Goodbye Piccadilly

After reading in the Orlando Sentinel that the Piccadilly Cafeteria on E. Colonial was closing for good, I got a bit nostalgic, called a friend, and headed over there for a final meal. I quickly forgot why I had stopped going to the Piccadilly in the first place. Not long after the conversion from the now extinct Morrison's that once served fine food, I had stopped at the Piccadilly for a meal and left feeling like I had just eaten a rubber shoe. I swore I would never go back.

If only I had remembered. As we waited 30 minutes in a line that stretched out the door filled with the over 60 crowd who looked like they were attending a funeral, we reminisced about all the wonderful salads, desserts, and entrees that we remembered from our childhood. Mmmmm, was this going to be good.

But as we turned the final corner past all the dirty flowered wallpaper that reminded me of my long gone grandmothers house, it became apparent why Piccadilly had recently declared bankruptcy and I suddenly felt like I was dining at a prison cafeteria. Long gone were the carrot, cucumber, and mayonnaise salad that I had remembered, replaced by bagged lettuce, four basic dressings, and croutons.

The only desserts available was French silk pie. Where was the banana cream, lemon meringue, strawberry shortcake, and sweet potato pie that always tempted me prior to selecting my entree? No cake, no pudding, just a few dishes of jello for those seniors who had missed it at their last stay in the hospital.

Oh, but that was OK, because we new that next we would have our choice of roast beef with roasted potatoes, turkey and dressing, chicken and dumplings....... but it was not to be. Instead we saw liver and onions, a chunk of roast beef so rare I wondered if it had been cooked at all, a spaghetti casserole, fried shrimp, beef steak, and baked salmon. The server said "no more fried chicken, no more fried fish, nor more baked chicken, no steak.... but plenty of veggies.
The rolls were the size of acorns, and the ice machine was broken.

We met some really nice people in the line, but the only thing we left with was a stomach ache and disappointment. It was time for the Piccadilly to close for good, only thing served up there anymore was memories of good meals served long long ago.

Like many businesses before it that did not adapt to the times, you are now history.

You know you live downtown if

You know you live downtown if:

1. You put your garbage at the curb and a line forms alongside the road of people waiting to pick through it.

2. The flop house across the street goes on the market for $850,000.

3. You find Big Gulp glasses laying in your yard every morning.

4. You can't get into a 7-11 without being asked for money by the homeless.

5. You sit on your front porch yelling at drivers who blow through stop signs in front of your house.

6. It's soot and not sooty mold on your plants.

7. There is always a house in the neighborhood with a termite tent over it.