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What's more important? Good food or service?
By MAURY ALLEN
of TheColumnists.com
This is the life
of a retired writer.
Lots of movies, occasional theater, good books to read or fall
asleep by, an inspired column to write such as this one, grandchildren
sitting, a hot new game to watch on TV or a hot old one to remember
and more often than not, dinner at the diner. New Jersey, not
Carolina.
New Jersey is the diner state, not the Garden State, as the propaganda
goes. Hard to drive a mile or more without seeing a diner sign
of welcome. Good food, large portions, welcome service, modest
prices, vast choices and a good shot at bumping into a friend.
Then the Social Security check comes. Now it is time to step
out. Dinner in a restaurant. Make a reservation. Change from
blue jeans to pressed slacks. Take off the sweater. Put on a
sports jacket. Wait for wife Janet to decide which dress, which
coat, which purse to use this time.
Now for the emotional dining question. Good food and bad service?
Good service and bad food? Of course, the ultimate goal is both.
Doesn’t often happen.
I come to these decisions with a little professional background.
I worked as a waiter for the adult guests at a children’s
camp in the Pennsylvania Poconos during my college years, early
Army days and in between newspaper jobs.
When I got into the newspaper business and my paper went on strike
with the possibility of folding, I consoled my new bride by announcing,
“Don’t worry, I can always work as a waiter.”
“I didn’t marry a waiter,” Janet announced. “I
married a writer.”
For the next 30 or so years, we dined in the best restaurants
in San Francisco and Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston, Cleveland,
Detroit and Miami. How can I forget Frisco’s Blue Fox, Detroit’s
London Chop House, Boston’s Durgin Park, Miami’s Crab
Shanty or Philadelphia’s Bookbinder’s?
Pass the wine list, prepare the soufflé and rev up the
expense account.
Now it is the fixed income supreme, the albatross of retirees.
We want good food, better service and modest prices, almost impossible
to find in New York, New Jersey or probably any of the other
48.
An old sportswriter of The New
York Times named John Drebinger
dined regularly in the baseball press box on grilled cheese sandwiches.
Not even a piece of yellow copy paper stuffed in the sandwich
by colleagues slowed him down.
A few bucks from his expense account would wind up in his pocket.
He also started every road trip with a suitcase filled with dirty
clothes because hotel laundry costs were also on the expense
account list. That’s another story for another column.
Now for the choices. Food or service. Service or food.
This all started the other day when Janet and I decided on breakfast
out. Nearest diner. Best food. Large portions of French toast,
pancakes, omelets and endless coffee. Modest prices. Good service.
Whoa. The service was terrible. We drew a new waiter. Clearly
in his first days on the job. He was slow, careless and uncommunicative,
a dreadful combination for a diner waiter.
I answer with a modest tip.
“When it came,” Janet said, “the
food was as good as always.”
“I want both good food and good service,” I replied.
The debate went on as we listed a half dozen restaurants in our
area that we had visited recently, alone together or with one,
two or three other couples.
As we named them, we cast our votes. None had excellent food,
excellent service and modest prices. Janet always leaned towards
good food. I bent over backwards for good service.
When we are seated at a good restaurant, I expect menus quickly,
a wine list, a friendly greeting, a basket of rolls and a glass
of water.
I’m an old waiter pro. That’s what I was taught. That’s
what I offered up to the guests in my days on the job.
Most good restaurants will offer a few specials when the waiter
comes around. I want the specials explained. I want the prices
announced. I want the recommendations made.
The dining decisions are made. Now the wait for the first course,
a soup, a salad, a
unique appetizer or a pass. Sometimes we are not that hungry
after bread, wine and
water.
What is a reasonable time? Five minutes, 10, 20? It is grindingly
unpleasant on a
dining night out in full hunger when the waiter passes your table
two, three or four
times as he serves tables to the front, back and side of you.
The entrée has been ordered and shows up, sometimes on
huge plates with small
portions (I’ll decide if I’m eating too much) or at
the wrong place or not cooked as
ordered.
The empty dishes are taken away slowly. The dessert list doesn’t
arrive. The early
coffee is cold. The check comes. Are they rushing us out?
The debate heats up as we drive home. Good service and bad food.
Not pleasant. Good
food, slow service. More tolerable. Great food, great service,
modest prices. Never
happens.
Well, it is about lunch time now. I yell over to Janet, “Are
you ready for Burger King?”
©2010 by Maury Allen. The Maury Allen caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. The casrtoon is from IMSI's MASTER CLIPS COLLECTION, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. This column first posted Feb. 8, 2010.
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