Woah! my post was inspired by the guy who made the Cheese Shop Sketch reference. Spooky.
When I went to McDonald’s yesterday, they informed me that they could not sell carbonated drinks :eek: . Apparently something was broken, since they said someone was coming out to look at it.
Somehow, the Big and Tasty with Cheese didn’t taste right with lemonade.
Irish pubs do that too. Especially the bars where they have plenty of the extra cold (bleurgh) but none of the decent stuff and even if they had the decent stuff, they’d have a student pour it for you in one go. That’s right, no settling, no watching the bubbles fall as they rise, just one pour, glass shoved in your face, that’ll be £2.80 please :dubious:
About the Prime Rib-- It’s true that a prime rib usually ranges from medium or medium rare on the ends to rare throughout. But bringing it up to a desired doneness, medium to well, shouldn’t be a problem for most reputable steakhouses. While it’s true that they can’t grill it, the trick at most places is a dunk and gentle poach in hot jus for people who prefer it more well done.
The problem with prime rib is that most people that go for it want it rare, and anything beyond medium-rare is ruined. Some of my friends like ultra-rare as in “slice off some raw meat and stick it under your arm on the way out of the kitchen.” Too rare for me, but really, once it’s past medium, it may as well be potroast.
Ther restaurant’s challenge is to hope they can outsmart the random collection of diners that night and have roasts available at the right doneness at the right time, but not blow their profits by needlessly cooking $100+ roasts if there won’t be anyone to eat them. A full seven bone standing rib roast (note that this is seven ribs and not a “seven-bone” chuck roast that has a bone shaped like the number 7) takes a couple hours to cook, and it’s an expensive hunk of beef. If a restaurant is open until say, 10PM, do they put a roast in the oven at 8PM so anyone that straggles in at 10PM can have rare? No, they probably put the last roast of the day in at 6:00, so there will be rare at 8:00, and it’ll get progressively more “well” into the night.
Steaks, at least, can stay raw in the fridge until someone orders one, but prime rib can give restaurant managers a lot of anguish.
We were at a Spaghetti Factory a while back, and were wondering where the bread was. Usually, SF brings our bread and butter with your first round of drinks, but not this night. A moment later, someone comes running in the front door and dashes through the dining room, clutching several bags of french bread from the Safeway four blocks away.
About two minutes later, we had bread.
I’ve routinely been in line at the market with some employee of the Pick-up-Stix across the parking lot who was clutching large bags of zucchini and carrots. Someone also asked for a whole case of bulk raisins, once–about 10 pounds, as I recall. I think that was a local bakery.
My Panera store was right next to a Carrabba’s. One night Carrabba’s ran out of bread, and the manager ran over to buy about six loaves of bread. She didn’t care what flavor, she just wanted the “miche” size (that’s the big ones. The “loaf” size are the smaller ones.)
I’m at a bar in Astoria, Queens, NYC. My wife orders a gin and tonic. The bartender tells us they ran out of limes.
Now, if you’ve ever been to Astoria, then you know that walking one block in any direction from any given location will bring you to a 24-hour produce stand. No one could go get a fricking lime? We were tempted to just go out for two minutes, buy some ourselves, and give them to the bartender as a tip.
I’m one of the rare people who prefers my Prime Rib medium to well done. My favorite is a nice, medium, end piece with a crunchy, roasty, highly seasoned crust.
I’ve walked into, and then out of, a bagel shop that ran out of bagels. Two different times. WTF?
Maybe the workers were on strike?
Two stories:
My whole family, including grandparents, were out to dinner one night at my grandparents’ insistence at a cheapo place called (I kid you not) Po’ Folks–which I have just at this second learned not only still exists but is a chain. My dad asked for butter for the bread rolls and was told that they were out of butter. Now my dad thinks this is hysterical. Always a problem-solver, he stands up, asks if anyone else in the restaurant would like some butter, and to a round of applause he takes it upon himself to go across the street to the grocery store, buy a pound of butter and offer it around to the rest of the tables who happily accepted. The manager wasn’t amused and refused to let him hand it around.
Second story: This one was a scene straight out of the Monty Python cheese shop sketch. Back in college, NajaHusband (then NajaLongDistanceBoyfriend) and NajaRoommates went out for ice cream to a Ben & Jerry’s scoop shop. Apparently there was a big marathon or something that weekend and the ice cream shop was out of… ice cream. Well, that’s not entirely true, they still had two flavors left on tap, but otherwise, the conversation went almost word for word like the Python sketch, substituting B & J flavors for cheeses. One of the funnier moments of my life, actually.
They have Po’Folks all over. Pretty huge chain.
Oh. I’ve never seen another one before or since.
Another that comes to mind, there’s a pretty good Italian restaurant in town called Mazzi’s that is perpetually out of stromboli. Every single time we eat there one of us tries to order it, and every single time we’re told they “just sold the last one”. This came up in a discussion with a friend who’d had the same experience every time they ate there too, always “just missing” the last one. She says now every time they go in they have the exact same conversation:
Friend: I’d like a stromboli, please.
Waitress: Oh, I’m sorry, we just sold the last one.
Friend: Oh really? Hm… well, in that case I’ll have a calzone with [stromboli fillings], please.*
Waitress: sure thing!
*Same food, slightly different shape
In Philidelphia in 2000, went to the Reading Terminal Market to get a cheesesteak (didn’t have time to get to South Philly) waited in line, got to the front and ordered. They were out of bread. :eek: 
Lots of chicken stories - here’s mine: A place called Sevan CHICKEN - out of chicken. In their defense, it was New Year’s Eve and apparently someone had ordered about 70 billion chickens for their party.
My friend and I used to carpool sometimes to a job that got done at 10:00 pm. We’d always try to go to this one McDonald’s nearby to get ice cream, since they were open 'til 11:00. I can remember at least 3 times when the ice cream machine was mysteriously “broken”. (It seemed obvious that they turned it off and cleaned it early so they could get off work sooner.) It got so we’d get in the drive through and just ask them, “Is your ice cream machine broken tonight?”
I’ve gone to this coffee/sandwich place a few times. The menu says their sandwiches come with chips or fruit, and you can get them on bread or croissant. They have never had any fruit or croissants any time I’ve gone there.
Well, this really isn’t as great a story as most of the others here, but I’ve been in a ‘Swiss Chalet Chicken’ location and been told that it’d be a 45 minute wait if we wanted to have white meat.
I think that we left, and either went to the mcdonald’s or east side mario’s.
What time did you get there? At Panera, it was not unusual to be out of bagels by the end of the night, or on Sundays after the church rush we’d be out of certain popular flavors.
It’s thirty freakin’ degrees Celsius here in beautiful suburban Oslo, and our local Mickey D’s is out of ice cream and milkshakes. As I found out when I took my younger son there to get him some ice cream as a treat after his haircut.
Yeah, I know, it would be weirder if they ran out of hamburgers or buns or something, but of all the weekends to run out… not just the beautiful weather, but the fire station a half-block away is having their Open House so the neighborhood is swarming with short people… whose mommies and daddies will be buying them ice cream elsewhere, I suppose.
Here in the SF Bay Area there’s this restaurant called Asqew Grill, which specializes in miscellaneous grilled kabobs. When we grab dinner there, on most occasions (I would say 4 out of 5 times) they are completely out of some major ingredient. Things like, chicken (for chicken-kabobs), rice, mashed potatoes, etc.
I’m not sure this is indicative of all Asqew Grill locations, though. When we brought this issue up with the cashier, they mentioned that the restaurant was under new ownership. If that’s the case, the owners need to find a better General Manager, because here we are a full year later and they still haven’t quite figured out how much food they need to order in each shipment.
LilShieste