History

Blame the Buddhist Biker Bar.

Offering cheap steak and potatoes dinner on Monday nights, Buddhist was already popular with the guys in the house. A few of us went to partake of this and then began to wander the Corner since the weather was nice and we still had some time before practice. We noticed O'neills (RIP) had a similar deal - steak and potatoes for $6 on Mondays - and made a mental note; we now had dinner plans for next Monday. The same thing happened again. We found yet another deal the next week. Then we found the website, www.cavdeals.com (RIP) and everything took off from there.

The site was great - it showed food and drink specials at the restaurants around Charlottesville for every day of the week. Squid and I picked the places we wanted to visit and started planning. Then we realized we couldn't possibly keep this to ourselves, we had to invite friends. That was when we launched MEDS - the Monday Evening Dinner Series. We emailed friends a day or two in advance to let them know where we were going that week, but nothing was mandatory. Squid and I wanted to eat good, cheap food and, if we had more friends join us, that was even better. There were a few very small MEDS nights and the occasional huge crowd, but we averaged about 7-8 people per visit. There was a core group of 2 or 3 that accompanied Squid and me most nights, but everyone else came and went as they pleased because that was the idea.

That was the Fall of my second year. With changing schedules and commitments, our eating schedule shifted. Our philosophy changed a bit as well. It was great to save money, but the best part of MEDS was the delicious food, the sense of exploration, and the fun times shared with friends. We stopped using www.cavdeals.com as a guide (though we kept checking, just in case) and just picked restaurants that sounded good, had good reviews, or just seemed interesting. MEDS became TEDS, WEDS, and ThEDS depending on when we had a free evening.

Squid left town and, as much as I enjoyed ownership of our project, I wanted to make a little more of it and change the philosophy, albeit slightly. I created a facebook group with the intent of adding anyone and everyone who might be interested in something like this. With all of these people in one "place" and the ability to communicate with one another, I figured people could start calling their own dinners. I was aiming to be the Tyler Durden of restaurants, just without the destruction. That hasn't really happened yet, but there's still time and I'm hopeful. Sam Macher and Alexander Houck each took turns leading the flagship franchise while I was out of town. Sam had some fun with it and gave it her own twist, which was essentially the idea. WEDS has also been home-cooked on occasion, celebrating holidays, prepared for chili cookoffs , and just taking it easy/not spending a lot of money. The concept is flexible.

I'm back in Charlottesville for the year and have restarted WEDS (note - the W stands for Weekday in this case, just look for context clues in the future). The current incarnation takes place on Wednesdays, but we're going to shuffle between Wednesday and Thursday for a while. This blog will hopefully be a way to keep the fun times and good food rolling.