One of my friends told me about the closing of a restaurant in Pittsburgh affectionately known as The O. I meant to blog about it at the time, but put it off because I didn’t quite know what to say. There’s never a good time to say these things, or an easy way to say them, so I’ll just go ahead and speak my mind.

I don’t know if anybody who reads this blog has ever been to The O. I only went once, over a year ago. It was a hot dog place to end all hot dog places. They served hot dogs, hamburgers, assorted sausages, pizza… The list went on and on. It was a operating monument to greasy food. And the fries. Oh, the fries. Plentiful doesn’t begin to describe it. You all probably remember the old McDonald’s Super-Size. Maybe you think it’s pretty big, possibly even too big. But believe me when I tell you that the regular large, not even the X-tra large, dwarfed the Super Size. I hesitate to even compare them. The scale of The O’s large defies description. You really had to see it to believe it. Imagine a regular restaurant’s big basket of fries. Got that in your head? Good. Now take that, and pile fries in it until you’ve got a good six inches. That’s the ballpark I’m talking about here. I sorely doubt any single person could have comfortably eaten it, and isn’t that how much a "large" size should really supply?

Unfortunately, I don’t live anywhere near Pittsburgh. I always knew that my chances of ever getting the chance to go back to The O were slim to nil. But you know, that was okay. I felt better just knowing that it was out there, that bastion of grease and boiling oil holding steady against the salad-mongers who invade our grocery stores by the day.

Alas! I shall miss The O. What could ever replace it?