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.

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.