A fast review of some fast food...

I've been hearing a lot of noise (primarily through Groupon) about Skippers promoting the sustainability of their seafood.  I'm unsure if it's just the Nampa location or a company-wide thing, but recently I found myself in that area of town and shrimp sounded pretty good.  I guess you know what happens next...

Whatever may (or may not) have changed regarding Skippers' seafood sourcing, little else has changed since I was last at a Skippers, which I'm pretty sure was during my pre-teen days.  Same minimalist nautical decor and everything.

See?

Same deep-fried menu too, though there are a few grilled options as well.  Still, I wasn't looking for healthy at the moment.  I ordered the popcorn shrimp platter, half a pound of the little buggers with a pile of fries and a side of coleslaw.  The zombie-like cashier (seriously, his expression never changed and his voice had no real character or distinction to speak of) asked if I wanted to add on some clam chowder, and since they're famous for it and I can't remember ever having tried it, I told him to go ahead.

Clam Chowder

I can see why Skippers is famous for their chowder.  It tastes good, and it's not fishy.  It's not fishy at all.  To me, it tasted like butter, flour and chicken broth.  Still, it was yummy in its own way.

Coleslaw.  Yup.

The coleslaw was, well, pretty standard coleslaw.  I still think the epitome of fast food slaw is KFC's, but this wasn't bad.

Fries and popcorn shrimp

I availed myself of the wide array of condiment pumping stations, where you can squirt your choice of tartar sauce, cocktail sauce, fry sauce, barbecue sauce, and ketchup into little paper dine-in or bigger plastic take-out containers.  The cocktail sauce did combat the slightly overcooked taste of the shrimp a bit, but the fries were pretty "meh" and no array or amount of sauces were going to change that.

I'll admit it, this is one of those cases where advertising kind of worked, and I thought that all-too-infrequently-indulged love of seafood might cause me to enjoy it more than I do most fast food.  It did, but not by a very wide margin.  If you like fast food and want to support a purportedly sustainable company (I haven't looked into the claim much), you might dig it.  It's certainly at a higher level than Long John Silver's, anyway.  As for me, if I'm getting fried seafood, there are better places closer to home.

Food:  Fast.
Value:  Eh.
Service:  I wish I could have seen behind the counter, I think someone might have been pupeteering that cashier.
Atmosphere:  Spartan, with an occasional nautical reference.
Final Grade:  C+