I am a restaurant fan.
If you live in Bowling Green, you almost have to be. We have a lot restaurants to choose from in this town. As a matter of fact, I think there's almost 300 restaurants located here with a population of 65,000 citizens-mom & pops, national chains and lots of ethnic restaurants (Chinese, Asian, Indian, Mexican, Bosnia and etc.) And if you love pizza, we also have tons of pizza restaurants in Bowling Green. Especially, pizza delivery! We also have several BBQ restaurants-the mom & pop and national chains too.
But what I want to know is what happened to our Kenny Rogers Roasters, Backyard Burgers and Boston Market? Yes, we used to have those in Bowling Green! Kenny Rogers Roasters was at Fairview Plaza Shopping Center on U.S. 31-W By-Pass where McDonalds is now and the Boston Market was on Campbell Lane where the strip shopping center is that houses the FedEx copy center and an ethnic restaurant as well as a retail shop or two. And Backyard Burgers used to be located in front of Big Lots on Nashville Road where the strip shopping center that houses Dunkin Donuts and a Mexican restaurant and some retail shops. (For a while, strip shopping centers were popping up all over Bowling Green. Now, it seems apartment buildings are popping up all over the place).
I really liked all three of those restaurants and ate at them several times in the 1990's and 2000's. I enjoyed their food, their service and the interior decor of all three. However, they are all now in the boneyard of the Bowling Green restaurant scene. It's a very tough market in our town and extremely hard for the small mom & pop restaurants to make a go at it. I have lived here for 30 years and I can't tell you how many restaurants have come and gone through the years. I always like to call it when I see this happen, "Another one bites the dust."
If I can think of some more restaurants that have come and gone through the years in Bowling Green, I'll be sure to write about them in this blog later on. And if you can remember any, please let me know. Thanks and "Happy Dining" in our big town of good ole Bowling Green!
All three chains went through nationwide contractions after they essentially expanded to fast too soon. Kenny Rogers Roasters went away completely. Boston Market is still around, though mainly in northern states. Backyard Burgers has also gone backwards, though the loss of the BG store happened well before most of the latest rounds of closures.
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