Peanut butter restaurant

Those dirty rascals. They stole our idea for a fast food place serving only peanut-butter and jam sandwiches.
My husband and I first had that idea way back in the 1970’s after watching the oldest descendant slather peanut butter on his pancakes, waffles, bananas … everything. My husband mused that there were a lot of kids just like him – we should open up a shop with just peanut butter sandwiches.
“Just think about all the varieties of peanut butter – natural, homogenized, chunky or creamy, to be eaten with one of 20 to 30 flavors of jams and jellies,” he said.
I agreed with just about everything – except the peanut butter on waffles and pancakes that the kid liked! I insisted it was not right and refused to allow peanut butter to come to the table with waffles.
The kid didn’t care what I thought, he wanted his peanut butter. He insisted. I resisted. It got very ugly – until, I realized how silly I was being.
So, I bought him a bucket of peanut butter and handed it to him with written permission to eat it anyway he wanted He opened the bucket and troweled the stuff on apples and we dreamed anew about PB&J shops.
Well, now they exist – a couple of them actually. And we are not talking about the PB&J sandwiches added at the bottom of the menu in some eateries. No, these are two full-scale restaurants: Peanut Butter and Company in Greenwich Village, New York and Peanut Butter and Ellie’s in Portland, Oregon. Both offer extensive menus with peanut butter as the main ingredient.
If the oldest son had gone to these restaurants as an eight-year-old, he would have thought he had died and gone to Heaven He probably would have ordered “The Cupboard” a peanut butter sandwich with a choice of: Raisins, cranberries, carrots, potato chips, grapes, onions, chocolate chips, marshmallows, peanuts, sunflower seeds, apples, berries, nutella, marshmallow fluff, sprinkles, pickles, cinnamon or any other edible you may have in mind.
I can just hear today’s generation of munchkins sighing with delight as they consider the options offered at Peanut Butter & Co. where they even offer to cut-off the crusts. With or without the crust, ‘PB&whatever’ sandwiches come with chips and carrot sticks.
Even the drinks and desserts respect perpetual peanut-butter loving eight-year-olds. Consider the following choices:
Milkshakes: PB&J Shake, Mary Jane Shake made with peanut butter and honey, Fluffernutter shake made with peanut butter and marshmallow fluff. For the daddy or mommy with a yen for a bit of coffee to wash down their peanut butter sandwich, the shop offers: Coffee Shake – with a shot of Espresso to which they can add peanut butter.
For coffee purists, they also serve plain, old, ordinary coffee – but it is meant to be sipped with a serving of a peanut butter dessert such as peanut butter cookies, chocolate peanut butter pie, peanut butter parfait or death by peanut butter.
At least, when they stole our long awaited idea, the thieving rascals did a fine job of preparing a complete peanut butter smorgasbord for our current generation of peanut-butter-loving munchkins.
Now would you like your PB&J on wheat, oat, sunflower or organic white bread?
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times.)