Looking around the rustic charmed building, I knew I was home. The fresh smell of hardwood floors, years of down-home cooking, and exceptional service permeate every pore of this building. Without even opening my eyes, I knew where I was. I was in a building that I had visited many times before. although this time, something was different. My surroundings were the same but there was something unfamiliar and foreign to me in that setting. While I was sitting there enjoying my Leinie’s Weiss brew, I tried to think of what was so different. The unique charm of each individual dining room was still there. The moose head and bear skins were still hanging on the walls just as I had remembered it when I was young.

So what was it. Well it wasn’t until the following day that I identified what made this dining experience different from my previous. It was the personal touch that a family owned restaurant has with it’s patrons. Since being taken over by the behemoth restauranteurs that own the Mineshaft in Hartford, the Fox and Hounds has become the little brother of the Mineshaft. Following in the big brothers footsteps, the little brother has picked up some bad habits. Trying to be similar in every way, the New Fox and Hounds has so many of the same qualities that the selective diner has come to know and hate. From the scripted servers, staff scavenging off of the leftovers on the buffet line, paper napkins and advertisement placemats, the Fox and Hounds has moved from a thriving country restaurant to a clone of it’s brother who lives in downtown hartford. Efficient, clean, fast passed, and business-like, the food was nothing special and reminded me of the mess-hall style cooking you see in the WWII movies. Now someone would say by now, “well surly you must admit the the prices are much better than they were before making the restaurant more appealing to the middle class.” And I would have to agree. But the buffet they had was close to 12.00 for a senior and goes up in price from there. Our meals with beer, buffet, and tip totaled over 60 dollars for three adults. I also could have really done without the staff members hovering around the buffet just waiting for my table to finish eating, and my waitress asking us if we are done with the hot food so they can swoop in and take it away. I left slighted, and I left hurt that day. A time out with family should be an enjoyable experience, and instead, I left the New Fox and Hounds Restaurant feeling like I just left a McDonald’s Corporate Board Meeting.

In the end, I guess I was hoping for something that has been long forgotten in the corporate world of big box restaurants. I had hoped for an experience of old era long forgotten by the restaurant industry. Taking my parents out to a nice restaurant is a rare occasion for me, and the paper napkins, small menu selection, tacky placements, and settling for a buffet breakfast at the Fox and Hounds immediately convinced me that the Newness of Fox and Hounds is not a newness that I do not want to be a part of.