Tag Archives: Storytime

Random Story Time–Pizza Voyeur

Posted by anachostic on May 28, 2023 No comments

This story takes place in the early ‘90’s. I was working at my first employer, a local pizza place. I didn’t really have any experience of how work “worked”, and was just learning and growing, as young workers do.

So anyways, one day I come in to work and the I’m immediately stopped by one of the managers. He’s angry AF. I hadn’t done anything wrong, I was on time for work, and so the whole thing just caught me off guard. My memory of the incident is a little hazy, but I want to say the other manager was behind him and she had not an angry expression, but had a really concerned look on her face.

We’re still in the entranceway of the employee entrance and I don’t see anyone else in the store right then. The manager orders me in a stern tone, “Show me your shoes.” What? I don’t think I actually responded but probably had an extremely confused look on my face. He ordered me again, “Lift up your foot, show me your shoes.” I don’t even think this second order sunk in. It just sounded like a joke. Maybe I laughed. I’m just wearing black sneakers. I just came in, so it’s not like I tracked shit around the store or anything.

Again, “I’m being serious. Show me the bottom of your shoe.” And with complete confusion, I complied. He looked closely at my shoes and with a somewhat relieved tone, said, “ok.” He and the other manager went back to the office and I was left completely baffled.

And now, the rest of the story.

It turns out that a discovery was made in the back storage room. Some bags of flour had been stacked up and apparently some shoe prints were found on the bags. They were trying to find out whose shoes had a matching pattern. The reason for this witch hunt was not any health or safety violation. The bags were stacked up against the side wall of the bathroom, and the elevated position provided a viewing spot through a small crack near the top of the wall.

Yup, there was a voyeur in our ranks. While my memory of the female manager is a little spotty, I clearly remember that at the time we had recently hired two other females to work phones and register during busy nights. Otherwise, the place was all dudes.

It didn’t occur to me then, but looking back at it now, I wonder if I should be offended that I was accosted that strongly. Was I that much of a suspect? Or maybe everyone was treated like that? I have no idea. But, after the full story came out, there was one person that was the first suspect in everyone’s mind: Bruce.

Bruce was the son of Jack. Both Bruce and Jack worked at the store as delivery drivers. Bruce was about as awkward and different as you would expect a peeping tom to be. For what it’s worth, Jack was a Baptist minister in the town, so no telling what kind of upbringing Bruce had. Although he was only the prime suspect in everyone’s mind, Bruce never worked there another day after that event. An official ruling was never made. The rumor was that his dad called him and told him not to come in, which is pretty outrageous, but nowadays, seems like it would be just normal.

And it was never discussed again.

Too Big To Fail, Too Big To Succeed

Posted by anachostic on April 5, 2018 No comments

I was browsing my old posts and found a semi-promise to relate a story about a massive keyboard I didn’t want anymore. And the thought of that coincided with something I’ve given thought to in the past with collections.

But first, the story. At one point in my studio, I had five keyboards. Two 88-key and three 61 key synths. On one rack, behind my desk, I had the General Music Equinox and the Casio CZ-1.

On the wall to the right of my desk, I had the Roland RD-600 and a CME UF6. The CME did not have any sounds; it was just a performance controller. Sadly, the computer drivers went out of date before I could ever use it. I’ve actually forgotten where it went or what I did with it.

And in storage was an old Ensoniq ESQ-1, my first professional-grade keyboard. It was awesome to the end. That keyboard was eventually sold for a pittance to a guy I was in a club with. I should have just kept it in storage.

Anyway, I didn’t have a real use for all these keyboards, especially two 88-key controllers. The Equinox had to go. I wasn’t looking to make money on it, I thought it would be a fair trade for a mixer, which is something I did have a need for at the time.

I have a Guitar Center in my town, so I loaded up the Equinox in the GF’s car and we headed down to make a deal. This keyboard is a beast, all metal case, weighted keys, hard drive, floppy drive, sequencer, the works. But when I get to the equipment guy at Guitar Center, he looks it over and just says, “nah.” Not literally, but he said as politely as possible that they did not want it. I explained that I didn’t want cash for it, I wanted to do a trade. That didn’t change his mind. So I was bummed out and got ready to pick the monster back up to haul it outside again. But then the sales guy asked, “What were you looking to get for it, anyway?”

And I can’t definitely explain why that question caused me to see red. Maybe I thought he was mocking me after telling me my keyboard was worth nothing to them. It was a pointless question, completely unnecessary. Like if I said, 50 bucks, he would change his mind? Did he want to see just how desperate I was? Was he looking to either take advantage of a low price or laugh at me for an unrealistic price? All these thoughts rushed through my mind and I just snapped at him. “Nothing, if you’re not interested in taking it!” And things got awkward, partially because my outburst didn’t really make any sense.

I stormed out of Guitar Center carrying my massive anchor under my arm and the GF followed me out, silently and probably sheepishly. I’m not one for making a scene (unless someone forgets my SPOON), so it was just bad all around. And you know what kind of hurt the most? I bought that keyboard used from the Guitar Center in Plymouth Meeting before I came to Florida. They’ll sell it, but they won’t trade for it.

So fuck Guitar Center. After calming down and reassessing, I decided to try the other option, Sam Ash Music. This would require a longish drive, like an hour away. So I loaded the Equinox up and headed out solo. This sales guy tried to set my expectations low. He said that nobody really wanted these old synthesizers anymore and the best he could do is try to sell it as a MIDI controller. Yeah, yeah, I hear ya. He said he could give me $150 for it.

As insulting as that was, I pressed on. I asked if I could do a trade for a mixer and he warmly agreed. We walked over to the mixers and I reviewed what I could get for $150. There was an ok model, but a much better one was there for $200. So I asked him if I could get the $200 mixer. He said yeah, we could do that. We had a deal. (Spoiler: we didn’t.)

The sales guy gets the mixer, does up all the paperwork for the keyboard trade and he sends me off to the cashier. She punches everything in and says that’ll be $54. Excuse me? This was a trade. She says yeah, the keyboard is a $150 credit and your mixer is $200. The sales guy gets called back over. I ask him what’s going on and he reiterates that we agreed the keyboard would be $150. I explain that I thought when we were looking at mixers and I asked if I could get the $200 mixer, we were negotiating. Nope, we were not negotiating at all.

I didn’t want to storm out of a second store in a blind fury, so I sucked it up and bought my $200 mixer for $50 and unloaded an anchor. In hindsight, I should have kept the keyboard in storage. I could have gifted it to someone who really wanted to play music.

So that’s the story of the Equinox. I said that that the circumstances of that story made me think of collections. The other night I did a quick Craigslist search for CDs and found someone selling his collection of “over 750” CDs. First of all, you don’t have an accurate count, that’s strike one. You don’t have a list of albums or even artists, strike two. You can’t make out any titles from the photos you posted, strike three. And for your strikeout, what were you looking to get for it, anyway? $2,250? hmmmm. Ok. $3/CD is fair, if I want ALL the CDs. But at this point, from what I know about the collection, I want zero.

This is the curse of all collections, that the bigger they get, the less aggregate value they have and the more individual value they potentially have. It’s the same problem with thrift shops and many flea market dealers. They make the incorrect assumption that every CD is worth the same. Any intelligent person would agree that is not true at all. And as the valuable CDs are snatched up, you are left with nothing but junk that is worth far less than the price you are asking.

Misunderstood

Posted by anachostic on February 16, 2018 No comments

I don’t know why I have this little hangup about posts where I feel if I don’t have at least a certain wordcount, it’s not really worth posting at all. I’m pretty sure I’ve talked about how different social platforms are optimized for different message lengths, but blogging is supposed to be for the longest form of writing. Well, not today. Story time!

I’m out at lunch at Hungry Howies, enjoying my usual small pizza with light sauce and pepperoni, when I notice a wasp out of the corner of my eye in the window. I can immediately tell the wasp is agitated, but that is sort of a moot observation because wasps have no chill and are always agitated.

Without trying to cause too much alarm and make myself a target, I visually confirm which side of the glass the wasp is on. It’s my side, the worse of the two available sides. I watch the wasp carefully, without making direct eye contact. I want to know what his plans are, maybe to continue pushing against the glass or maybe to go elsewhere, like my face.

After a while of watching, less than a minute for sure, I decided the wasp must be killed so I may eat in peace. So I get up from my booth and go up to the counter to get a killing implement. A woman meets me at the counter and I ask, “Do you have a fly swatter?” She says sure and disappears. The woman took longer than I would expect, but eventually comes back with a paper cup and a lid. I’m thinking to myself, “What the fuck. You want me to trap this thing in a cup?”

She holds the cup and lid out to me and says, “That’s the best I could do.” I make no move to take the items from her and I must’ve had the strangest expression on my face, because she pulled back and asked, “You said you wanted an ice water?”

No. That isn’t what I wanted.

Evading Death

Posted by anachostic on December 13, 2017 No comments

Story time.

It’s been very cold here recently, which makes me think of snow. As I was working on my previous post regarding driving, I remembered a story that I shouldn’t have lived to tell about. This was a long time ago when I was in “college”. Let’s see how many of the details I can remember.

Back then, I would have been driving… what? It was probably a 1987 Dodge Lancer (turbo, of course). I probably had recently gotten rid of my 1969 Mustang (fastback, of course). The car is sort of important if you want to imagine what the result of my youthful stupidity could have looked like, but it doesn’t factor into any details of the story.

I was “going” to “school” at The Art “Institute” of Pittsburgh (for music production, of course) and we were coming up on a holiday break. Probably Christmas, considering the weather. I never really got close to anyone at school. I was pretty much a loner and I had an apartment kind of removed from the school, which was downtown. Other students were all in a common apartment building near the school so they had opportunities to socialize. But whatever. Me being a loner is nothing new.

But, fate was doing some weird shit that holiday. The last day of class, before leaving, I happened to talk to the class burnout. This guy was a major acid user and always complained about his back hurting. (Minor research says that the pain was nothing involving spinal fluid and was probably muscle tension, which is contrary to what we all believed at the time) So, in my rare discussion with him, I found out he lived in a city less than half an hour from me. And he had no way to get home for Christmas. So I offered him a ride, since I was driving almost two hours that direction anyway. And he accepted. We’d never spoken much before and now we were going on a car ride for a couple of hours. That’s not exactly normal for me. I’m probably going to be driving with someone tripping on acid. Again, not normal. I mean, I was the only person in my entire circle of friends that didn’t smoke pot, but acid? That’s another plane of existence (for both of us).

School’s out, we’re loaded up in my car and we headed north. Winter in the wasteland means it gets dark early. Like nighttime at 5:00pm dark/early. And it’s interstate driving the whole way. And it’s winter. And… we enter a blizzard. There’s hardly any way for me to really explain the gravity of this. I drove, me and this burnout doper, we drove through this blizzard in near white-out conditions, at full fucking highway speed. I drove at probably 70 miles an hour, for at least an hour. There was not a single car on the highway. There was not a single snowplow truck on the highway. There was nobody out but us. For at least an hour. If there was anyone – anyone – out on the highway, we would be dead. Snowy roads with near zero visibility at 70 miles an hour. No one would be able to avoid a collision or swerving off the road to their death. For most of the drive, I don’t think we spoke much at all. The snow flying over the windshield was like a hypnotic screen saver (in the days before screen savers). Maybe my passenger was tripping, I wouldn’t know. But if he was, the visuals would have been stupendous.

I remember not taking him directly to his house, but dropping him off somewhere along the way. He said he was going to meet someone there who would drive him home. This is pre-cell phone era, so I don’t even know how this was planned. I don’t remember much after that. I don’t seem to remember him coming back to school after Christmas break. I didn’t stay long in school after that incident either. I’d become a little suspicious about how would there would be jobs for all these music production graduates, so I eventually dropped out.

But that shared moment was something that just defies reality to me. Foremost that we didn’t die, but also that it was a connection with someone that I never talked to before and never talked to since. And the circumstances of that chance meeting delivering us safely to our destinations despite all efforts to the contrary. I realize just how stupid I was and how I could have been just another headline in our shitty local paper.

It’s definitely an overused saying, but someone was watching over us that night.

The Roller Coaster Meal

Posted by anachostic on November 29, 2017 No comments

Over the weekend, the GF and I were out in Touristville and I made the decision to eat at Kobe Steakhouse. Kobe is a place we used to go frequently, and one I still manage to eat there every once in a while. It’s at a location we hadn’t been to before, like I said, right in Touristville, near the premium outlets. Don’t ask me why we chose to go to the outlets on Black Friday weekend. Some things can’t be rationalized.

So, we make our way to the restaurant through traffic that moved like sludge through a sewer pipe. I mean, it was shitty traffic. When we got inside the restaurant, it was unsurprising that there were plenty of people waiting already. The hostess says the wait is going to be 40-45 minutes. We’re only mildly hungry right then, so this will be fine for us to build up some hunger. We get the pager and sit down for an extended wait.

Five minutes into our wait, the pager goes off. Hooray for being a rockstar! Well, that’s not true. They never asked who I was, so my frequent flyer status wouldn’t have anything to do with this. Doesn’t matter, getting to eat now! We get seated at a table with another family of four. Each table seats ten, so there’s four empty seats between us.

I’ll take a moment to explain Kobe policy. You don’t get considered for seating until your entire party is present. It’s pretty obvious this family is dining with another family, so our table has a party of 8 and a party of 2. But the party of 8 is only half-there. There’s an actual business reason they won’t seat you like this, which is going to become obvious, very soon.

The server takes our drink orders. He asks about the people not there yet, and it is determined to just bring waters for them. The drinks are served and now orders are taken. The missing people can’t place their orders as they are not there. The GF and I are starting to think that we’re going to have a half-full table, which sucks for the chef.

The soup is served. The empty places get a bowl of soup each. The salad is served. The empty seats now have a soup and salad sitting in front of each of them. Soon, the chef will come out and these people haven’t even shown up to place their orders. Is this considered abandonment yet? The server consults with the family and they don’t know where their friends are, but they are sure to be here soon. I commented to the GF that our 45 minute wait was still in effect, it was just being applied after getting seated.

Then, a holiday miracle. The other family shows up. There’s a flurry of greetings and everyone takes their seats. There’s a small issue though. There’s five people. The party of eight, which was seated as a party of four is actually a party of nine. See, this is why you wait for the whole goddamn party to show up before you seat anyone.

Despite this, everyone crams the fuck in there and the server talks with each new person to get their drink and food order. Karmically enough, the issue of being short one soup and salad is never resolved. The chef finally comes out and tries to confirm everyone’s order. There’s confusion because he has two tickets, because the second party arrived so late. The chef is struggling with the orders and the number of people and I say to him, “You have 11 here.” Whether that helped or not, I have no idea.

He begins with the sauces. The table is designed for 10, and everything is planned for 10. He has 10 sauce trays. I try to help by saying I don’t want any sauce, so he pulls one tray back. Now he has 9 trays and there’s 10 people that will want sauce. This is simply not working out.

Despite this ridiculousness, things worked out really well for me and the GF. The other parties turned down a lot of the food. Extra rice, extra noodles, extra veggies – we were loaded up. Maybe it was for the best because I’m not sure they prepped for 11 at a table.

However, even though we were fed heartily, even good food can’t make up for your meal running into 2 hours. That’s just way too much. So, it was hard for us to tell if we were happy with the meal or not. The food was good, the experience was not as much.

The server brought my check, and fortunately, I had a $10 reward that was applied to my check. I sent the bill off with my credit card and the server came back to talk to me. The manager felt bad about us being crammed in on a table of 11 and took an extra $20 off the bill. That was unexpected and quite pleasant. So the bill was paid and we got the hell out of that shitshow.

The rise and fall of expectations and reality left us completely confused as to how we should be feeling, other than full and tired.

It’s The Small-Town Vibe

Posted by anachostic on November 16, 2017 No comments

Yesterday had a couple of curious events, especially curious to happen in the same day, both involving dining.

For lunch, a bunch of coworkers and I (plus one who got left behind) had lunch at a middle-eastern grocery/restaurant. Hardly really a restaurant, more like a deli with some booths and tables. For myself, I grabbed some tabbouleh and some pita bread and a drink, paid for it and sat at a booth. Everyone else all had their food from the kitchen. I wondered how everyone paid for their food already. They didn’t. And no one seemed to understand how payment was going to work.

So each of them just went up to the kitchen window, asked for food and got it and was now seated and eating it, whereas I went to the shelves and coolers, got food, paid for it, and was now eating it. No one else had any order slips, checks, or anything else to indicate what they got. The point I am laboriously making it that this restaurant operated on the honor system. Does such a thing exist anymore? Well, it worked out well for everyone, because I do have standards for my cohorts and honesty is one of them.

But, if that story is somewhat interesting, maybe mildly interesting, this one is better.

After work, I decide to stop at my local Blimpie for dinner. You know Blimpie, there’s what, maybe a dozen of them around? I can’t seem to find one anywhere, but I do love their bread. It’s so fluffy. Anyway, that’s not what’s interesting. See, the guy who runs my Blimpie, runs/owns, I mean. Foreign as well, maybe Indian, maybe Pakistani. That’s all completely irrelevant. He’s a damn hard worker. He owns the place and is the only employee. He works open to close seven days a week. His wife owns/runs the dry cleaning location in the same plaza.

Now, I feel sorry for this guy, not only because he’s always there, but also because there’s never anyone else there. Maybe I’ll see another customer when I’m there, most often I won’t. But he always recognizes me and always forgets what cheese I want on my sandwich, so hey, I guess we’re friends.

Tonight, I get my food and as usual I’m the only one eating it there. The guy comes over to me and says, “Can you do me a favor?” He puts this paper down beside me. “I’m going to go over next door. If someone comes in, have them call this number on here and I’ll come right back.”

Yes, you probably understood that just as I did. I’m in charge of the store while he goes out. That’s quite a promotion for someone who’s not even an employee. So, since we’re friends, I say, “sure,” and off he goes, carrying a box from Amazon.

He had said he was going to be gone for just a minute, but I think it was something more like five minutes. And wouldn’t you know it, here comes a customer. As soon as the customer gets in the door, I hold up the piece of paper and say. “Well, you are the first person to come in and I have been told that he wants you to call this number and he will be right back.”

The customer is like, “Where’s he at?” And I say, “I assume he went to the dry cleaners. I think his wife runs it.” He’s just “Geez,” but he gets his phone out and calls the number on the paper I’m holding up.

“Hey.” “Yeah.” “Ok.” And the guy hangs up. Then he’s just walking around the lobby. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to make sure that anyone walking in doesn’t steal anything or not, so I ignore him for a bit, then try to engage in random talk. “It must be rough working open to close every day.”

The customer doesn’t seem fazed at all. “Oh, he and his wife run this and the dry cleaning business.” Well, then. I guess he knows what’s up. Blimpie owner comes back and he and the customer are just “Hey, how’s it going?” I guess they’re friends, too.

But the point of this is, I was trusted to watch a restaurant yesterday. Sure, I’ve run pizza shops alone, like 20 years ago. But I was an employee then. I’m a customer now! What’s up with this trust all of a sudden?

Burger King Bullshit

Posted by anachostic on October 19, 2017 No comments

It’s been a long time since I’ve eaten at a BK. It seems every once in a while, I have to go eat somewhere just to remember why I don’t go there anymore. Such it was in this case.

This is actually an old story, dug out from some blog drafts I had, but the story deserves to be told. The time frame is sometime in 2014. So then, I’m out of town doing some photography and I take a break for lunch. I have a strange desire to try Burger King. So I stop in and have the dumbest experience ever.

They’re a little busy, so I wait in line for a while, during which time, I consider how I’m going to order. It is always a trial to order my standard meal at BK. I want a plain double cheeseburger in a medium-size meal. There’s no number for that combo, so the order always ends up all screwed up because the counter person can never tell the difference between a sandwich order and a combo meal order. I’m going to throw another wrench into this because they have some new special fries called “SatisFries” that I’m willing to try

So I end up placing my order: plain double cheeseburger, medium-size, with Satisfries. The total is $11. As I hand over my credit card, I’m thinking, holy shit, that’s expensive. When I get my receipt, I find out why. I’m getting a double whopper, medium meal, and an extra order of Satisfies. What the fuck. I won’t care if the whopper is plain and with cheese. Trying to discuss this problem with the brain-dead order-taker has no effect. He says it is whatever I want. What does that even mean? I know it won’t be what I want. It will be what the receipt says. That’s the definition of an order. I’m holding up the line with this stupid discussion, and I don’t want to get into a huge battle with cancelling this order and placing a new one. So I place a new order for only a plain double cheeseburger. He starts to create an order for a double whopper – I see it on the register display. I start getting angry. I say, isn’t there a double cheeseburger? He says no, everything’s a whopper.

Really, now. The moron at the register puts forth a little effort, digs through the menu, and finds what I want. I pay, and the register rejects my card. Apparently, you can’t place two orders in a row using the same credit card without manager approval. WHAT?! So the manager comes over and this issue is taken care of. My receipt shows an order for a double hamburger. “Is this going to have cheese?” “Yes.” “It doesn’t say it will.” This is a disaster.

I get my first order with a whopper I don’t want and two fries. Then I get my second order. I ask, does this have cheese? The manager say yes, then stops and says, you wanted cheese? I said double cheeseburger. This doesn’t say cheeseburger. I know! While I wait for the cheese to be put on, I give my whopper to the person after me. I don’t fucking want it.

Eventually, I get to eat my food and it sucked. Very unsatisfried.

But How?

Posted by anachostic on September 4, 2013 No comments

Here we go with another dining disaster story. Let’s reiterate something. I eat out almost all the time. The percentage of times that a normal family eats out is the same percentage of times that I make something at home to eat. For me, eating at home is the exception. So I know what restaurant food is like, how it should be, and how service should be. Because I am specifically mentioning service, that doesn’t make me a snob. Because I eat out so much, I understand small mistakes and misunderstandings. I don’t hold it against the server or the restaurant. But this time was different. This time I felt it was necessary to be mean to the waitress. That is saying a lot.

So let’s set up here. It’s a little late on a Sunday and the place is pretty empty. We wait a little bit for the hostess, but the bartender acknowledged us quickly, so we’re fine. We get seated and wait for a while for service. A waitress finally comes over and says she thought someone else was helping us. The waitress playing the blame game at this point doesn’t mean much right now, but it’s in memory, waiting to see if a pattern emerges… which it does.

Drinks and appetizer ordered. One drink arrives without the requested lemon. Oh well, not going to make a big deal out of that. Appetizer arrives without Ranch dressing and without serving plates. Annoyance is starting to settle in, but we’re going to bear with it. Flag the waitress down and request the missing dressing. By the time the Ranch arrives, there’s only two pieces of the appetizer left. Keep in mind there’s only a couple other tables seated in the place.

Entrees arrive and I can immediately see that my steak is underdone. Blood on the top means not well-done. So I alert the waitress and she takes it back. So now I have to watch my partner eat her meal alone. It would have been ok if I had my soup that I ordered. Yes, for you dining-aware persons, I ordered soup and it did not come before the entrée, nor did it come with the entrée. Where is it?? At this point, annoyance is turning to anger.

After a while, my steak is returned to me cooked properly and with it comes the soup. Now we have a new dilemma. She did not bring a steak knife with my plate. So, I fight through cutting the steak with my table knife. Then I turn to the soup. There’s no spoon. There’s no fucking spoon. This is the point where my anger boils over. I push the soup bowl out to the end of the table as a hint that something is wrong. Surprisingly, the waitress makes another stop at the table to take my partner’s plate and asks nothing of the soup or if everything is ok. She disappears.

Now I am fuming. After I finish my steak, the waitress returns again and asks if we saved room for dessert. I say “no, we’re more than well done” in a sarcastic tone that gets her attention. She asks to take my plate and I say sure. Then I say, “…and the soup… I never got to try it.” She asks why and I say I just couldn’t try it. She gives me a puzzled look and pushes the bowl towards me, saying, “try it.” I lose my cool and yell at her, “How?!”

It takes a few seconds and I thought I was going to have to educate her on her fuckup. Finally she looks around the table and says, “ohhhhhh… the spoon.” And I sarcastically agree with her, “yeah. The spoon.” The meal is over. She wants us gone and we want to be gone. She brings us the check, takes my credit card and returns, quietly offering “have a nice evening.” She gets a $2 tip on a $36 tab.

While she took the brunt of the anger, I know it wasn’t all her. She messed up on timing, observance, and supplying plates and silverware, which is more than enough reason, but the cook messed up on cooking the steak and who knows who screwed up the soup. But a huge blame also falls on the manager. Whoever was managing that night had no idea this was going on. And if a customer yells at a waitress and the manager doesn’t get involved ASAFP, there’s something wrong at a much greater level.

Let Me Tell You About This Meal I Had…

Posted by anachostic on June 14, 2013 No comments

It’s never good if I have a story to tell after a meal. This is one of those meals. This is one of those long-ass stories, too. Tonight, I was deep in my usual gyrations over what the hell I was going to eat. Running through the mental list of eating places wasn’t triggering anything. I went on UrbanSpoon and listed everything in my area. Nothing did it. I started to get a bit sentimental over places in PA that I used to love eating at and couldn’t get to anymore. I remembered some of the non-chain restaurants that I enjoyed and wished I had something like that here that I could rely on. Unfortunately, despite searching, I have yet to find a good mom-and-pop.

But, a light came on. There was one place I could try. It was an Italian restaurant that had replaced a sports bar I used to go to. I’d been there once before and was sorely disappointed. At the time, they had just opened up. I think I went within the few couple weeks of their opening. My impression of the staff was that they were clueless. The waitress acted like she didn’t know what a waitress was supposed to do, like checking on tables. The kitchen was backed up beyond comprehension. I think I heard “an hour” mentioned. At least one table walked out during the time I was there. I was on the verge of leaving, myself.

But I got my drink order in (I’m stuck now!) and then after a while, my waitress was ready and able to take my order: spaghetti with meat sauce – nothing amazing. Yet another extended while after that, the waitress comes back and says they don’t have any meat sauce, would I like marinara? No, I wouldn’t. This is an Italian restaurant. How do you not have meat sauce? I ended up getting my drink and salad for free, and I left a $5 tip on the table and walked out.

Why would I want to go back to that? Well, it’s been at least two years since that first experience and the place is still around, so surely they’ve got it figured out, right? So I revisited the restaurant with elevated hopes. And I don’t have any desire to go back again.

I show up in the front of the shop and walk up to the counter. I say I’m dining in and I don’t know whether to order here, be seated, or seat myself. Right off the bat, this is something that shouldn’t happen. The waitress says, “You’re dining in? You can go to the back room. It’s much nicer back there.” So, now your employees are saying that the restaurant has a nice section and a shitty section. They’re still freaking clueless.

I seat myself and place my (same) order. I’m kind of excited because their house dressing is a homemade creamy Italian – that’s hard to find. But when the salad arrives, it seems weird. Lettuce, onion, carrots, and… a hot pepper and chickpeas? Odd, but no hassle. I eat the lettuce and the carrots, but the house dressing is not to my liking. Flavor-wise, it’s super sweet. Makes me think of eating Vidalia onions. Second, it’s warm. That doesn’t sit so well with me.

My opinion is wavering at this point when my entrée comes out. It’s soup! I’m not saying that the meat sauce is runny, just that it’s a bowl full of sauce. Like I can’t see the noodles, full. And the sauce is really dark. The first thing I think is, “Did they burn this sauce?” Then I smell it and think, “Did they burn this sauce?” Then I taste it and it’s… different. Probably burnt. Seasoned, yes, but I can’t put my finger on what it is. Doesn’t really matter what it is because I just. don’t. like it. Then the breadsticks came out. I didn’t think you could screw up bread, but these sticks were completely tasteless. They had parmesan cheese sprinkled on top and butter and/or oil poured on them. It looked like oil, but darker. I didn’t watch to touch it. What the hell is up with this place?

I eat what noodles I could fish out from the depths of the sauce pit and at one point in my search mission, I found a leaf. Yeah, a full leaf. I think it’s the kind they use for seasoning, but I also think they’re supposed to be finely chopped?

Has the service redeemed itself after the “get out of the slums and go to the back room” direction? No, not really. My entrée was brought out by a different waitress that again didn’t understand the finer points of service. She asked if I had spaghetti with meat sauce, which I confirmed, and she left it with me and bolted. Waitresses with experience will first ask if everything’s ok and handle common requests, like cheese, napkins, or refills. My main waitress that brought the breadsticks asked about cheese, but had to take care of multiple things before actually getting around to it. Even then, she had a lot of trouble finding the cheese. (Who moved my cheese?) Fascinatingly, although my salad dressing was warm, the cheese shaker was refrigerated . Also, since I had the table next to the open kitchen, I was able to deduce that the cook didn’t seem to know how to be a cook. I heard a shout at one point and I heard an exchange where he had to scramble because he forgot to make an appetizer. Bad night? Or just another night?

Finally – the weirdest part to me – the owner made his way around asking everyone if their food was ok. I go to other “real” Italian places, and I know the owners do this. They love chatting you up in their heavy Italian accents. This guy, no accent. Didn’t look Italian at all. Didn’t even look like an owner. He could have been just another patron, I don’t know. I lied and said the food was good. Had he pressed harder and asked if it was “good” or “great” or “amazing”, he might have gotten the truth out of me. But he seemed satisfied.

In summary, there wasn’t one redeeming piece of my entire meal experience. As crazy as it sounds, this place is a sports bar that serves Italian food, with bar-quality food and service. And that’s speaking badly of bar food. It’s usually really good, I just can’t handle the atmosphere.

Ride to Eat, Eat to Ride

Posted by anachostic on October 4, 2009 No comments

Just a couple of random bike trips for food. The first was to a place I’d not heard of before, although there are a few locations around here: Village Inn. I hoped this would be like a King’s or Eat & Park from the northern area, but was a bit disappointed. I tried the staple meal – burger and fries – but the burger had some seasoning or spice that wasn’t suiting me very well at all. I could only eat a few bites of it.

It’s not all bad. I gave up on the entrée and went to dessert. The chocolate pie was excellent and made up for most of the meal’s failure.

Then I went out to tourist country and ate at a Ponderosa. It’s a location I’d been to before when I was not a local resident. Interesting how differently you act towards attractions when you could go there every day… Not that Ponderosa is an attraction, but Old Town is right there and it’s Halloween, which means they have a big push on the haunted house.

This meal I was treated to the excellent stories of a very special person behind me. My impression is that he sees himself as some sort of consumer superhero. As I understand the story, superboy was performing some bank transaction through the automated telephone service and answered some personal verification question wrong. This immediately locked his account. To resolve this, he called the bank directly. I have no idea why, but he felt it necessary to disguise his voice, taking on the tone of an agitated old man with respiratory issues. “Yes, this is so-an-so *cough cough hack snork* and you have locked my *cough COUGH* account with your damn computer *gag hack*.” During this trial to get him verified, he answered all the questions correctly. If he didn’t know one (and I’m not sure why he wouldn’t know his personal information), he would have a coughing fit to buy time. Using typical hyperbole, he said they asked him a hundred questions. Then using some sort of hybrid of hyperbole and stupidity, he said they asked him for his grandmother’s maiden name, but he answered using her married name. The only thing I can deduce from these facts is that he was faking access to his father’s account (which would be his father’s mother’s maiden name).

Superboy goes off on a tangent. Now he’s pissed because everything’s a ripoff. Drinks are $2.50 (“that’s where they get ya”). The onion rings cost an extra dollar (“That’s a scam. They asked me if I wanted onion rings but never said it’d be an extra dollar.”). But like my Village Inn dessert, it wasn’t all bad (“The 10% coupon I used paid for the extra charge for onion rings”) , but at the same time, he wasn’t letting go. He somehow changes gears and relates a story about how he had to give a 7 cent refund to a customer because they felt they were incorrectly charged tax on a dollar item and how stupid and petty it was. He somehow fails to relate his current bitching about the dollar upcharge to this story.

Please let me out of here.

Anachostic