The Spinning Fork in Fairfield

A few Saturday’s ago, my family went on a road trip to Fairfield.  Well, ok, not really a road trip, it was only a 20 minute drive. But with kids, anything over a 5 minute car ride means I plan – books, a drink, electronic games and sometimes a snack. That particular day, I was a slacker. I didn’t bring food, hunger pangs hit which meant we needed to stop for dinner. And as I’m sure most of the Mom’s on here can agree with, any excuse to not have to think about, execute and then clean up a dinner is fine with me.

We decided to try our luck with Italian and so we headed into the Spinning Fork which is on Route 4 in Fairfield (address is 6765 Dixie Highway, Fairfield, OH  45014).  When we walked into the restaurant, I looked at my husband and he looked at me and our looks were all about panic.  This place looked pretty and fancy.  Not that’s there’s anything wrong with either, but with two kids with us who could take this place down in 2 minutes or less, it wasn’t our normal, shall we say, dive we tend to frequent.

I wanted a nice meal, so I asked to see a menu.  After a quick look and a sense of relief we asked for a table. Our service was superb! Milk was available (drives me NUTS when restaurants don’t have milk) and came in a cup with a lid (another plus mark!).   Children were not an afterthought at this restaurant – in addition to having milk and kid friendly cups, The Spinning Fork makes a boys menu and a girls menu so the games and puzzles are gender specific which I thought was a very nice touch; the kids had their own special little tray with crayons and their silverware wrapped up in paper napkins (ours were in cloth); booster seats were available and they were clean; and best of all, the kids menu had some nice choices on it for a very reasonable price. I think the best thing was NO TV! or at least none that we could see anywhere.  Woo hoo! We actually had to talk to each other – if there’s a tv around, my kids are glued to it, so it was really nice to not have to say “stop watching the tv and eat”.

We were also placed a little bit away from the fray. I don’t mind this or feel like we were being punished for coming in with kids.  I have good kids, but they’re kids – volumes tend to be louder than normal and laughter is always encouraged.  I never want people around me to feel that they have to tolerate my children and I don’t want to spend my time constantly asking them to pipe down.

Our food was really really good. Both my kids ordered spaghetti and meatballs and the portions were huge. We could have easily split an order between them and they would have had plenty of food (and my kids are eaters). We had our choice of white or brown pasta (loved having this choice!) that the menu stated was made in-house daily. Breadsticks came with meal and were hot and fresh.  The menu offered simple pasta dishes to elaborate ones. We didn’t want to go hog wild, so went with simple choices. The quality and freshness of our food was evident and our meals were delicious.

We passed on dessert which is normal for us, and so our bill including drinks (no alcoholic), an appetizer and four meals was just shy of $40.  I wish we had more excuses to travel to Fairfield as I know everyone in my family would love to eat at the Spinning Fork again.  I apologize for the lack of photos for this post, my phone was out of juice that day (love my droid most of the time!).

If you’re looking for a quality, family friendly, Italian restaurant, I don’t think you could go wrong by heading to the Spinning Fork.

Please stop over and see me on my personal blog, Princess Poodle Puss.