Rasta Pasta

The Good: The delicious, huge and unique pasta dishes, location, garlic bread and beer deals with the glass The Bad: A little pricey for us cheap asses
The Ugly: The banos are nasty

Another local favorite!!!  We have had many meals at Rasta Pasta and have been satisfied with the food, drinks, and service every time!  We love the salad, amazing salad dressing, beers, garlic bread, (we always order an additional basket) and of course the non-traditional pasta.  Some of our personal favorites are the ravioli, primavera and the pineapple curry pastas.  Rasta Pasta also has a great deal to buy a New Belgium beer for $5 and keep the glass, every refill after your first is $2.50, what a great buy!!!  The restaurant's location is on the corner of Walnut and College with a strip of stores and restaurants to walk by after your meal.  They also have an outdoor patio for beautiful Colorado summer days.  When we have eaten outside we enjoy watching locals walk by while listening to Reggae music and eating some good ass food!  We love Rasta Pasta and as you can see from above are only real complaint is the small and dirty bathrooms- ladies you must hover as to not touch the dirty toilet seat, boys I am assuming you also want to be careful.  Lastly, if you are in town and looking for a special experience and some amazing carbs head to Rasta Pasta and tell them Amy and Kate sent you, (you won't get a deal but tell them to check out our review!)

Rating: 2 big thumbs up!

Railroad Tracks

The Good: Small town feel and an echoing sound in the night
The Bad: All over town
The Ugly: Getting stuck and waiting forever, damn you railroad tracks!!!

We love our beautiful city of Fort Collins, Colorado but who was involved in city planning?  Who thought it was a good idea to put railroad tracks in the middle of town and everywhere in-between?  Sure, the trains transport a variety of goods to our town and neighboring places, but making us late to work and having to suffer through trains backing up, going forward, and stopping is not appropriate.  Many times we have wanted to turn around and go another route but where the F do you go? By the time you turn around the train has gone through the crossing. So... I guess we just have to learn some patience, jam out to some tunes and relax.  Welcome to Fort Collins bitches!

Rating:  Overall Two Thumbs Down

Choice City Deli

The Good: Obvious beer list, food, street patio and the atmosphere
The Bad: The wait
The Ugly: Cashier interactions ... read along

We have experienced several visits to Choice City and found the food and drinks to be DELICIOUS!!!  But...the service and wait time is not organized and seems to take FOREVER! The portions are huge, the food is perfect and the beers just keep coming.  But the service takes a while so if you have time place your order, get a beer and sit outside because you will be waiting on the food, especially if it is a hamburger or hot sandwich.  Choice City definitely forgot about one of our orders, a reuben to be exact, so while we waited for that order everyone else enjoyed their food.  When the reuben finally arrived the group had already finished their meal and had to watch the loner eat.  With your meal you also get to choose from one of their amazing side dishes including: potato salad, dill coleslaw, chips, and garlic mashed potatoes.  One of our personal favorites was the dill coleslaw, because the dill gives a spin on a classic dish.  The burger and the mashed potatoes ranked amongst the favorites, but not as high as New Belgium's Lips of Faith Fall Wild.
As we waited patiently for the reuben we paid our tab.  The cashier said to a waitress leaving, "See you next Tuesday!" The waitress was dumbfounded and replied, "Oh, I don't think I work on Tuesday."  For those of you who don't know what 'See You Next Tuesday' stands for, it means C...U...N...T...!  Our jaws dropped as we thought, "So this douche is calling the waitress a C...U...N...T... casually... how sweet and harmless?"  Oh, NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

Rating: Two thumbs up for food and drinks                            One thumb down for service

Backporch Cafe

The Good: The atmosphere, the bread, and friendly manager
The Bad: See The Ugly...
The Ugly: The waitress/service

If you are in for a long breakfast you picked the right place.  The service was awful!  The bloody mary had too much tomato and not enough vodka.  The food was cold!  The waitress was new, but seriously get the order in and bring the food in a decent amount of time.  At least greet your customer within the first 5 minutes.  We had to ask another waitress after 15-20 minutes of waiting who our waitress was.  When she finally came over instead of greeting us and asking what we'd have to drink she said, "Are you ready to order?"  We knew we were in for a rough breakfast.  We had no drinks on the table so we decided to place our full order.  We finally got our drinks another 15 minutes later, come on how hard is it to fill up a glass of water???  She only had one other table outside and brought our drinks to a table she wasn't even serving.  We continued to wait what felt like an eternity for the food.  She finally came and brought the food after we debated just paying for drinks and leaving this disaster.  The service BLEW!  We got our food and the waitress never checked to see if we were ok.  One of us got the wrong food and decided it was not worth it to inform the waitress of her mistake because of her awesome time management skills.  After we asked for more drinks she finally DID bring refills.  Amy went inside and asked the hostess for the manager.  The manager came over to our table to apologize for the service.  He explained that the waitress was new and obviously struggling.  The manager generously offered to pick up the tab.  So, we did not end up paying for the slowest meal in the world, thanks friendly manager!

Rating: Two ENORMOUS Thumbs Down!!! 

Town Pump

The Good: Sweet local bar, good beer, and Everclear cherries
The Bad: Size when too crowded
The Ugly: Cash only

The Town Pump is what it is: local, friendly enough, great location, spot to sit, feel welcome and enjoy a cold beer.  This is not one of those Caribbean island themed lame college bars like we see sprouting up all over Old Town.  The Town Pump offers a great local bar with a fun easy-going attitude.  Every time we have been to Town Pump we have been satisfied and delighted with the beer, service, and atmosphere.  Our only complaints include: when the Town Pump is too crowded and cash only.  We love the small, warm atmosphere but hate when we can't get in or if our chest is pressed up against a random stranger. Also our generation never carries cash.  Get with the times and accept Visa.

Rating: Two Thumbs Up!

Recycled Cycles

The Good: The idea of buying and using a used bike for a decent price.
The Bad: Customer service
The Ugly: Way over priced bikes!

We had been exploring the idea of purchasing a cruiser bicycle for weeks.  After visiting Target, Walmart, and various bike shops around town we stumbled across Recycled Cycles.  Kate, being the environmentally friendly person she is, quickly fell in love with the idea of recycling a used bike. Upon entering the store we were immediately greeted and started a friendly conversation with an employee. After noticing that they carried the same exact model of a Schwinn cruiser on sale for $100 more than Walmart, Amy politely asked the employee why there was such a difference in price.  There was an immediate change in the tone of the conversation.  The defensive employee first tried to tell us that they were different models, then changed his story to tell us they were the same but a bike technician put them together making them better quality than those purchased from a store like Walmart.  He then proceeded to tell a story about riding the bike at Walmart and the seat falling off in the middle of the store due to Walmart's poor assembly.  We suddenly had a flash back to an experience at Walmart when an employee had told us that Recycled Cycles buys already assembled bikes from Walmart and sells them at their store for an increased price.  So basically... at Recycled Cycles you can pay $100 more because they possibly tightened a few nuts and bolts.

Kate did find a used bike to purchase so our encounter with the pretentious employee continued.  Both of us noticed the employee rolling his eyes and laughing to his co-workers every time we turned around.  We tried to keep the conversation light and friendly but the employee's interaction continued in a downward spiral until he was just down right RUDE! Kate left the store happy with her new recycled bike but extremely dissatisfied with the employee's attitude.  Amy left wanting to tip over all the rows of bikes.
If you'd like to purchase an overpriced bike from a rude employee make sure to visit Recycled Cycles.

Rating: Two Thumbs Down!!!!

Our mutual dissatisfaction  of our experience gave us inspiration to inform others of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Fort Collins.  We hope you enjoy our blog!