Do you have to have eaten there for it to qualify, or does going in, sitting down, but then deciding to leave count? If the latter, then my mom, my sister and I once walked into this place called the wonderland book cafe. It was a place that we had never seen before which was part of a local plaza. When we walked in, it was a single square room with a counter at the far end, and small round tables placed all throughout. On either side of the room there were stacks of children's books, and in some corners there were cardboard cutouts of movie characters. One of them was Harry Potter in his fifth year, and another was Captain Jack Sparrow. The place seemed abandoned at first; we were the only people in the room. After taking a few minutes to explore our surroundings, an elderly woman emerged from a door behind the desk, and greeted us, happy to find customers. She seated us at one of the tables which was rather small and hard to squeeze the three of us into. The chairs were also quite small and stiff. The old woman then handed menus out to us; it had very few options. The menu consisted of a few drinks, a cheese casedia, and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, neither of which were all too cheap. We decided not to eat there due to the poor accommodations and limited menu. This was about two years ago.
A year-and-a-half ago, there was this one place where we actually ate. While the food wasn't bad, the service was abysmal. There was once a CC's pizza near us, and it was very nice. We went and ate there fairly often because the pizza was good, and it was fairly cheap. Unfortunately, they went out of business and had to hand the facility onto someone else. The building got taken over but was still a pizza place. It became known as Slicer's. One day, we decided to eat lunch there on the way to something else in order to support the new local restaurant. When we walked in, the place was very dim; we got the impression that they kept the lights off in order to save on the electrical bill. Also none of the televisions were on. When we came up to the front counter there was nobody. About ten seconds later a woman who looked like she was in her mid 40s emerged, slowly walked up to the cash register, and shyly said hi. After several seconds of awkward silence and the cashier looking like she didn't know what she was doing, she finally asked us if we wanted to pay, to which my mom replied yes. After several more moments of awkward silence, the woman told us the price for the buffet, and my mom gave her the money.
It should be noted that the people did just about no remodeling to the interior of the building, so the only difference in the place from its CC's state was that all the lights were out, the TVs weren't on, and we were the only customers. Our usual routine at CC's was to proceed onto the line of pizzas and dish up our plates and get our drinks from the soda fountain. Instead, we were faced with a chubby woman who looked like she was in her early to mid 20s. She was dressed professionally as a waitress and even held that cloth over her forearm like at gourmet restaurants. She asked us what drinks we wanted and went and got them from the soda fountain while we dished up our plates. It felt like an incredibly informal restaurant trying to convince you it was formal. When I went back to the buffet to get a second helping, there was a man between his mid 40s and early 50s who at first spoke quickly and unclearly. After asking him to repeat his words, he said that if there's any type of pizza I'd like to be there, just ask. I then told him that there was an ample amount of the types of pizza I was interested in. The man seemed nice, but unprofessional.
I myself didn't notice, but my sister later said that the young waitress mentioned earlier who took her job just a little bit too seriously was staring at us from a distance in a weird way as we ate in the dimness. When my drink was low, she came up and offered to refill it for me. Even though it seemed very unfitting for the supposedly informal atmosphere of what pizzerias are supposed to be like, I guess it was kind of nice to get service like that. Although I was in slight disbelief at what I heard when she came back. When she came back with my refilled root beer, she expressed concern about whether or not it would taste right, on the grounds that "it fizzed up when I first put it in." Given that soda tends to fizz up when you first put it in, it seems odd that she'd be concerned about that. She was concerned that it might not taste right, so I gave it a sip and told here it was okay. "Are you sure?" she asked. I then took another sip and assured her that it was okay, to which she incredulously said okay, reluctantly walked a short distance away, and resumed her position of staring at us from a small distance.
I thought the pizza was okay, but that's not saying much coming from me because I have a low standard for pizza. My mom and sister on the other hand thought the pizza was terrible. My mom later said that when the woman was supposed to be taking our payment but was just standing there awkwardly, she was almost ready to leave and eat somewhere else. The experience caused us to reminisce about the one I described above. Also, this new place was twice as expensive despite the lower quality.
)
) and my memory's not the greatest, but I do remember a time where we bought some Mexican food for lunch...I got a torta, one of the 2 meals I ever get at such places. My usual order is chicken with beans and cheese, and maybe lettuce, so I ordered that. For some reason, they had no cheese to put in the sandwich, but that happens sometimes, that's fine. Except when I got the thing, it also didn't have any beans. :<
) Usually it tastes great, but the sauce in this particular chicken torta was disgusting in a way I can't describe. It almost tasted more like blood...and the chicken itself did not impress either. It was this sort of gross lukewarm temperature that, combined with the copious amounts of onion, made every bite an incredibly nauseous experience. It was like a torta from the fifth circle of hell. I'm usually a rather ravenous eater, but I only made it four bites in (spread out over an hour, mind you...) before simply giving up and discreetly throwing it away. I had somewhat severe stomach problems for the rest of the day. -.-
