The other day Cassie and I finally had a chance to visit Café Panache in downtown Greeley. We had been meaning to eat there since we heard about their opening in the newspaper. They focus on crepes, soups and salads.
Located in downtown Greeley
We showed up at lunchtime and ordered a turkey/provolone/sage crepe, a romaine salad and an order of curried pork with cherries.
Lunch
The restaurant has a nice French café feel to it. They play French music, serve chilled water in a wine bottle and is creatively decorated.
Cassie in front of the menu and some of the unique decorations (melted and repurposed albums)
The food was fresh and tasty and appropriately priced (everything was around $3). I hadn’t ever had curried pork that I can remember, but I thought it was pretty good. Overall a fun spot.
I have two distinct feelings toward Christmas lights and decorations. On the one hand, I love how it lights up an otherwise ugly time of year and gives a festive and cheerful mood to the dark season. On the other hand, I think some people go WAY overboard with these decorations and lights. A while ago I used to work at an old folks assisted living center and I’d take the residents out to see some of the lights. I have definitely seen the good, the bad and the ugly in terms of decorations. Last night we took a few pictures and a video of the Christmas lights and decorations in Greeley, Colorado. Enjoy, (and cringe) like we did 🙂
The Extent of Our Christmas Lights (on our banana tree)
The Good: DownTown Greeley lit up
The City of Greeley is trying to revitalize the downtown area, and while it is certainly beautiful, still not many people are there to enjoy it.
The Bad: Just imagine how wasteful this is on energy (not to mention a nuisance to neighbors)!
It is just ridiculous! It has over 70,000 lights and is programmed to be played -some are synchronized music and lights- to music that you can tune into in your car. There were like 30 cars just idling watching the lights and listening to music. This family calls themselves the “Greeley Grizwalds”. I would have to agree that they are just about as silly as the family in that Chevy Chase movie. It’s kind of cool, but definitely WAY over the top. It won the award for best decorated house in the local light contest. They won’t tell anyone how much their electric (energy) bill is, but I am sure it is wastefully high.
Here’s another video of it I found:
The Ugly!
This one has got to take the cake for being the most crass. Not even a block from the last one, this one tried to out-do it only with inflatable Christmas decorations. Every inch of the yard was covered in this balloon-like toys. (You may need to click on them to fully “appreciate” it.) It was crazy! Well, whatever floats your boat, or in their case, everything that floats.
