13-07-2009, 08:08 PM
And now, for the moment you've all been biting your fingertips off for.
Don't be sad when you find out this rant isn't extreme or awesome, I'm doing this purposely to teach you all a lesson.
Anyway.... I hate two kinds of restaurants: Unclear Protocol, Hopped-up presentation but garbage quality, off-campus with no parking zone, retarded specials that make no sense.
Ever go to a restaurant where it's not immediately obvious what you are supposed to do when you get inside? I have, a great many times, and most often this only happens once per establishment. I like protocol, I like it to be standardized or spelled out for me. I don't like walking into some bustling establishment only to be greeted with some expanse of seating with no attendant telling me where I need to go.
Here are a few types of establishments:
1 - Go to the counter, order, wait, sit.
2 - Go to the table, wait, place order.
3 - Wait for attendant to direct you to a table, wait, place order.
4 - Go to the table, fill out checklist, deliver to counter, go back to table, wait.
So, how do you know which is which? Most often the problem is with category 2 and 3. In both cases you order NOT from the counter, but from some kind of attendant, be it some cute waitress or some guy who tries to crack awkward jokes because he knows we're all disappointed that he's not a cute waitress. So, normally you can tell if you're supposed to wait to be seated? If there's no attendant, it's not obvious at all. Often places can look exactly the same but operate differently. So how do you EVER know you're not supposed to seat yourself? Most often the standard procedure is to kind of wait around, pretending to be waiting for someone who is just outside, or pretend to talk on your cell phone until a regular shows up and demonstrates the protocol. This is awkward and stupid. Why not have a sign explaining what you do "please seat yourself (happyface)" is that so hard?
Then category 2 and 3 further complicate by not telling you when or how you're supposed to pay. Like seriously, I frequent this one place where it's category 3, you wait to be seated. There is a full bar as well for bar-side seating and whatnot, but if you're at a table, you still pay at the bar. Go figure. Most often the way to weasel out of knowing what to do is by leaving cash on the table, often accompanied by a massive tip because, as a guy, you don't carry change anyway and are too put off by the nuisance of trying to figure out where the moneychanging is supposed to happen.
#4 is most often the most ridiculous. This is the kind of restaurant that really only expects Asians to visit. The ones modified for American business get waitresses to fill out the check cards for you. Also, the modified ones don't tell you about menu items that contain weird stuff (like tendons, tripe, and various junk). So, you go into these pure #4 places, and there's one guy walking around... cleaning tables mostly, so, if you're adept like me you realize you're supposed to sit down. If you're not adept you kinda linger till the table guy gestures for you to sit down somewhere. Awkward. So then, you're at a table, and you have this card with Romanized words you've never heard before on it. So... you kinda gesture to the guy, and be like, "hey, I've never been here, how do you do this". So then, they'll be nice and tell you what box to check if you don't want to eat walrus eyeballs. So, literally you have to kinda linger around, ask the busboy what to do, awkward.
Again, would a simple sign kill? "Sit and fill out order card" then the order card could say "deliver to counter when ready".
Really now.
Ok, so the next part is about those places with hopped-up presentation. Once a group of us wanted to go to some new Brazillian place, it was one of those spit roasted meateries. But with one catch. Apparently, in someone's twisted thinking, it's cool to have the server bring out small portions of the meal as the dinner progresses. Thus forcing you into their cycle. Also, these places are known for ingredient cheapness. For example, I read one guy's review who ordered the "festival of meat" for a party of 5 or something. So, they waited around for 45 minutes, then some waiter came around with two hotdogs, cut them both in half, and gave it to the table. Next 45 minutes, a few slices of salami. Thanks for waisting my time with this crap. If this is authentic then I'm saying away from eateries in Brazil. Wtf, you can't tell me what I'm going to eat? You can't bring out an extra hotdog for the party of 5 sharing 2 halved hotdogs? Seriously? Anyway, enough on this, because I'm sure you get the picture.
So, next category: places that aren't in a campus setting, but have no parking. Know what, I like convenience. Having to depend on luck, and being able to park my car on some ghetto street corner with no obvious means of avoiding a parking ticket is not convenience. It's a freaking pain. And if your establishment is on some poorly maintained downtown avenue, but there's no where for my car, I'm not visiting you. There's this road in Windsor called Erie Street, and it's packed with fancy Italian dining. Windsor has a massive Italian population, and Erie Street is our little Italy. If you happen to be walking down Erie street on some nice summer night, you can dine in some fancy places with damn good food. But... if you are driving down Erie street, in a non-bicycle, you are freaking screwed. You can't eat there unless one of the 30, damage-prone, parking meters isn't occupied. Good luck. Oh, and depending on the day of the week, season, time of day, and relative humidity the parking requirements change. So, unless you actually live on Erie Street or are the RainMan, you can't successfully park there. Smooth move.
Then to top it off, people love those places and always want to go there. Know what, I don't live in the city. I'm not taking a cab, or bus there. I'm driving my freaking car, and it's freaking impossible to PUT my car near the damn place you're so excited to go to. So screw it, I'm going to a place with a parking lot. A place that welcomes my car. Dinner isn't worth the hassle of dealing with that nightmare.
Finally at the last category, "Retarded Specials that Make no Sense". So here's a story to kick it off:
One day it's someone's birthday, woo, right? So the girl picks a place she wants to eat at and a few people go. She mostly picks it because you get 10 bucks off your meal if it's your B-day. Whatever, not like she was going to get away with paying anyway. So yeah, 5 people in total, I'm one of them. The place is famous for ribs. There's 2 guys, 3 girls, so, obviously the order is going to be 3 salads of some kind, and 2 rib dinners.
So the waitress shows up, and she's like "Oh, you're lucky there's a really good special. Buy two dinners and you get the cheaper one for only 5 bucks". Well this is good news, me and the other guy are like "ok, we'll combine our order and get two rib dinners". This is a huge savings as the rib dinners cost like 26 bucks. The waitress speaks up "well, we have to make the 5 dollar meal the cheapest one at the table". "So what if us two go sit somewhere else, then can we do it?", "um, no...". Whatever, we let this slide. So then, it turns out that if you order a salad, you can't do the deal either. It has to be a non-salad dinner... Ok, so we're a little annoyed. The waitress also told us that the birthday deal doesn't work if you are doing any other specials at your table. So that's screwed.
We then tell the waitress "ok, know what, screw the specials, they are retarded anyway" and we proceed to order items that clearly don't qualify for the special, such as "all you can eat ribs" which is cheaper than the full rack dinner anyway, because people aren't expected to eat a full rack. They don't know who I am, clearly. This has hurt the waitresses feelings somehow. "But... the deal is really good... why wouldn't you want to get them?" I am the king of math as well as robots, so I break down the cost structure for her explaining how our total savings with the deal (and the retarded deal rules) is about 6 dollars, and the savings if we just get the "10 dollars off cuz it's your birthday" deal, then well, we save a total of 10 bucks. Plus, not going for the special means I get "all you can eat" ribs instead of just a full rack. This confuses her, and makes her sad that we don't like the deal she was so excited to tell us. So she calls over her manager, and we again explain why we're not ordering the special.
Ok, so, let me take a break in here before I go further. Why does this place care that we don't think it's "deals" are a good deal?
Why can't it just leave us alone?
So back into it... the manager explains why the deal is so good. Then I explain that "we are a group of 5, not 2". This deal only actually works if there's two people. It's basically a date deal, it doesn't work here. This makes her sad.
Eventually she left us alone, gave us a cuter waitress, and a discount on the meals we ordered.
I left the whole situation mildly pleased, but seriously, why are specials so impossible to actually comply with? It's retarded.
...also, why do I need a Kroger points card to get various discounts on groceries? It's not like you PAY with the card, the card is free. WTF. Luckily there was a dude behind me who collected the points I wasn't going to get, thus I got the discount anyway. Booya.
Yeah, off-topic, I know.
So, in summary, know what restaurant I like? Bubbies.
There's only one I think, and it's specialty is burgers, good burgers, not dry, not crappy, but good. That, and garlic.
Plus, I think they have a policy that their waitresses have to be stacked. Either that or they're just lucky.
Don't be sad when you find out this rant isn't extreme or awesome, I'm doing this purposely to teach you all a lesson.
Anyway.... I hate two kinds of restaurants: Unclear Protocol, Hopped-up presentation but garbage quality, off-campus with no parking zone, retarded specials that make no sense.
Ever go to a restaurant where it's not immediately obvious what you are supposed to do when you get inside? I have, a great many times, and most often this only happens once per establishment. I like protocol, I like it to be standardized or spelled out for me. I don't like walking into some bustling establishment only to be greeted with some expanse of seating with no attendant telling me where I need to go.
Here are a few types of establishments:
1 - Go to the counter, order, wait, sit.
2 - Go to the table, wait, place order.
3 - Wait for attendant to direct you to a table, wait, place order.
4 - Go to the table, fill out checklist, deliver to counter, go back to table, wait.
So, how do you know which is which? Most often the problem is with category 2 and 3. In both cases you order NOT from the counter, but from some kind of attendant, be it some cute waitress or some guy who tries to crack awkward jokes because he knows we're all disappointed that he's not a cute waitress. So, normally you can tell if you're supposed to wait to be seated? If there's no attendant, it's not obvious at all. Often places can look exactly the same but operate differently. So how do you EVER know you're not supposed to seat yourself? Most often the standard procedure is to kind of wait around, pretending to be waiting for someone who is just outside, or pretend to talk on your cell phone until a regular shows up and demonstrates the protocol. This is awkward and stupid. Why not have a sign explaining what you do "please seat yourself (happyface)" is that so hard?
Then category 2 and 3 further complicate by not telling you when or how you're supposed to pay. Like seriously, I frequent this one place where it's category 3, you wait to be seated. There is a full bar as well for bar-side seating and whatnot, but if you're at a table, you still pay at the bar. Go figure. Most often the way to weasel out of knowing what to do is by leaving cash on the table, often accompanied by a massive tip because, as a guy, you don't carry change anyway and are too put off by the nuisance of trying to figure out where the moneychanging is supposed to happen.
#4 is most often the most ridiculous. This is the kind of restaurant that really only expects Asians to visit. The ones modified for American business get waitresses to fill out the check cards for you. Also, the modified ones don't tell you about menu items that contain weird stuff (like tendons, tripe, and various junk). So, you go into these pure #4 places, and there's one guy walking around... cleaning tables mostly, so, if you're adept like me you realize you're supposed to sit down. If you're not adept you kinda linger till the table guy gestures for you to sit down somewhere. Awkward. So then, you're at a table, and you have this card with Romanized words you've never heard before on it. So... you kinda gesture to the guy, and be like, "hey, I've never been here, how do you do this". So then, they'll be nice and tell you what box to check if you don't want to eat walrus eyeballs. So, literally you have to kinda linger around, ask the busboy what to do, awkward.
Again, would a simple sign kill? "Sit and fill out order card" then the order card could say "deliver to counter when ready".
Really now.
Ok, so the next part is about those places with hopped-up presentation. Once a group of us wanted to go to some new Brazillian place, it was one of those spit roasted meateries. But with one catch. Apparently, in someone's twisted thinking, it's cool to have the server bring out small portions of the meal as the dinner progresses. Thus forcing you into their cycle. Also, these places are known for ingredient cheapness. For example, I read one guy's review who ordered the "festival of meat" for a party of 5 or something. So, they waited around for 45 minutes, then some waiter came around with two hotdogs, cut them both in half, and gave it to the table. Next 45 minutes, a few slices of salami. Thanks for waisting my time with this crap. If this is authentic then I'm saying away from eateries in Brazil. Wtf, you can't tell me what I'm going to eat? You can't bring out an extra hotdog for the party of 5 sharing 2 halved hotdogs? Seriously? Anyway, enough on this, because I'm sure you get the picture.
So, next category: places that aren't in a campus setting, but have no parking. Know what, I like convenience. Having to depend on luck, and being able to park my car on some ghetto street corner with no obvious means of avoiding a parking ticket is not convenience. It's a freaking pain. And if your establishment is on some poorly maintained downtown avenue, but there's no where for my car, I'm not visiting you. There's this road in Windsor called Erie Street, and it's packed with fancy Italian dining. Windsor has a massive Italian population, and Erie Street is our little Italy. If you happen to be walking down Erie street on some nice summer night, you can dine in some fancy places with damn good food. But... if you are driving down Erie street, in a non-bicycle, you are freaking screwed. You can't eat there unless one of the 30, damage-prone, parking meters isn't occupied. Good luck. Oh, and depending on the day of the week, season, time of day, and relative humidity the parking requirements change. So, unless you actually live on Erie Street or are the RainMan, you can't successfully park there. Smooth move.
Then to top it off, people love those places and always want to go there. Know what, I don't live in the city. I'm not taking a cab, or bus there. I'm driving my freaking car, and it's freaking impossible to PUT my car near the damn place you're so excited to go to. So screw it, I'm going to a place with a parking lot. A place that welcomes my car. Dinner isn't worth the hassle of dealing with that nightmare.
Finally at the last category, "Retarded Specials that Make no Sense". So here's a story to kick it off:
One day it's someone's birthday, woo, right? So the girl picks a place she wants to eat at and a few people go. She mostly picks it because you get 10 bucks off your meal if it's your B-day. Whatever, not like she was going to get away with paying anyway. So yeah, 5 people in total, I'm one of them. The place is famous for ribs. There's 2 guys, 3 girls, so, obviously the order is going to be 3 salads of some kind, and 2 rib dinners.
So the waitress shows up, and she's like "Oh, you're lucky there's a really good special. Buy two dinners and you get the cheaper one for only 5 bucks". Well this is good news, me and the other guy are like "ok, we'll combine our order and get two rib dinners". This is a huge savings as the rib dinners cost like 26 bucks. The waitress speaks up "well, we have to make the 5 dollar meal the cheapest one at the table". "So what if us two go sit somewhere else, then can we do it?", "um, no...". Whatever, we let this slide. So then, it turns out that if you order a salad, you can't do the deal either. It has to be a non-salad dinner... Ok, so we're a little annoyed. The waitress also told us that the birthday deal doesn't work if you are doing any other specials at your table. So that's screwed.
We then tell the waitress "ok, know what, screw the specials, they are retarded anyway" and we proceed to order items that clearly don't qualify for the special, such as "all you can eat ribs" which is cheaper than the full rack dinner anyway, because people aren't expected to eat a full rack. They don't know who I am, clearly. This has hurt the waitresses feelings somehow. "But... the deal is really good... why wouldn't you want to get them?" I am the king of math as well as robots, so I break down the cost structure for her explaining how our total savings with the deal (and the retarded deal rules) is about 6 dollars, and the savings if we just get the "10 dollars off cuz it's your birthday" deal, then well, we save a total of 10 bucks. Plus, not going for the special means I get "all you can eat" ribs instead of just a full rack. This confuses her, and makes her sad that we don't like the deal she was so excited to tell us. So she calls over her manager, and we again explain why we're not ordering the special.
Ok, so, let me take a break in here before I go further. Why does this place care that we don't think it's "deals" are a good deal?
Why can't it just leave us alone?
So back into it... the manager explains why the deal is so good. Then I explain that "we are a group of 5, not 2". This deal only actually works if there's two people. It's basically a date deal, it doesn't work here. This makes her sad.
Eventually she left us alone, gave us a cuter waitress, and a discount on the meals we ordered.
I left the whole situation mildly pleased, but seriously, why are specials so impossible to actually comply with? It's retarded.
...also, why do I need a Kroger points card to get various discounts on groceries? It's not like you PAY with the card, the card is free. WTF. Luckily there was a dude behind me who collected the points I wasn't going to get, thus I got the discount anyway. Booya.
Yeah, off-topic, I know.
So, in summary, know what restaurant I like? Bubbies.
There's only one I think, and it's specialty is burgers, good burgers, not dry, not crappy, but good. That, and garlic.
Plus, I think they have a policy that their waitresses have to be stacked. Either that or they're just lucky.
