Dining out has been a pleasant surprise.  There are tons of kid-friendly restaurants in the neighborhood and most things are pretty cheap.  We went to this chain restaurant called Texas Roadhouse, and the steak there was probably the best under $20 steak I ever remember having.  Usually those under $20 steaks are waaay worse than what I can grill at home.  Not sure if it is just this location or just being in Texas .  Yee haw!

They also have all- you-can-eat peanuts, so it's awesome for someone like me on a low carb diet.  The restaurant manager came over to say hi when he heard we just moved to the area and gave us a bag of peanuts and a coupon for a free appetizer.  Did I mention people in Texas were friendly?  That never happened in CT (and we had moved twice).  And I thought it was funny when he appeared offended when Mrs. Fly told him the steak was better than the Outback.  (As he should have been)

My old town had some good upscale restaurants but not a lot of great places to take the kids.  The closest eatery was one of my favorites in the town, the kind of place that had multiple kinds of caviar and a bunch of the entrees had all kinds of exotic stuff on it.  I couldn't care less about the barely discernible but absurdly overpriced ingredients, but their chef really knew how to cook.  Still only like 8 ozs of dead animal tho.  Save the black truffles for the pigs and give me the porterhouse for two, TY.  But being a cheap ass, it wouldn't happen very often I wanted to spend several hundred dollars on a meal.  Not when I have Mrs. Fly.

And a surprising number of restaurants don't even have a liquor license, so we save a ton of money on wine.  I was a bit surprised some places didn't have a liquor license, because I thought liquor was one of the high-margin items at a restaurant.  But then I saw one place with bottled beers for $2.25 and then I realized that especially at a family restaurant, it may not be that profitable.  I mean, in the northeast, it's more common for beer to be $5-6.  But hey!  I'm not complainin'!

So we've had a number of meals at restaurants where the meal for the family was under $30.  We could only do that at McDonald's in CT (but just barely).

<3 Texas