Birthday Celebration at the Blue Tractor.

We, five friends, celebrated my friend's major birthday at the newest, hopping place in town, the Blue Tractor. It was a surprise party.

The Blue Tractor use to be Dill's Olde Towne Saloon, which was an Olde Towne fixture. Now, the building is updated with a mod whitewashed brick exterior and a farm machinery and tractor theme. The lights over the booth are galvanized pails hanging upside down. The lights over the mirrors (tin ceiling tiles with mirror glass), in the bathroom, have galvanized piping as the part that holds the light itself. Lots of gears, picture frames that look like the tread of an old threshing machine, and close-ups of farm implements . Definitely one-of-a kind decor. Bar in the middle of the room surrounded by high tables and chairs, and booths around the outside edge. A new look that's appropriate for our area.

The lunch menu was fairly extensive, including macaroni and cheese(woooopeee), and reasonable. We started out with an order of cheese and bacon french fries. We shared a Loaded Wedgie which is a wedge of iceberg lettuce with blue cheese dressing, bacon bits, and candied pecans. Yummy. Two friends shared a Farmer's Market salad. When the salads came, we ask if they had been halved and the waiter said it looked bad, so they were larger than the amount halved. This is the way to go because, even sharing, there was a large amount of food. We also shared an order of grilled chicken wings to dip in cherry chipotle (one of the dips). To finish off the birthday lunch, we ordered the banana split. This was three large scoops of Moomer's ice cream (chocolate cherry, vanilla, and strawberry) . The split had the traditional whipped cream, a maraschino cherry, and at least two split bananas along the side. This was served with five spoons. Thank goodness, the salad and wings were our version of the South Beach diet so we could splurge on dessert. :)

The downside was that a group of about two dozen Red Hat ladies were also having lunch at tables across from us. The restaurant has never been known for its good acoustics and we found that it hadn't changed with the new decor. It was loud!

But, we had a great time. Happy Birthday to my dear, dear friend CT.