhow ….

There are shortages of all kinds of products so how is that the fault of the restaurant? We recently stopped for breakfast at Cracker Barrel and my wife likes the hash brown casserole but were told they were out but could substitute with home fries. Cracker Barrel posted on their web site that certain locations were experiencing shortages of hash brown casserole due to supply problems. I do most of our grocery shopping and have noticed many shortages of certain items the last number of months. Should I bad mouth the grocery store because they were out of something I wanted even though it wasn't their fault? Try and buy a new car right now, lots of luck. There are shortages of them also due to shipping problems, so do you bad mouth the dealership because they didn't have the vehicle in stock that you wanted and say you will never be back?