I used to live a couple of blocks from Sid’s Steakhouse, and as one of our bridesmaids spent some time as the musical entertainment, we went there for dinner several times.
Yes, the building pictured in the linked article is what it looked like from the outside. Inside, there was a sign that directed customers “don’t tell nobody.” In addition to Sid’s refusal to provide salt and pepper at the table (and his policy of throwing out people who requested it), I noticed that you could not get a one-dollar bill with your change. If it wasn’t divisible by five, your currency would be in two-dollar bills and dollar coins.
Quirky guy, Mr. Soffer was. Served up a tasty steak, though.
We’ve become fans of the call-ahead seating option that some places offer. In effect, you get on the waiting list while you’re still at home. They tell you how long the wait is, and that’s when you should show up. I’d rather spend my 20-30 minutes driving from home than sitting in a noisy, crowded vestibule.
One of the weirdest things that happened to us eons ago when dining out with friends - back before free refills were universal: Four of us went to what was supposed to be a pretty nice, newer place. Two ordered tea, one got sprite, and I got water. The meal was taking forever, and three of us finished our drinks, but Ms. Sprite was nursing hers along. The server came by and immediately topped off my glass and hers with water. OK, honest mistake. But when it was pointed out to her, before she’d bring a replacement Sprite, she asked “How much did you drink?” Seriously?? You ask that about a few cents’ worth of bubbly water and syrup?
We weren’t surprised that they went out of business really fast.
This is a silly question, but having never visited somewhere where “Coke” is the generic soft-drink name, how do you order the specific one? I’m guessing: ask for a “Coca-Cola”.
Also, if “Coke” is the generic soda, is “Diet Coke” a generic diet soda, or is it understood to be a diet Cola? I guess most restaurants don’t have diet drinks other than Cola, so this might not come up.
A breakfast place we often go to did have a similar policy a few years back. They took no reservations, and you would not be shown to a table until your entire party had arrived. Apparently they had too many cases of “party-of-two pretending that two other people will be joining them in order to get a larger table”.
I’ve been to quite a few restaurants that would not seat you until your whole party had arrived, but certainly not all of the ones I’ve been to have been like that. It wouldn’t surprise me to hear either policy at a given restaurant.
Got to make sure you understand how the restaurant does this, though. I called the Old Spaghetti Factory the other day at about 6:20, got our name on the list and they said they’d keep it there for up to an hour. We got there at 6:40, and they gave us a wait time of 60-90 minutes. Not ideal, but I was glad the first twenty minutes were spent in transit.
Only they weren’t. Turns out all I actually accomplished was to effectively cut in line for getting on the waiting list (I found this out about thirty minutes into our time there). Since I had to go to work later on, and didn’t feel like rushing through dinner, we left and had Michaela’s birthday dinner at Black Angus instead.
Diet Coke could be any diet drink. ‘Coke’ just seems to mean ‘Soda’ down there. I lived there for about 20 months (Albany GA). What I usually did was ask for a coke coke…that usually did the trick.
Whatever you do, don’t ask for a ‘pop’. From what I could tell, ‘pop’=‘fuck’.
There was a CVS near where I used to live. You could call in your prescriptions so that they would be filled when you arrived. You just had to leave a message and everything would be ready when you showed up.
But what it really meant was that when you arrived, someone would go and listen to the answering machine, then start filling your scrip.
I have often enjoyed China Cola at my favorite hippy-dippy eateries. But if you ask for “Coke” or any other brand name product, they have to tell you they are giving you something else, or else it’s a “passing off” violation of trademark/consumer protection/unfair business practices law.
Why should they do this? They have customers waiting out the door. How does it benefit them in any way to take reservations?
I’ve often seen signs at bar-and-grill type places that say “only complete parties will be seated.” It’s very common around here.
Part of what was just so strange about the experience was that they didn’t even try to hide the fact that they were giving me something different than what I ordered. If they had poured it into a glass, and just brought the fizzy brown liquid to the table, it would have at least made sense, but they brought the bottle, label and all, making no effort to hide what was being done.
I’ve actually wondered more recently if I would like China Cola if I tried it again today. Maybe I should pick some up online and give it a try.
Wow. Apparently I’ve lost my ability to spell. Sorry folks.
When I was in grad school, a local restaurant used to have various “all you can eat” deals that they would switch up from time to time (sometimes spaghetti, sometimes beef ribs, sometimes fish & chips).
One time we went for all you can eat fish & chips. We had a couple of plates of fish & chips, but when we asked for another refill, the waitress told us that their policy was that “all you can eat” meant one free refill. Say WHAT!?
This is definitely why. The vast majority of pizza orders at the pizza restaurant I ran in my younger days were single topping pies. When we ran a two topping special, the people who would normally order that single-topping pizza would just ask for extra cheese, because they didn’t really want anything additional. The cost for toppings other than cheese, and especially vegetable ones, is pretty negligible. Charging for toppings in the pizza business is somewhat like the charging practice of movie theatres for popcorn: you get people in the door with a reasonable base price, and then make the majority of your profit off the extras which don’t cost anything.
Story 1:
There was a (now defunct) place in St Paul where I tried to go to once. I had my NY Times Sunday paper walked up to the door at 10 am and was the first one there. Since I was by myself, they tried to sit me at the bar for dinner. I said no thanks, I’d rather have a table or booth.
“No, those are only for parties of two or more”.
“Umm, there’s no one here at all.”
“Yes, but there could be at any time”.
Fine, so I started to walk out and then they attempted to apologize and offer me a table. At that point I was feeling raw and stubborn about the whole thing and went to another place down the street. When I walked back past an hour later it had two or three tables filled and that was it.
**Story 2: **
Monte Carlo-Minneapolis. Something about brunch and me. A friend of mine got me up early on a Sunday and we headed downtown for a nice meal after helping him with a home improvement project the long night before. I was still flecked by paint on my skin, I was showered but didn’t get it all off apparently and just slapped a baseball hat on my head and ran out the door. We’re seated in a booth and brought menus, after we ordered, the waitress goes to enter in our ticket, points us out to a man and he manager stops by our table.
“Can I speak to you privately for a minute, sir?”
He’s looking at me like I’ve given them a bad check and he’s notified the police. So I get up and follow him 10 feet away from the table. He continues “yes, I’m sorry, but we do not allow hats inside of our restaurant”.
I’m confused as this brunch. In Minneapolis. I can’t really think of any place here that would have a dress code that would be open to the public. I proceed to take off my hat and am later told by the waitress “thank you for respecting our dress code”.
If my friend hadn’t paid, I’m not sure if I would’ve left a tip.
**Story 3:**I had that problem with Burger Jones in Uptown. I ordered juicy lucy but had em stuff it with blue cheese instead. There were 5 of us and they brought my burger out and said they put cheddar in there by mistake and then started to walk away. I had to call the waiter back, have them make me the correct burger that I would be paying for. Luckily, everyone else’s burgers hadn’t come yet anyways. I don’t know how hard it is to get 5 burgers out at the same time either.
Random restaurants through the years: a posted sign or menu note that says “no sharing entrees.” I completely understand this for a buffet, but it’s perfectly common for two people to order salads and/or appetizers, split a main course, and maybe have dessert. My daughter and I, or my mom and I do this regularly because so many restaurant meals are just too huge for one person. I’ve actively avoided places that have that policy.
Tangentially related: one of the on-campus dining halls at my college was essentially a giant buffet. A year or two before I got there, they changed their sign from “All you can eat” to “All you care to eat” because some students had been taking “All you can eat” as a challenge.
There’s this place in Montreal that for zoning reasons cannot be a bar, the city will only give it a restaurant licence. The thing is, though, that it *is *a bar, and people come there to drink. In order to avoid getting closed down, they now require that at least one patron at every table order some small dish (3 samosas for $5, or a small bowl of chili, or something like that) in addition to all the beer they drink.
To be fair, we weren’t really too indignant about the “all you can eat = one refill” policy, considering that it only cost $5 and we had clearly eaten more than $5 worth of fish and chips each.
The waitress made it very clear by her carefully chosen words and her tone of voice that: (a) it was MANAGEMENT’s policy, not hers, and (b) this was not the first inquiry she had received on the subject.