Little Moon Supper Club

The wife and I just celebrated our 17th anniversary.  I know, I know… the fact that there is a woman alive who would be willing to put up with my crap for 17 years may lead one to question her sanity.  Well, the fact that she is slightly tilted doesn’t make me love her any less.  Anyway, one of the biggest problems we have here in the craphandle of Nebraska when it comes to celebrating events is the lack of good places to eat.  We have a ton of little Mexican restaurants which are good and fine and all, but we weren’t in the mood for Mexican.  We have a Chili’s and an Applebee’s, which are pretty interchangeable chains.  We have a Shari’s and a Perkin’s, which, once again, are pretty interchangeable chains.  We have a few fast food places, and a couple of bar and grills that tend to be more bar than grill… and our anniversary fell on the eve of a Husker game… so being surrounded by a bunch of drunk Husker fans didn’t sound like the most romantic choice.  We wanted to go somewhere for a good steak-type meal, but didn’t want to have to take out a home equity loan to be able to afford it.  We have a chain here called Whiskey Creek that isn’t bad, but again… bar and grillish with a Husker game.  There is a place here called The Emporium, but it seems to be sort of European in flair (which means although the food is excellent, you get very little of it and spend a small fortune).  Last time we ate at The Emporium, I had to swing through the drive-through at McDonald’s just to get filled up afterwards.

One of the great things about Facebook is that it is filled with people more than willing to give their biased recommendations.  I put a post on Facebook asking for some recommendations for somewhere decent to eat.  Of course, I know all of the restaurants in the area, but I was figuring there may be one I just wasn’t thinking of that someone else could remind me of.  Lucky for me, just such a thing happened.  One of my Facebook friends recommended the Little Moon Lake Supper Club.  It had probably been 12-years since I had been to Little Moon, and I had forgot all about it.  I could hardly remember the place, but I remembered that I liked the food.  So, we were off to Little Moon!

The Little Moon Lake Supper Club isn’t in Scottsbluff, NE.  The Little Moon Lake Supper Club isn’t in Gering, NE.  The Little Lake Moon Supper Club is right outside Henry, NE.

“Where is Henry, NE?”

Henry, NE is in the middle of NOWHERE!  Little Moon is not in Henry, but is located about a mile back on a dirt road outside of Henry, and it is about 30 miles from my house… and it’s getting dark… and it’s raining cats and dogs.

We drove through the pouring rain.  This is the first decent rain we have had in weeks, so the roads are a little oiled-up-slicky.  We crept along at a safe speed well below the speed limit.  Now, I can’t exactly remember how to get to Little Moon, I just remember that there is a sign off the highway that points the way.  So, we were driving for over a half-hour when we finally got to Henry.  I slowed down and started looking for the sign once we passed town, and there it was.

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So we turned south and drove over a pot-holy, washboardy, rain covered, muddy road very slowly for the next mile.  This is what the visibility was like:

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Finally, after much bouncing and jarring and being splattered by muddy water, off in the distance, we saw what we thought might be our destination.

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“Is that it?” I asked the wife.

“I think so,” said the wife.

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“Not much too it, is there?” I said.

“No, but I remember the food being good,” said the wife.

Well, I guess if your first impression is bad, the odds go up of thinking the food is better than expected, right?!?

Once we got a little closer, it looked a little better… and I stress little.

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Once we got inside, things started to look a even better (or, at least I can take a little better pictures).

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We walked in and there is like no one there.  I saw tables up ahead, but there is no one sitting at them. There was one dude wandering around with a jacket on, but he appeared to be slightly disturbed, so we left him alone.  This seems strange, since the gravel parking lot was pretty full of cars.  I looked to my left and there’s a bar, but there is no one at the bar.

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There were some people leaving, and the disturbed dude in the jacket, but I didn’t see anyone eating fabulous grub.  Finally, a harried lady came shooting out from a little room on the side and asks how we’re doing.  We told her we were fabulous, and she asked if we have reservations.

Oh crap.

We most definitely did not have reservations.  The lady said that they have room and that wouldn’t be an issue, they just need to do some rearranging.  She quickly disappears back into the room and I saw her darting back and forth past the door and stuff clanged and clattered.

“Oh crap, do you really think they have room?” I asked the wife.

“I’m sure she wouldn’t have told us they do if they don’t,” said the wife.

The harried lady jetted back and forth past the door a few more times as more clanging and clattering transpired.  Finally, she reappeared back by the bar, brushing her hair away from her sweat-covered brow.

“I can seat you now,” she said.

So, we followed her through the little side door and found ourselves in a nice little dining area.  The paneling on the walls, carpet on the floors, and lighting hanging from the ceiling all screamed “I was cool before disco was a glint in it’s father’s eye,” but it was clean.  There were a few empty table, but most of the tables held groups of people who were dressed a lot fancier than the wife and me.  We sat down and scoped the place out.  There was apparently another room off of the dining room we were in, because people came in and went through another door in our dining room and disappeared… never to return.  Also, the waitresses would disappear back in that nether-region, but they would reappear.  So, there was either like a private party going on back there… or those unlucky guests who disappeared into the “special” seating section were actually what we ate later that evening.  Either way, there were only two waitresses on duty, and they both seemed as harried as the seating lady.  There did seem to be an awful lot of people for only two waitresses.  Guess that’s why places like you to make reservations.  I made a mental note.

In addition to the two waitresses and the seating lady, there was a young woman who, I’m guessing, was on her first night as an employee.  The young lady looked like she may still be in high school, and she appeared to be terrified of screwing something up.  She was very fun to watch.  Harried-seating lady directed the young-one to get us water.  Young-one nervously brought over a pitcher and attempted to pour out of the side of the pitcher into the wife’s and my glasses.  She did the wife first, and a small splash of water spilled over onto the glass-topped table.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Young-one.

“It’s alright,” the wife smiled.  Really, it wasn’t that big of a spill.  In fact, we wouldn’t have probably even noticed the small spill if Young-one didn’t seem so nervous and hadn’t apologized for it.

Young-one slowly brought the pitcher to my glass and hesitantly poured from the side, shaking the pitcher slightly in an attempt to get some ice into my glass.  She would shake and pour a little bit, and then stop… and breath… and then shake and pour a little bit more.  After several start and stop combinations, she finally got my glass about half full.  I think she decided that was about all the fuller she could risk getting my glass without spilling, because she stopped at half, set my glass down, and left.  I looked at my half-full glass and then at my wife, who was smiling.

“Poor thing,” said the wife.  “She seems so nervous.  Must be her first night.”

“Yeah, poor thing,” I agreed.  “You don’t think she’s our waitress, do you?”

We saw Harried-seating lady pull Young-one aside.  Harried-seating lady took Young-one over to an empty table at the far side of the dining room and proceeded to show Young-one how to properly fill a glass by pouring from the side of a pitcher.  Young-one nodded and a light seemed to go off somewhere in the recesses of her consciousness.  I don’t know if she actually understood what Harried-seating lady was saying or if she was remembering a fond memory from her childhood… from a couple of weeks ago… but she seemed to understand something, and that made me feel good.

Harried-seating lady finally returned to us.  “All of our menus are out, so it will be just a couple of minutes before we can show you a menu.”

“That’s fine,” I said, looking around at all of the other diners in our dining room, not one of whom had a menu.

“Can I start you with something to drink?”

So, I order iced tea and the wife ordered a Sprite.  Harried-seating lady hurried off in search of our drinks.

When Harried-seating lady left, I asked the wife, “Where do you think all of those menus are?”

“They must be in the other dining room,” she said.

I looked again to the door leading to the mysterious dining area from which diners entered but never returned.

“Yeah… the other dining room,” I said.

From the kitchen, Young-one emerged carrying a glass of iced tea in one hand and a glass of Sprite in the other.

“Watch this,” I said to the wife in anticipation of something funny.

We watched Young-one carefully bring each glass to the table… without spilling a drop.  She gently set each glass down, smiled (in relief, I believe), and scampered on her merry way.

“Dang it,” I said, “she didn’t spill them.”

The wife rolled her eyes.

Finally, one of the two harried waitresses brought a couple of menus from the “other” dining room and handed them to us with a smile.  I glanced over mine for traces of fresh blood, but found none.  We looked over the menu and both decided that steak sounded quite good.  After this stupid new “eating healthy” crap that we’d been doing, a little red meat seemed like an excellent choice.  Also, I ordered the appetizer combo… ’cause nothing says “cheat day” like a big pile of deep-fat-fried crispiness.

While we were waiting for our cardiac-arrest appetizer tray, our waitress brought over a surprise relish tray.  I like surprises… even if they are healthy.

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In anticipation of the big cheat we were taking from our new healthy way of eating with this meal, the wife and I had barely eaten anything all day.  We polished off that relish tray in short order.  And then came the appetizer.

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Oh man, was that greasy stuff good.  There were fried mushrooms, fried mozzarella sticks, and some of the biggest, best homemade onion rings that I have ever seen or tasted in my life.  We almost polished off the appetizer tray before the steaks came, but not quite.  We had a little left over to take back for the kiddos.

The steaks arrived.  I’m kind of pissed, because I took a picture of my steak dinner in all of it’s glory, but my stupid Droid didn’t save it.  Picture if you will a beautiful piece of seared meat, blood slowly spreading beneath it’s rare goodness, surrounded by crispy french fries and a Mexican corn medley.  It was good sized, even though I ordered the small ribeye (yeah, I knew with the fat-filled appetizer I wouldn’t need a large… even when splurging, I was being a little health conscience… ’cause I would have never ordered a small before).  I could have sliced it with a butter knife.  The first bite absolutely melted in my mouth.  I don’t know if it was just because it had been over 2 weeks since I had eaten any real red meat, but that was the tastiest steak I have ever tasted.  I didn’t even care if it wasn’t beef… if, perhaps, it came from some illicit activity in the “other” dining room… I ate that whole thing in no time flat.

While we’re eating, Young-one noticed that our drink glasses were empty.

“Would you like refills?” she nervously asked.

“Why, yes, thank you,” I replied, and she scampered off with our empty glasses.  She sure liked to scamper.

“Poor thing,” mutters the wife.

During the course of our meal, I had a blast watching Young-one take increasingly larger and larger piles of dirty dishes from the empty tables to the kitchen.  I could see her self-confidence growing as her piles of dirty dishes grew larger.  She seemed, to me, to be growing reckless… and I was loving it.

“Ooh…ooh,” I whispered to the wife, “watch this.  I think she’s gonna lose it.”

“She is not,” the wife said.  “Don’t be mean.  Poor thing.”

Needless to say, she never lost the dishes.  Needless to say, I was disappointed.  I mean, it was neat to see that young girl smile with pride as she navigated the large piles of dirty dishes flawlessly to the kitchen, but it would have been neater to see the dishes crash to the floor and her fleeing the dining room in tears.  Just sayin’…

Anyway, Young-one returned with our filled drinks and easily set the wife’s Sprite down in front of her.  As she was sliding my iced tea into position, her wrist lightly brushed against the lemon placed on the rim of my cup, and the lemon tumbled down into the basket of butter on the table.  Young-one bit her lower lip, and I swear her eyes suddenly grew moist.  She set my glass down, started to reach for the lemon wedge, and drew her hand back.  Her hand flew forward again in an attempt to grasp the lemon, only to return to her side as her eyes grew increasingly wet.  I just smiled, watching in amazement.  The wife nudged me, but I ignored her.  Finally, Young-one reached forward one last time and gently placed her index finger and thumb on the outer rind of my lemon wedge.  She was careful to only touch the outer rind.  She held the lemon wedge up in front of her chest, looked at it, and then held it out to me like it was something she wished dearly to get rid of.

“I didn’t want to touch it,” she whispered to me as she blinked back tears.

I took the lemon from her and dropped it in my glass of tea to show her that I wasn’t afraid of her cooties.

“That’s okay,” I said.  “No big deal.”

Her trembling lip turned up in a slight, forced smile as she turned and walked quickly out of the room.  I started to snigger.

“Poor thing,” the wife said, but she sounded like she was ready to burst out laughing as well.

We were in such a good mood that, even though we were stuffed, we ordered a piece of pecan cheesecake to share… and it was awesome.

We had a really good time at the Little Moon Lake Supper Club.  The service was exceptional (especially considering the fact that I think they may have been a little short on staff).  We didn’t wait an unacceptable amount of time for any of the courses.  All of the food was exceptional… not a thing sucked.  Young-one’s entertainment was superb.  I really hope she doesn’t get discouraged and quit, ’cause she’s fun 🙂   Even the price was very reasonable.  With tip (and we tip pretty well), we got out of there for around $60.  Of course, we didn’t drink the alcohol, which I’m sure would add heavily to a tab, but we were both stuffed on good food and we even had some to take home.

If I were to give out stars or thumbs or anything like that, I’d give the Little Moon Lake Supper Club in Henry, NE some stars, and my thumbs would all be up.  Good value, great food, pleasant staff, and the funny new girl.  Poor thing…