Tom

living out life
2009-03-29 18:02:09 (UTC)

Our Wedding Anniversary - part 1

Yesterday, March 28th, my wife and I celebrated twenty-two
years of marriage. A friend of mine suggested a restaurant
in Crystal River called “Crackers”. He also said that it
was close to a state park that would allow us to take a
walk along the beach afterwards. Since the beach has a
sentimental place for us (it was on the beach in St.
Augustine that I proposed and part of our honeymoon was
spent along the beaches of Biloxi, Mississippi), I thought
this sounded like the perfect evening.

The drive to Crystal River took about forty-five minutes,
but it was a nice drive and we spent the time talking
about various things. We found the restaurant relatively
easy and parked to go in. Upon entering we were met by a
young man who seated us. This was the first person we
dealt with, but he set the pattern for what was to follow.
There was no welcome or smile as he spoke to us, he simply
asked, “Inside or outside?” Since the wind was horrendous
yesterday we chose inside and he walked us to a table, set
the menus on the table, seated us and left without another
word.

There were large windows around the entire building and we
were seated with a view of the marina and the patio to the
restaurant which was lined with tables set underneath tiki
huts. We glanced through the menu and by the time our
waitress finally arrived we had picked out what we wanted
to eat. The waitress did not introduce herself nor do
anything that would make us feel welcome. She asked us for
our drink order, we told her we were ready to order food,
she took the order and, just like the host who seated us,
left without another word.

It was at this point that my wife and I both started
paying attention to the other waitresses and every one of
them, with the exception of one, was short and impersonal
to the patrons at their tables.

When our food arrived it was brought by someone other than
our waitress and she literally plopped the plates on the
table and left. The only thing that salvaged the poor
service was the food itself. Donna ordered the shrimp and
I ordered shrimp and grouper fingers. There was an
overabundance of food along with a salad and baked potato
and it was all extremely good. The whole experience
reminded me of the sign outside of a restaurant that I
once saw that touted, “GREAT FOOD, LOUSY SERVICE.”

We finished eating and the waitress had not returned to
our table one time. However, she did manage to make it
back after the meal was over with the bill. The bill ended
up being $30.95 and I handed her $40.00. She came back a
few minutes later with a carryout box, but didn’t leave my
change. I told Donna, “She had better bring my change back
because there’s no way I’m leaving her a 30% tip!”

So we waited, but the waitress had disappeared. Now I
started to get mad. It’s bad enough to have poor service,
but no one is going to rip me off. After more than five
minutes I finally spotted her poking her head around a
corner and flagged her down. She slapped her head like she
forgot and then promptly brought me my $9.05 in change.
The only thing she had to say for herself when I asked her
what took so long was, “I’m sorry.”

That, in a nutshell, was the dinner portion of our
anniversary. There is plenty more to come about the rest
of the evening so I have decided to break it down into
parts. What I don’t want to give is the impression that we
had a bad time at the restaurant. We walked away from
there knowing that we had shared a nice meal together and
we have been married long enough that things like poor
service couldn’t possibly ruin a night out together.

Next entry… some of the sights at the restaurant and
possibly a description of our romantic (big laugh) walk on
the beach.




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