The Hideaway

This nook of a place had been there a very long time, decades, maybe even longer than I've lived in the neighborhood.  I knew it existed though had never seen it, let alone sought a meal or a beer there.  It occupies land almost immediately behind the parking lot of my daughter's high school, with a small housing development thrown in.  At one time my vicinity had a horse racing industry, the sulkies.  It had been demolished to create a shopping destination, one of medium size with two clusters of stores occupying where the raceway once stood.  A dominant enterprise like the horses needs support.  The employees and others purchased housing on streets named with raceway themes.  And within this mostly housing development community, emerged a place for people to unwind.  Thus, The Hideaway.  It had a street address of a main road, though not visible from the road.  I needed my GPS to find it.

While waiting in line to vote a week early, two couples similar in age to me occupied adjacent positions in the queue.  Since it took just under an hour from arrival to casting a ballot, we had ample time to chat.  Not about candidates but about jobs, families, health insurance, and the neighborhood.  As a forty year resident I had by far the longest tenure.  The other two couples had lived elsewhere, one building a business in the DC area, the other living not that far north into Pennsylvania for most of his career.  They had relocated to housing developments just across the main road from where I lived.  One couple liked to eat at The Hideaway.  Walking distance from his house.  Live music.  Economical.  I made a note of the recommendation.

After casting my ballot, I returned home.  Like most modern restaurants, it has a website.  Definitely nearby.  The menu was not posted on the site but as a separate tab.  Definitely lower in price than the places I sought out for supper.  Next step, drive by.  I stayed on the main road, continuing behind the high school but saw nothing commercial.  Try another time.  When I needed to get away from my house, still daylight, I searched Waze for driving directions.  It was indeed in the development behind the high school though not on the street that contained its postal address.  I drove as the GPS directed me, passing an alcove with a large white clapboard building containing a discrete sign.  Its parking lot seemed more than ample, though empty at mid-day, and in need of repaving.  I drove on into the development but found no through road to return me home.  One cul-de-sac had a circle at its end, allowing me to reverse my direction.  The GPS directed me home along the same route it had guided me there.

Between personal recommendation, proximity, and cheap, a dinner went onto my low-priority to-dos.  Before long an evening to avoid cooking in my kitchen arrived.  We only needed a few turns, one right, one left, another right, another left, spaced over about a mile to bring us to the parking lot I had checked out a few weeks earlier.  This time, after returning clocks to Standard Time, the roads were dark and the parking lot only lit by illumination from the restaurant nearby.  While the lot seemed abandoned in the daytime, at 6PM only spaces a significant walk from the building remained.  As the fellow voter advised me, they engage musicians even on weeknights.  Loud music.  Two guitars and a baritone churning out country style sounds from another geographic center.  While the parking lot appeared dim, the restaurant's interior had ample lighting.  The only vacant table we noticed, despite the early dining time, was one in a corner near the door and the music's amplifiers.  We waited for a hostess.  None came so we sat at the vacant table.  On the wall next to us hung the menu in big print.  From our table we could see a chalkboard with entree and dessert specials, as well as drink specials.  Explorer that I am, I walked past the oversized wooden bar along the right wall, where they posted their transient beer offerings in chalk.  I found the music too loud.  By the time a waitress acknowledged us, we had read the posted menu and made our selection.  She left us with a standard menu while requesting our drink preferences.  I asked a list of drafts which she provided from memory.  Not wanting to risk another substantial delay, my wife and I each selected craft brews, hers an Allagash, mine from a more obscure provider in Cape May.  We had already decided dinner, but looked the written menu over again.  Our beers arrived and we ordered dinner.  

Despite the music and table arrangement that offered clear floor space, nobody left their plates or the bar to dance.  In addition, as we had come early, I had expected more diners to trickle in as the clock reached a more customary dining-out hour.  Few new people came in.  A hostess never needed to seat people, nor did a line form.  Our dinners arrived.  Disposable plates and utensils.  Only the pint mugs of glass with painted beer brand logos would need washing.  The entrees seemed large and cheap.  My fish and chips likely had been frozen, thawed and placed in a frying basket.  Undistinguished crust, fish filet of supermarket texture, fries standard.  My wife's fish sandwich overfilled its bun.  And my niche brand beer tasted quite refreshing.

While they had a dessert menu, the waitress never asked us if we wanted to try any of the offerings on their blackboard.  My wife didn't.  I might have.  Instead, she returned to our table with the check, a very reasonable amount considering what we had eaten.  Credit card offered, taken, and returned.  Back to the car for home.

Would I go again?  Probably.  The music could have sounded more subdued but it was live entertainment.  The other people dining seemed mostly my generation, probably late career like the two couples on the voters line who recommended this place.  Food undistinguished, service maybe slow.  Beer selection imaginative.  I could see going myself late one afternoon, taking a seat at the bar and nursing a specialty brew while I make notes in a pad or dictate into my recorder.  A place run by owners, maybe the type of personalized establishment that could appear on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.  Definitely not a yuppie national franchise with programmed menus for mass consumption.  I understand why my new acquaintances gravitate there.