Chedd's

What's not to love about grilled cheese? Or better yet, a restaurant solely dedicated to the existence of the grilled cheese sandwich? And so there we have Chedd's, a Denver-based operation, now with it's third store in the franchise, up at the Triangle. (And for those of you who have been in Austin for more than 5 years, you may remember fondly when this area was just a big grassy patch of land, across from Texas Dept. of Health, where Lamar & Guadalupe streets come together...they talked about developing that land for YEARS before anyone actually did something about it, and from what I can tell, they've been rather successful.)

It's a much smaller shop than I envisioned, maybe because the pictures on their website make it look like huge (maybe the one's in Colorado are...). But it's casual, and the service was friendly. The menu, however is almost overwhelming; I had studied it online a bit before meeting friends for lunch, but still had no clue what I wanted. They have over 30 sandwich offerings to choose from (I was very tempted by the French Kiss), OR, you can build your own sandwich by choosing from 35+ kinds of cheese, add-ons/fixin's, bread options, etc. I decided to build my own, with chipotle cheddar and bacon on multigrain. My order taker said they were out of the chipotle cheddar, and after a couple suggestions and ensuing discussion, I opted for the jalapeno jack. I had procured a 20% off coupon, so my friends and I all ordered on the same ticket. One of them ordered the Meatless Horse, but wasn't told that they were out of the same chipotle cheddar. So, maybe the order taker didn't realize there was chipotle cheddar in that sandwich, but we're sitting there eating, and she's like "I don't taste anything spicy, there's no chipotle flavor." Whoops. So again, they were friendly, and brought the finished sandwiches to our table, but it would have been nice to know they were out of one of the ingredients upfront.

It is nice that you can order a half sandwich of anything, and if you bump up your sandwich to a combo meal, you get your choice of chips or salad... maybe soup too, I can't totally remember. And they do have tomato soup, for all those who grew up on tomato soup & grilled cheese. Overall, my sandwich was good, not greasy on the outside, cheese sufficiently melted on the inside, but the bacon was not crisp, so I'll take some points off there. Would I go back? Yes. Would I want to be in there with a ton of kids? No. But does it take you back to your childhood years? Duh.