W8- O'Betty's Review

When I found out that we, as a class, were meeting at O'Betty's I had no idea what was going on. I live in the Athens area and have since I was one year old and I had never heard of it. I had no idea what kind of food it offered or what kind of atmosphere to expect. However, after a little class discussion I learned that the restaurant's main attraction was their hot dogs. While sitting in the restaurant looking around I noticed that they won several successive "Best Hog Dog in Athens" awards from the Athens News. The only thought that popped into my mind at the time was "man, Lary's Dog House needs to step it up." Because that is the only other hot dog place I could think of off the top of my head. 

I didn't eat at O'Betty's instead I fixed myself lunch before I came to class. It's not because I didn't trust what my classmates had said (that they made really good hot dogs.) The reason I didn't eat there was because, well, I am sick of hot dogs. I played baseball every spring and summer of my life from age three to twenty-one. At baseball games the only food that is consistently offered is, you guessed it, hot dogs. But not just any hot dogs. No, because it is a tradition to have hot dogs and because the hot dog tradition has formed a sort of ballpark monopoly, the hot dogs are usually pretty crappy. But it's hot, you're dirty, you're hungry and you have 20 minutes until the next game so you don't really have a choice. Long story short, or well shortened a bit, when baseball ended for me, so too did hot dog eating. 

I have no doubt O'Betty's makes good food. The smell is the restaurant didn't make me sick at all, so it wasn't full of hot dog smell. The setting though was the most surprising part. It was almost had an old gentlemen club-like feel to it. There was leopard print cloth on the booth seats, the tables as well as other places. There were also pictures of (I'm assuming) famous women of their time wearing a rather limited amount of clothing. It certainly didn't give off a family vibe, but that's probably why it's near Court Street in downtown Athens where drunk students are going to stumble in and out all the time. 

It isn't a place that I would frequent, or even go back to because of the hot dog thing, but also because it's small and very open to everyone else in the restaurant. I rarely eat in fast food places and I kind of equate the set up of the dining area to a small fast food place. Generally, if I go out to eat it's so I can talk in limited, but decent privacy with the person/people I'm eating with. This restaurant is geared more to the open (some might say obnoxious) type, like college students, which although I am a college student I don't (at least I hope I don't) fit in that stereotype.