Saturday, January 21, 2012

Get offa my lawn?

I've been going to this restaurant for 20 years. Let's call it the "John Harvard's Brewhouse". I've rolled through the changes - they took away the salmon salad, raised prices, improved the beer. But some things have stayed steady : always the Pale Ale, stained glass, TVs, free bread plates.

Go in this evening, everything looks fine. We even get a booth with a nice view of a TV, FSU vs Duke.

First sniff of trouble is the menu. Nearly 6, but there's a page of lunch items, and no beer page. Still, all the usual dishes. 2nd trouble : the only 2 beers they have are both heavy.

Yadda, yadda - you don't need the details. In the end, my meal is spoiled by

1) The beer wasn't very good and a pitcher cost $20, which price wasn't on the menu
2) The fish & chips were a tiny portion
3) The ribs on the menu were a half rack for $14.99. The bill was $19.99, since we seem to have had the wrong menu - apparently the 4 mediocre ribs I got were a whole rack.
4) The bread never arrived. When we finally managed to ask, we were told it was now a $3 extra (not shown on the menu or mentioned)

At the end, I did get the waitress to admit there was new management. She offered to bring them over. I fled.

All pretty trivial, right? But having aggravated my groin injury jumping a slushpuddle, facing a painful 2k shuffle home, does being pissed make me a grumpy old coot?

Nah. I was just as annoying 30 years ago.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

nothin' like the big-city shakedown! gotta love it..