I need to get out more…and travel, so I can review some bathrooms not in the Sacramento area. Which reminds me…if you’re interested in writing for us, pop me an email at goodies[at]nobathanksthroomgoodies[dot]com. We’d love to hear from ya (and hopefully get a crazy bathroom or two in!)

Okey dokey…wow, this was further back than I thought! Here I was thinking I was gonna talk a bit about the Double Down sandwich and it turns out this was a much earlier outing (I guess twice in 3-4 months isn’t horrible). So I can only guess this was about the time they released the grilled spicy wings (would be about right…around football season marching toward “the big game”—thanks for not suing me, NFL!). On a side note, the Double Down sandwich a couple months later was alright, but overly greasy (they were fresh…think they might have needed to sit a bit), and frankly, missing a bun. Not sure about the missing bun thing…although it probably saves a couple hundred calories off a quarter of your daily intake (540 original/460 grilled…nearly half from fat…from KFC’s nutritional document—requires Adobe Reader). Two trips in four months now seems like more than enough.

Anyway…onto the bathrooms…they’re more or less your “neo-typical” fast-food bathrooms. Nothing fancy, but not the old dingy look from back in the day. They’re nicely accented with red tiles on the white background, and the staff does a decent job of keeping them clean. I’ll give ‘em 3 rolls for a clean bathroom and not the plain ol’ white.

I always like to see clean restrooms in fast food joints because it’s slightly encouraging that the kitchen may not be terrible. People get all weirded out with bacteria and grease build-up, but are a-okay with eating two slices of pepperjack cheese and two slices of bacon between two fried chicken breasts…

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

I honestly can’t remember what I had that night, but I can say without a doubt my bread choice was a sourdough roll. Sourdough bread has to be on my all-time list of favorite breads, very near (if not at) the top—and Claim Jumper does a great job on their sourdough. I even tried to become a fan on Facebook, or join a group, or something…but there weren’t any good ones (well, there was one, but it was for bakers intersted in naturally leavened breads, pretty outside my scope of “sourdough bread tastes good, I like to eat it…”). If you’re interested, you can see it here.

Okay, enough food talk…let’s get to the meat and potatoes of this review!

Their bathroom utilize dark woods and dark-colored tiles (dark green and a purple-red), and offsets that with bright lighting and a white floor (although there are dark green tiles in the floor). The result is a warm inviting—almost cheery—bathroom that’s not overly intimate or too cozy. Claim Jumper keeps their bathrooms clean, which is pretty amazing since it’s hard to even get a seat in the bar area (where we ended up sitting) on a Saturday night. Add to that generous portions and a stacked bar and if you weren’t on top of things…well, I’ll leave that to your imagination—Enjoy!

Claim Jumper gets four rolls for cleanliness and design…and I still don’t really get why bathrooms need to have AC adapters…hmm…maybe I shouldn’t ask…

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Boy how times have changed—this bathroom uses woodgrain stalls and tiles with a woodgrain-ish appearance. I don’t really get why buildings built in the last few years use manual toilets anymore, it seems people oppose flushing (or maybe just touching the flusher) and automatic toilets certainly keep things cleaner. In picture four you’ll see hand washing instructions, which I found interesting since McD’s never gave up the hot-air hand dryers (I hate those things)…sort of a throwback to those days of yore. Three rolls for a clean bathroom; it’d get three-and-a-half except for those air dryers.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

This bathroom is pretty plain, but fast food franchisees have enough to worry about without making the bathroom exciting for connoisseuers such as myself. Sorry, Wendy’s in Roseville, that doesn’t get you off the hook. I found the layout kind of interesting, for a second (see picture four) I thought someone was gonna open that door into me while I was using the facilities. It turns out that the wall prevents that from happening. The bathroom is colorful though, so they get props for that (it’s worth a half-roll, not too shabby). I found what looks to be an access door for the hand dryer pretty amusing, and frankly I’m not sure why they have a 110-volt wall plug in the bathroom, but I guess if you really need to blow-dry your hair it makes sense. Three rolls for a clean colorful bathroom.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Overall, the bathroom is clean and well-designed. I’m not sure why there’s only one urinal, that seems odd where the minimum is usually two. It’s not a big deal or a dealbreaker, just odd. I love the tile floor you can see in picture three, and I had to laugh when I looked at the emergency lights (shown in picture four). The thought of getting stuck in a bathroom when an emergency occurs and having it lit up like a football stadium makes me laugh. Yeah, I probably do need help. Three-and-a-half rolls.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

So…the bathroom. First, red seems to be the prevalent color (if we don’t treat white as a color…and in fact, in paint, it’s the absence of color, so…), which really surprised me at first. Blue I could understand, since there’s so much blue in IHOP’s logo, design, etc. (maybe they felt the need to balance it out, or maybe the womens’ bathroom is blue…hmm). On further consideration, it makes perfect sense…IHOP uses red to accent their logo (and, as you can see here, the mens’ restroom). Check out the fourth picture for instructions on hand-washing (they provide the instructions in both Spanish and English…but not Spanglish). They even give you pictures, just in case you don’t speak either. Look closely and you’ll see someone autographed the soap dispenser…BRILLIANT! The fifth and final picture shows what I think are light switches (maybe key-controlled?). If anyone knows how these work, please share! Three-and-a-half rolls for a clean well-designed bathroom (especially with the red accent reflecting the logo), crazy light switches, and an autographed soap dispenser.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

The restroom is done in green-and-white, carrying over the color scheme of the restaurant. Interestingly enough, they had a baby-changing station in the mens’ room…so let me get this straight…they’re forward-thinking socio-politically but not green-ly or economically (i.e., by using automated toilets, sinks, soap dispensers, and lighting systems). Not that I’m knocking them for the changing station, I’d much rather babies use changing stations than sinks (let’s face it, the last thing I want is to be washing my hands and hit by some newborn’s overspray). Three-and-a-half rolls for an average clean bathroom maintaining the color scheme and including the changing station.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

On Saturday (9/12/09), the ‘Cats won 13-8…there were some parts where it looked like the Rainier were comin’ back with a vengeance—but then both teams brought in relief pitchers and that was the end of that. You’ll notice in the very last picture they had a sign talking about saving water and how the toilet you’re sitting on saves water. Interestingly enough, the sign was printed with “Sacramento River Cats” logos, but not with the name of the local water authority (instead it said “Regional Water Authority”). Those last 3 pictures are from Saturday…everything else is from Friday.

Onto the bathroom!

If you’ve already seen the pictures, I’m sure you can tell that I love this one (probably based on the sheer volume of pictures)…it’s clean, it’s colorful, and it includes quotes of some of the greatest (some would say Harry Caray and Yogi Berra were the greatest) announcers ever. Keeping with the theme, the designers put up posters/advertisements for River Cats “specialty” nights (like “Flashback Baseball”—baseball from the 40′s to the 80′s), the current run for the pennant, etc. When you think about it, this really makes a whole lot of sense…because when lines get long, it helps to have something to take your mind off how badly you need to use the facilities. Four rolls for design, keeping people stuck waiting thinking about other things, keeping the bathroom clean (have you seen Oakland Coliseum?), and keeping it interesting with the quotes.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

For what it’s worth, this review took place Friday, 9/11/09.

Anyway, this bathroom itself is pretty clean; the color scheme is certainly questionable though…green straight out of A Clockwork Orange mated to light “wood” stalls and dark red adobe-ish tiles on the floor. I think maybe this was a final for a design class…I’m guessing the grade was an F. I suppose in another time, this might have been très chic, but I’m glad I wasn’t around (or didn’t understand) then. This bathroom’s design really seems forced (again, maybe in a different era…but the tiles and faux wood don’t look that old, so I don’t think the design is more than 5-10 years at oldest…at least not the light wood). Further, the faux wood on the stall is much lighter and brighter than the door…if the stall and door matched better, it would alleviate some of the issues.

Worsening things, if you look at photo #4, you’ll notice the placement of the urinal in relation to the door. Not good…someone comes in a little too fast and you’re lucky if all that happens is you end up splashing yourself…I could see a faceplant that while hilarious (and potentially illegal) if caught on candid camera would be exceptionally painful, disgusting, and embarassing.

Here’s another bathroom without paper towels. Seriously, people, paper towels are not the bane of all that is good. It won’t kill you to use paper towels, and it won’t destroy forests if you use recycled paper or paper from renewable forests. Two-and-a-half rolls for design (color and door/urinal placement) and lack of paper towels.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

See…the apples are great, they really add some “crunch” to the bathroom. I was thinking that they carried that design over, so they must have also carried some of their photos or sports memorabilia or something else to make the bathroom interesting. They didn’t…I was disappointed. I’m not sure if other Applebee’s do or not, it’s been so long that I’ve been in one I just can’t remember (although I seem to recall some of them putting up sports sections and the like). The bathroom was kept up though, so they get 3.25 rolls…but I’m going to round this one up because of the apples.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars