I hadn’t been intending to visit Prime Time – well, I had been eventually but not this particular Friday – and not after working in that sweltering dirty dusty building I’d been working in. The dust was everywhere and I felt pretty yucky, but the job was done for the moment and I felt pretty good about getting the first half of the project finished. The easy part, yeah, and I’d need to be back and finish the much longer part on Monday, but to end the week it was a nice treat to visit Prime Time. I’d been to the old Prime Time – the one that burned down, but hadn’t had a chance to visit the new one that had been built a couple of hundred feet away.
The new place was much more impressive. The building was bigger and there was much more parking – so much more so that it nearly always looked completely packed to me when I drove by, which admittedly wasn’t all that often, but often enough that I hadn’t stopped by yet. This was the perfect opportunity!!
We drove up in K’s enormous truck. She prides herself on her parking abilities and she deftly maneuvered that truck in to an available spot backwards – for a quick getaway no doubt. The building has enormous windows facing west, which must present a nice sunset view, however we were here during lunch (and I was going to order breakfast!!). The hours were interesting: no closing time was specified, just an opening time, did that mean that the casing time depended on the amount of folks still watching whatever game was on a particular night? Perhaps. I’d need to ask!
Right inside the door was a huge couch – seems like they must have some large crowds and occasionally have folks need to wait for an available table to have such a large entry area and sitting space. Just inside is also a nicely carved wooden reception/greeting counter where the super friendly greeting staff are waiting to seat everyone. When we arrived there wasn’t a wait and we immediately were given really nice spots. K proceeded to browse the menu while I wandered around some more and looked around some.
The first thing I noticed when I looked around was some Christmas-type lights hanging from the ceiling on the second floor in what looked like a private reservation-only area. Well, being the curious sort I wandered up there and got a few pictures. It was a really nice spot – I can imagine folks having private parties, gatherings, or any kind of special event there – seemed like a really nice venue, seriously. There was what looked like a public address system there for disk jockey-type activities or announcements – maybe receptions, reunions, things like that.
On the first floor to the right after I left the second floor was another huge room that wasn’t too full. I’m not sure how many folks this room can accommodate, but it looked like seventy or eighty – it seemed like a pretty big room! It also looked like there was a means to sub-divide the room where parties could reserve part of the room for gathers – like clubs or other meetings and not havre to own their space. Very convenient!
I made my way back to K and our table, and finally noticed the floor, it was a gorgeous multi-color wood, and in the room we were in there was a central column that has televisions facing in every direction, I think I counted six or seven televisions I could see from where I was sitting. Fantastic! There was all manner of sports on – the one that captured my attention though was the Mecum ate auctions, I always love to watch all of those amazing cars – if you haven’t read it check out my Bronco page, as you’ll see I’m a bit of a closet gearhead, but I digress.
Also in our room, which I failed to notice at first along the walls were large comfy booths. They were intended, I’m sure for parties of at least 6 and looked as bit as aircraft carrier landing strips. I sat at one and it was pretty comfy and I’m a stout fellow, so it has my approval! Our table was comfy as well. Nice wooden chairs that were well contoured and seemed to be well shaped for a relaxing meal and visit.
I finally got down to the very important business of the day – figuring out what I wanted to order – now as anyone who has been following this site for more than a moment or two knows – I likes me some breakfast, so I decided to order breakfast for lunch, because, breakfast! The other good thing was that they had my absolute favorite – Chicken Fried Steak, which I’m a huge fan of because its fantastic. The gentleman came by to take our orders – mine always gets ordered the same way (which usually gets an eye-roll from K – I usually order breakfast for lunch when I can) chicken fried steak, crispy potatoes, eggs over medium (sometimes scrambled with cheese) and rye bread (or biscuit – depending on mood) – or just to keep folks guessing.
The food arrived pretty quickly and I was pretty impressed – the gravy was thick and home-made, the potatoes were crispy as requested and the biscuit was home-made as well. K’s lunch also looked pretty good, she’d gone for a cheeseburger with sweet-potato fries both of which looked very yummy! As I started in on my lunch I noticed the gravy on my chicken fried steak also had bits of sausage and bacon in it. Heavenly!!! Probably some of the best gravy I’ve ever had, just scrumptious!!! I was super impressed and vowed to try more things at Prime Time as soon as I could.
Overall I was pretty happy K had chosen primetime for lunch, we have a normal few placed we go for lunch – our crew at work is pretty small and we normally stick pretty close to work, and primetime just isn’t close enough to get to with the time we have. This day we were in the area and she talked me into it and I’m glad she did. It was a four and a half HeyWillamette lunch for sure! I’ll definitely be going back to try more of their scrumptious offerings!!
Hey Willamette Valley 