In the mood for a cheap meal at a casual restaurant? You can get it at “The Place” What place? “The Place.” Yes, The Place is the name of the restaurant, if you can even call it that.

The word restaurant gives off a more formal vibe-tables and chairs, tablecloths, flowers and a hostess. The Place is more of a family barbeque if you will. Located in Guilford on the Boston Post Road, The Place is more of a vacant lot than an actual “place.” It is only open seasonally since it is operated completely outdoors.

Upon entering, customers seat themselves at rickety wooden, cable spool tables complete with vases of wildflowers and tree stumps for chairs. Yes, tree stumps.

It may not sound like a fancy place, but you can’t beat the food or the prices. All the food is cooked on 3-4 enormous barbeque grills and the menu is painted on a big rickety, scoreboard-looking billboard.

The highlights of the menu include the clam special, baby-back clams on a half-shell with a delicious red sauce, succulent, oversized corn-on-the-cob, grilled right in the husk, big juicy steaks, and $15 lobsters.

Everything is served to you right on the grill racks and, if you are eating clams, the waiters dump the shells right on the ground. All of the “gravel” located throughout The Place is a collection of crushed shells.

A typical meal runs between $6 and $10. Seafood is a little more expensive, but not much. The Place offers drinks and dessert but the regulars bring their own alcohol, soda, and side dishes.

The Place is big party friendly but call ahead because it’s always packed.

If you are in the mood for a nice, sit-down dinner, go to a “restaurant.” But if you are in the mood for something different: good food, good prices, a good time, and you don’t mind throwing away your own trash, go to The Place.