Progressive Dinner Date Night

{Destri & Aubrey}

Awhile back my family and I stopped in to stay at Aubrey’s house, and we went on the funnest double date ever.  We decided to do a progressive dinner; start out at one restaurant for appetizers, one for main course, and one for the dessert.  We had to actually make two stops for dessert, I am sure you understand .  What made it so fun was how involved our hubbies were, they actually loved the idea!  Also, you know when no one can decide on where to eat, because we don’t want to be the “picker”?  Well, this makes it easy It almost felt like a scavenger hunt, and gave us plenty to talk about the entire night.  Want to know the details and hear a few tips for planning a progressive dinner?  I promise I have some good ones!  I’ll see you after the jump…

We started by deciding which restaurants we wanted to got to.  Then we thought about what course of each restaurant we liked best. I for one wanted to hit Cheesecake Factory because we don’t have one where we live, everyone was on board with that.  They have great appetizers, so that would be our first stop.  The men wanted a steak, so Aubrey’s husband Tyler picked out a great steakhouse.  That took care of our main course.  As for a dessert, we all decided The Melting Pot, really it doesn’t get better than twenty different things dipped in a pot full of melted chocolate.  Unless your Aubrey…more on that in a minute.

We shared the same car which made it fun, it just added to the adventure feel of the evening.  When we went to the Cheesecake factory we knew there would be a wait.  Aubrey and I put our names on the list, but our hubbies were one step ahead of us.  They just got us a table in the bar (which was open right away), which was perfect because all we were eating were appetizers, so again it added to the fun. Tip #1: Eat at the bar at your first stop, then you don’t have to wait for a table. Each of us ordered an appetizer and we all shared.

We had made reservations at the steakhouse, which made it nice because we didn’t have to wait.  Tip #2: Make a reservation for the main course stop. And like I said before, the conversation was so fun.  We had something fun going on with the night, and the different car trips broke up the conversation.  I can tend to go on and on about the same thing, so I think my husband rather liked that part .

Just as we were on our way to The Melting Pot, Aubrey had a an idea.  “Hey guys, it looks like we are running a little late…how about we just go to get yogurt instead!”  Dead silence in the car.  Tyler whips out his phone like a super agent and calls the babysitter to okay another hour (thank goodness, I mean come on! -Yogurt verses melted chocolate?  Sheesh!). So we were still on for The Melting Pot!  And then we all looked at Aubrey’s face and knew we had to make a pit stop .  Tip #3- Leave room for 2 desserts. You should see Aubrey in a yogurt joint!  In the picture above she is already fifteen minutes into trying to decide which flavor to get.  I have to say that was one of our funnest stops.

Finally, we ended at The Melting Pot.  Tip #4 – Make sure your last stop has late hours – It might help to tell then you only plan on eating dessert.  For me, having the little breaks in between meals helped me to never feel too full, which left plenty of room for dessert.  Our waitress was curious as to why we were only there for dessert, and so we told her about our date night.  She got a kick out of it, so that fact made it fun too.

It really was a the best double date, and a great way to spend a night with fun friends.  I especially loved that our husbands were so into it.  I was worried that they would think it was far too much work for a meal, but surprisingly, they were really enthusiastic about it.  So if you get a chance, try it out!

So how about you, have you ever had an unusual date night like a progressive dinner?  Let’s hear it!  I’m sure we would all love some new ideas!

Tagged as: for us moms, married life