Tuesday 24 April 2007

Fuddrucker's -- Home of the Loaf Bun Houses Noisy Facilities

Fuddruckers
Festival Bay Mall
5250 International Drive
Ste E1
Orlando, FL USA 32819

www.fuddruckers.com/

Where is it?

The bathrooms are easy to locate -- they're in the appropriately labeled ("Restrooms") hallways located behind the salad bars -- but getting to them can be difficult.

If you're coming in from the restaurant's outdoor exit, you need to head all the way through the dining room and then to the right of the salad bar area. If you're coming in from the mall entrance, you need to either cut through the order line (which takes you well out of the way but gives you a good glimpse of the kitchen and meat locker) or steer right, away from the order line, past the bakery (which contains such unique goods as the Loaf Bun (an intimidating loaf-sized version of their already enormous hamburger bun), through the dining room and past the salad bar. Either way, it's a twisty, turny way.

What's it like?

The decor of this franchised burger chain (which makes a fine burger indeed) offers an interior that gives an upscale touch to the traditional diner look. Tables, while still Formica, are colored in sharp yellows and reds (not plain white), various neon signs and symbols are hung all over the walls, and the floors are covered in cool red tiles. As you can expect, the menu is packed with beefy burgers, which range in size from 1/3 lb to 1 lb, as well as steaks, chicken, ostrich, garden burgers and more.

The bathroom extends the decor, with yellow counters, automatic faucets and towel dispensers, gleaming white wall tiles, shiny silver fixtures and pleasant flowery air fresherner smell pumped throughout. (It IS a burger joint, after all.) It's clean, chic, friendly, upscale.

But it's also very noisy. Once inside, you'll notice little audible separation between the bustling dining room and the restroom's interior, and while that makes it ideal for a quick pee (gotta get back outside to finish that mammoth burger, after all) it may prove a little nerve-wracking for anyone in need of a longer visit. (And eating an entire Loaf Bun may result in just such a pitstop, if you know what I mean.)

[Note: Those looking for more privacy should hed to Shepler's Western Outfitters, also in Festival Bay Mall, though don't expect as much thematic character from that bathroom as this one.)

Marks out of 10:

7.

Comments to the Management:

The noise factor is the biggest drawback here. Though this is a design flaw, not something the management can go back and fix.

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