Pepper Pod

                You can always tell a local neighborhood place when you enter and feel as though you have walked in on a family gathering. That is the case with the Pepper Pod. Established in 1956 the Pepper Pod has been a landmark at 703 Monmouth St. in Newport. While all of Newport has a rather colorful history, according to legend the Pepper Pod was right in the middle of much of it. Supposedly this fine eating establishment was at one time connected to a rather active house of ill repute. In essence you could order up food and a girl and enjoy both at a low cost.

                Today the Pepper Pod serves a menu that offers up some sandwiches and comfort food. The prices are quite reasonable and while parking in Newport can be a problem depending on the time of day, there are generally some street spots open on this part of Monmouth.

                This was one of those times when Josh was in school and Mark was meeting someone who suggested heading to the Pepper Pod to try out their burgers.

The Burger

                The Pepper Pod’s Regular Cheese Burger is a quarter pound of ground beef that tastes fresh and not frozen. I ordered up a platter with fries and cole slaw. But before I get to the food I want to spend a couple of minutes talking about the service. As I said earlier, walking into the Pepper Pod is like walking into a family or neighborhood gathering. While that’s great if you are part of the gathered group, it can be a bit of a problem if you’re not.

                We walked in and sat ourselves since there was no one offering to seat us and plenty of tables available. While folks were talking to each other around the restaurant, carrying on friendly banter among themselves and the server and bus person, no one even acknowledged us. It took eight minutes from when we sat before the server walked by and said she’d be right back to take our drink order. She didn’t come right back. After dropping off the food at the next table she headed back toward the kitchen and didn’t return for a few more minutes. When she did return she took care of the check for someone leaving and then, finally, came to get our drink order.

                And on it went. It was very frustrating to sit there watching other people being served while we waited. When the food eventually came it was rather pedestrian. The cole slaw was first, tasting just like scores of other restaurants that probably order their food from the same place. French fries were the same, crinkle cut and cooked just right but nothing special.

                Then there was the burger. It didn’t suck but it wasn’t great either. It tasted like a burger with melted American cheese, tomato and mayo. Nothing more, nothing less. This was too bad because the place needed a genuinely wonder burger to compensate for the absolutely awful service.

                If you are heading to Newport to grab a burger there are a lot of options. I would suggest you by pass the Pepper Pod and find one of the others.