Two Cincinnati Restaurant Stories

When I discussed The Maisonette in my last post, it made me recall a humorous story about another visit to this tony restaurant.

We have two lovely daughters who both attended an all-girl parochial school near Cincinnati. A highlight near the end of the school year was the annual Father-Daughter Dance. The school really did it right. The dance itself was always held at a nice hotel in downtown Cincinnati and featured a live cover band that was really talented—a far cry from Carl Benson and his Wildcats from The Andy Griffith Show. The dance itself was always really amusing to me, as it consisted of a ballroom of young girls with no qualms about dancing and doing so with abandon around an equal number of awkward fathers trying to keep up but really just shuffling side-to-side in a semi-rhythmic fashion.

Being quite the affair, the fathers traditionally wore tuxedos and took their daughters out to eat in a group at a particularly nice restaurant before the dance. During my oldest daughter’s time there, we once went to The Maisonette.

My daughter was certainly old enough to understand the restaurant’s formidable reputation and knew that it was quite expensive. I always stressed to my daughters that the Father-Daughter Dance was a once-a-year event. Personally, I was also ever mindful that this type of thing would sadly end once they went to college. So I always told them not to worry about the expense of the restaurant and order whatever they wanted.

As stated, we were there with a group of my daughter’s classmates and their fathers. When it came time to order, my daughter excitedly told me she and a good friend of hers had decided to split a meal. I told her there was no need to do that but she insisted. When the food was delivered, I learned what they had “split.” They had ordered the chateaubriand, the large steak cut from the thickest part of a beef filet that was listed on the menu as intended to be shared with a price tag to reflect that idea. It was actually worth every penny, though, as she still says it was the best steak she has ever eaten in her life.

Since I have told a humorous story about my oldest daughter, it is only fair I do so about my youngest daughter as well. When the kids were really young, we obviously tended to take them out to eat at places where it was not a problem if they were loud, such as a pizza joint or something similarly casual. Our youngest was three years younger than our other daughter, so we were ready to take them to a “nicer” restaurant perhaps just a bit earlier than we should have been.

In the 1990s, there was a chain of steakhouses called Mountain Jack’s. Their specialty was prime rib but they had a broad menu specializing in steak and seafood. The chain filed for bankruptcy in 2008 though a lone location still exists in Lafayette, Indiana. Mountain Jack’s was more prevalent in some areas. For example, Michigan had 21 locations. There was only one near us but we thought it would be a good introductory “nicer” restaurant for the girls to try.

Mountain Jack’s was decorated with what I think were actually artificial animal heads and fish that I think actually were carved from wood and painted all mounted to the wall. Many of the chandelier light fixtures appeared to be made of antlers, though again, I think they were not the real thing.

We stressed to the girls in advance that we were going to a nice restaurant and they would need to be on their best behavior. Perhaps we stressed that it was a “nice” restaurant too much. As we were taken to our table, I could see my youngest daughter eying the decor, which she continued to do after we were seated. After the server took our drink orders and left, we asked the girls what they thought. My youngest daughter said, “I thought you said this was a nice restaurant.” She then added with a dismissive tone, “Huh! Buncha’ dead animals on the wall!s!”