We have a new restaurant in
town. I won’t name names, but it is a well know chain that serves breakfast and
the name is suggestive of the idea of what you would be doing if you picked up
one leg and moved about a room and then you told someone that you did it, but
spoke the sentence in the present tense. Ok, just think what a rabbit does.
We live in a small town. So
a new restaurant is big news - and mobbed – whether it is good or not – for weeks
– simply because it is new and pickings are slim in the world of food around
here.
Today, finally my husband
and I decided to try it for lunch (11:15 a.m.). We got right in, no waiting. One crisis
averted (at least to my husband). As the hostess was taking us to our table a
server was following us like a gnat. I mean I seriously felt like turning to
her and shooing her away or least yelling – GIVE
ME SOME SPACE WEIRDO! But I refrained, after all what
if she was our server? As we sat down she moved away, so I kind of wish I HAD shooed her like I was doing in my
mind since she wasn’t going to be serving us food, but I live by the rule that decorum
must be maintained at all cost. So I was just kidding myself – I never would
have done it - but it is fun to think about.
But then SHE (the gnat) sachets over to our table
and asks what we would like to drink. Diet whatever and unsweet tea is what we
tell her. “Do you want some juice,” she asks? No, diet whatever and unsweet tea
please. “Well, 22% of my sales need to be juice, so do you want some juice?”
NO.Thank.You. What the hell?
She goes off to get our
drinks and returns a good 5-7 minutes later and states, “Sorry I took a day and
half to get back to you, but I had a rude customer I had to deal with. Sheesh,
there are a lot of those.” She did bring me a diet drink, but she brought my
husband SWEET tea, which we found out
after she left our table – to go to the bathroom. We caught her eye on her exit
(don’t you just love being seated next to the bathroom while you eat?) and told
her of the error. She proceeded to bring my husband another glass of tea and states
she is sorry, but that this indeed is unsweet. He tastes it AND IT WAS SOURED! We call her back
again to the table and inform her of the undrinkable drink and she says – “Thank
you for telling us we would never know if customers didn’t tell us – AND –
would you like some juice?” Now I am to the WTF stage and starting to
understand why she may have those ‘rude’ customers.
She takes our order, goes
to the visible cash register and rings it up – I assume. Then she goes into the
bathroom.
We wait & wait &
wait & wait & wait. While we were waiting she took someone else’s order
and then went to the bathroom AGAIN.
Either she is phobically clean or something is going on. Another server brought
our food – minus my husband’s sausages and pancakes. We call her over again and
she notices the missing flapjacks and goes to the kitchen to get them. She then
exits the kitchen with his piping hot stack AND TAKES THEM TO ANOTHER TABLE. (Oh,
did I tell you we were sitting right next to the kitchen entrance/exit as well
as the bathroom? So very appetizing!) Now, she was going to the kitchen to get our table missing pancakes only moments before and upon her exit with those pancakes had to walk right behind my husband to take these pancakes to a different
table. She looks positively shocked when they tell her that were not theirs! They inform her they are OURS - and point to us - and she finally brings
them back to us. We informed her of the still missing sausages, so she went back
to the kitchen, came out – with no sausage – and went – you guessed it – to the
bathroom.
Finally the manager comes
to our table and asks how things are. I tell him we are missing sausages! Our
server overhears and yells from several tables away, “I TOLD THEM TWICE IN THE
KITCHEN! IT ISN’T MY FAULT!” I am now back to WTF land.
We receive sausages pronto.
Our server then starts to
talk to another server and goes BACK TO
THE BATHROOM! I just can’t even make this stuff up.
This time however, when she
came out, she has something clenched in her fist. She walked up to the other
server and in sleight of hand tried to hand it to her without anyone seeing. BUT I SAW. It wasn’t creamer, it wasn’t
Sweet N Low, it was a small plastic baggy. The kind of baggies I only know about because my husband watches so many cop shows! The kind of baggies drug dealers and drug users claim are not theirs when the cops find them in their pocket. As I watch, the other server surreptitiously
took the item and clenched it in her hand as well and then sneekily (is that a word?) clasped her palm as she
walked through the dining room. When she walked into the kitchen area – she slipped
it in her pocket. Drug deal. I witnessed a drug deal – AT BREAKFAST – IN A
RESTAURANT!
After our server dropped
some silverware on the floor and still put it back in the basket of clean ones,
talked over us to another server about how to cheat and get a break sooner
and then talked to yet another one about what she was going to eat on break WHILE she was handing us the bill – it was
time to get the hell out of there. Never to return.
I probably should have said
something to the manager – but he was MIA.
Experiences like this are
why I prefer to eat at home.
