EricByers.com

rant

I don't eat out much, but in the last week we've caught a few meals out, and ended up not all that satisfied. We stopped eating out, mostly because you can cook up the same food (or a lot of times better), at a quarter of the cost...and if you mess it up you can only get mad at yourself.

The issue I've experienced lately is having to wait. After volleyball last saturday we hit up one of my favorite seafood restaurants, a place that is normally pretty quick. After ordering we ended up waiting 50 minutes for our food. At 30 minutes in, we realized we had been waiting too long. That made me realize that there is a certain amount of time before the only thing you can think about is getting your food. The second time came at lunch today, when we ended up waiting 15 minutes at a table just waiting for someone to come help us. They were very understaffed, but there was a manager standing around doing nothing. We ended up just walking out and getting food elsewhere, but it still made my lunch break a bit too long.

Having spent too many years working in food service I understand that there will be problems. However in both cases someone simply saying how long we would have to wait up front would make the wait tolerable (or we would find food elsewhere). Phil's BBQ is really good about letting you know if there is going to be a long wait, and even though it may be 40-45 minutes, we almost always wait (and wait happily).

/rant