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Entertainment available where service lacks |
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Thursday, 25 October 2007 |
It’s a Saturday night. The football game is over and you decide to go out with a few friends for a nice dining experience.
You step into the restaurant, or typical college pub, with full confidence that your culinary expertise is sufficient in choosing a competent staff to cater to your needs.
Unfortunately, halfway through the cuisine, somewhere in between the drunken kid face planting beside your table and being served three different kinds of nachos you never ordered, you realize how quickly a typical Saturday with friends can turn into a two-hour comedic act in which your table is the center.
The experience just described is one I had at a local college watering hole – the name of which will remain anonymous.
As my group walks into the restaurant, feeling lucky because we snagged
the last table, presuming this was a sign of good karma, we glanced at
our menus.
However, when the waiter approaches us to collect our drink orders, things take a turn for the worst.
“What can I get you to drink?” he said with a wad of Big Red caked to his left molars.
Meanwhile, I can smell the stench of marijuana and old cinnamon gum permeating from his mouth across the table.
If you’ve worked in the service business, you know the first rule is DO NOT chew gum.
When he finally returns with our drinks, wearing a different shirt (we never found out why), we decide we are ready to order.
We decide to get chips and queso to start off with. My friends both order sandwiches and I ordered the chicken fingers.
Our waiter runs off, but then almost immediately returns and asks “You wanted the Grande Nachos, right?”
“No, the queso dip and chips.”
I take this opportunity to ask, “Do you have sauce for the chicken fingers?”
He replies, “Yeah, I can get you some ranch.”
“What else do you have?”
“Oh Italian, Thousand Island, Vinaigrette, Bleu Cheese-”
As I thought to myself clearly these are salad dressing and not things to dip chicken in I said, “Do you have barbecue?”
“Yeah I can work that out.”
By this time, my friends and I were just getting a kick out of this guy.
We sit about thirty minutes without seeing our waiter, when finally he
shows up with Grande Nachos and ranch. He also had my chicken fingers
and barbecue sauce but nothing else that had been ordered.
Confused, we tell him this isn’t what we ordered, and he is stumped.
Once again, we tell him we wanted queso and ask to get the chicken fingers with the rest of the order.
His response? “You wanted it at the same time as theirs?”
Our group found this to be knee-slapping humor, unlike the average
dining connoisseur who would demand dessert, coffee, appetizers, and
next week’s meal all for the easy price of $0.00. But being in a
college town you have to see the humor rather than ruin your dining
experience.
Finally, our food comes – without the queso – but we give up on that.
Next, in what looks like it may become an unrequested four-course meal, our waiter brings us a basket of fries with ranch.
After waiting about 20 minutes for our check, we motion to the manager who finally sees our frustration.
We get the grande nachos we never wanted removed from our check and finally manage to pay.
Just as we are about to leave, our waiter returns yet again, this time with a black bean dip.
Laughter overtakes our table and we tell the waiter we were just planning to leave.
Many would consider the obscenities he said, the smell he reeked of and
the comedic obsession with ranch dip to be a terrible dining experience.
However, all in all, the two hour dinner wasn’t that bad.
I wouldn’t discourage anyone from visiting a local college pub.
I got five-star entertainment, even if it accompanied half-star service.
Lindsay Diedrich, a freshman undecided major from Southport, is an intern photographer.
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