Dime Store and the Book of Mormon.

We had a lovely brunch at Dime Store, which is at the location of the former Leo's Nonsmoking Coffee Shop.  I adored the former Leo's Nonsmoking Coffee Shop, not only for the name, but the vintage counters and the fact that the very nice proprietor would present you with a copy of the newspaper seconds after you sat down in your seat.  His wife did the cooking and the fare was standard diner.  Delicious.  

The proprietor and his wife retired this year and Dime Store has taken over the place.  They updated the restaurant a little, but the renovations stuck with the spirit of the former restaurant so I approved.

Here's the menu which also tells us at the bottom that a 5% surcharge is added to each tab to help offset the cost of employee health care.  I found this interesting.

Matt gets ready to eat.

There's a newsstand area.

I was debating between an omelet and something with greens when I turned and saw the special I knew would be mine.

Egg in a hole!  Delicious and so inexpensive.

This incredibly large container (think gallon of paint sized) of MSG was on display.  I asked from whence it came, but the server did not know.  That is a lot of MSG!

We both had dessert.  Matt had a healthy cookie and I had chocolate cream pie.  The filling was delicious and the crust very tough.  I answered honestly when the server asked and he offered to not charge me, or give me a cookie to go, but I figured I ate it, so I could pay for it.  I expect tough crusts from restaurants anyway.  But was impressed he really wanted to make it better.  Overall, this was a great dining experience.

Here we are waiting for the Book of Mormon to begin.

Guess what's in the program for the musical the Book of Mormon?

Not one, not two,

But three (3!) ads for the actual Book of Mormon!

This made me laugh.  A lot.  I do appreciate the media-savvy of the Mormon Church.

The production itself was fantastic, though for some reason I was not really prepared for the raunchy nature of the songs.  It's not like I haven't seen Stone & Parker's South Park, South Park: Bigger, Longer Uncut and Team America: World Police.  Also Avenue Q by co-creator Robert Lopez.  Knowing this team's past creations, my head wasn't quite on straight. It's raunchy and very, very funny.  The songs were catchy and also moving.  I will always appreciate the rhyme scheme of "Salt Lake City/shitty". Both "Salt Lake City" and "Hello" stuck in my head.

Also, there was dancing!  Tap dancing, even, which included a  massive quick costume change that is perhaps my favorite moment of musical theater in the past five years.  I also enjoyed the Uganda setting as it allowed for not only good culture contrast, but display of different kinds of singing and dancing.

All in all, it was worth the many years I've waited to see it.