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Last night, I got home a lot later than usual, and didn't really feel like cooking. I also didn't feel like being out all night, so Pere and I decided to visit one of the few restaurants we have back in our neighborhood. There aren't a whole lot of restaurants back in the Ahwatukee Foothills, even though there are tens of thousands of people living there. Even more surprising (to me at least) is the fact that all of the restaurants we do have are essentially the same - the food is terrible, and the atmosphere usually isn't much better. Unfortunately, it seems as though each restaurant starts out trying to have a personality and a menu that tries to distinguish itself from the rest.

Shenanigans suffers from what I like to call "The Curse of the Foothills". When they first opened, there was a glimmer of hope. Could it be that we would finally have a neighborhood bar and restaurant like the ones I was used to from back east? The first time we visited Shenanigans, it was a mixed bag. The layout and decor didn't gel, and it seemed as though the place was having an identity crisis. Were they trying to be a family restaurant? A karaoke bar? A happy hour spot? A hipster bar? A sports bar? Believe it or not, they were trying to be all of these things, all at once, and it doesn't work. There was one surprise on that first visit, though, the food. The menu wasn't fantastically original, but there were some stand outs. The ahi tuna salad with asian slaw was excellent as was the half roasted chicken with honey glaze, both of which I had on repeat visits. I came to learn that Shenanigans was employing only chefs and culinary students in the kitchen, a great concept I thought. I could excuse the lack of identity in the dining room, and the weird vibe cast by noisy children running around well past what should have been their bed time in what's essentially a bar so long as it was made up for by decent, reasonably priced fare from the kitchen. The first three or so times we ate at Shenanigans, this is how things went. Then something changed.

It started with small changes to the menu. The excellent grilled veggie sandwich Pere enjoyed on several prior visits no longer came with the overly large house caesar salad while the price increased by nearly two dollars. Then came the day when the roast half chicken disappeared from the menu, followed by the beef tips. What was left, was a menu that looked just like every other menu in town - chicken fingers, nachos, a steak or two, burgers, and not too much else worth mentioning. As more items disappeared from the menu only to be replaced by crap, my desire to return to Shenanigans also diminished.

So, this brings me back to last night. I decided to give Shenanigans one more try. I was hungry, the evening was getting on, and I didn't feel like driving out of my way. Being a Monday night, the place was pretty empty. We were immediately seated in a booth, and ordered drinks. I had a Sapphire martini, up with three olives, and Pere had a Sapphire and tonic. My martini was actually pretty good. In almost all of my previous visits, the bar tender watered down my drink to the point that I could barely taste the gin.

After having a look at the menu, and not seeing much that interested me, I saw the one item remaining that I knew I consistently liked - the ahi tuna salad with japanese slaw. I ordered the salad, and Pere ordered a BLT and asked to substitute a caesar salad for the usual fries, fruit, or veggies. The waitress was happy to make the substitution.

When our meals arrived, I immediately new something was up. My salad was ringed with cucumber slices, and swimming in a sea of dark brown sauce. Not only that, but the usual Japanese slaw had been replaced with a very small pile of red cabbage. One taste of the salad and all hope was lost. The dark brown "dressing" turned out to be a soy based abomination of the usual dressing, which I had very much enjoyed on past visits. This dressing was so salty that it was almost impossible to eat. When the waitress returned, I asked her if they had recently changed the menu as the salad she brought me was different than the usual version. The menu hadn't changed, but the salad definitely had! She quickly took on a look of panic, and asked if I wanted to send it back. I considered this for a moment, but figured I was just going to chalk this one up as another bad experience. She offered to bring out some additional "coleslaw", to try to balance out the dressing. I agreed, and she returned a few minutes later with two cups. One was a traditional mayonnaise based slaw, and the other she called Japanese slaw. It looked exactly like the red cabbage and carrots already in my salad, and wasn't dressed. I finished my salad as best I could, more out of sheer hunger than anything else. It's a real shame, though, because the ahi tuna on the salad was perfectly seared around the edges and buttery smooth the rest of the way through. By all accounts, Pere's BLT was just fine.

When the waitress returned to ask about desert, we had had our fill of the place. Pere asked the waitress if the kitchen staff had changed recently, as we suspected they had given the menu was the same as the last time we visited. The waitress confirmed that to be the case. We let her know how disappointed we were with all of the recent menu changes to which she replied that she had lost some of her favorite menu items as well, and that it was just the owners reacting to the tasted of the patrons. That, unfortunately, hit the nail on the head for me. With all of the families coming in, non-chain restaurants are faced with a dilemma. Do they remain chef-driven and true to the type of restaurant they want to be, or do they succumb to the lowest common denominator ala our other neighborhood bar and grill, Auslers, where there are no less than 6 variations of chicken fingers on the menu, all of them terrible. Apparently Shenanigans has thrown in the towel. That meal was the last one I'll ever eat there. They've had their three strikes, and they're out.