If you're a veteran or in active military service, Chili's will buy you lunch this Thursday, November 11 for Veterans Day. All you have to do is show proof of service like your military ID and you can choose from a selected menu and your meal is free.

Here is the Veteran's Day Menu of free meals.



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I'm sure I'm not the first cook who has been told, "You should open your own restaurant!" Sure, it's easy enough to say, but in reality, it's extremely hard to execute. That's why you see restaurants that open and close within the span of a few months.

If I ever did open a restaurant, I want just a small mom and pop type restaurant. I've seen it done. I wouldn't go by a set menu but rather have a daily surprise menu. I would cook what's fresh and available that day and serve it, family style, to whoever comes in. I would also only serve as many as there is food. When the food is gone, then we go home. We've had a day where the cooks made dishes that made them happy, fed them to customers who, hopefully, went away full and happy, then we go home! Sound like a great deal to me, don't you think?

The decor of the restaurant will be homey. Not country homey, mind you, but a contemporary 'homey'. It would be like visiting your very cool but rich aunt and staying for dinner. It will have have some commercial bar stools by a large bay window overlooking the garden where you can sit for drinks or an outdoor sitting area around a fire pit to sip your after dinner coffee. Doesn't that sound good already and you don't even know what you're having for dinner yet!

Dinner which will be served on great wooden dining tables surrounded by beautiful ladder back chairs like the one in the photo. I just love comfortable dining chairs, don't you?

If you've gotten beyond dreaming and want to start thinking about your restaurant, one of the places to go to for chairs and other restaurant furniture is FashionSeating.com. Checking out places like fashionseating.com and doing a whole lot of research is a wise idea if you're thinking of opening up a restaurant or any business.

I love seafood! Unfortunately, we've had a hard time finding a good seafood restaurant here in our area of North Carolina. Sure, there are plenty of restaurants around, many of them serve seafood, but not one of them a truly memorable seafood experience.

The Oceanaire is a fine dining restaurant fashioned after a classic 1930s ocean liner, giving that classic ambiance of being in the middle of the ocean and partaking of its bounty. Their seafood is flown in daily and they claim to use only the freshest 'catch of the day' available from top seafood suppliers. By following what is fresh and available from the ocean, their menu changes constantly. You may not always get what you had last time, but you will always get something fresh and delicious.

Oceanaire has locations all over the country. Luckily, there is one here in N.C., at Charlotte so you can bet we'll be checking them out soon. One of the features offered by the restaurant is their ability to accommodate private parties and corporate events at any of their locations nationwide. Private Dining San Diego? They can help you with that. Or maybe you're looking for a venue for restaurant corporate events Atlanta. Whatever your needs, check the Oceanaire website for a unique solution.