Down Under & Outback for the Count

I've been to a local Outback quite a few times over the years. It's not that close so at best we'll hit it once or twice a year.

Generally I would say it's fair food for a fair price until this visit.

I call ahead to get on the waiting list like I've done in the past. When we got there, we are told (as is the call ahead group ahead of us) that the wait will be 20-25 minutes. OK. That's what call ahead is. No guarantees. But there aren't that many people waiting so it seems a little odd.

Well we are going on 40 minutes when my daughter walks up to the greeter to see how far away from the top of the list our name is. Hmmm. Our name is already crossed off. They think we have been seated. Odd given that they use those wireless gizmos that buzz, vibrate, flash like alien space craft, and otherwise carry on.

But at least we are finally sitting at a table. It takes awhile for the waiter to come. He takes our drink orders and disappears. My daughter urges us to order everything at once to move things along (she worked here years ago). Finally the drinks come. Well most come. Mine looks suspiciously like water. Not the iced tea I had ordered.

It takes another five minutes or so before my drink arrives. But I'm told it has been freshly brewed. Perhaps. But usually you can feel a warm glass with the tea still being cooled by a lot of ice. Not this one. Perhaps they have mastered that cold brewing process like Coors(?) uses for their beer.

At my daughter's urging we order a group appetizer and our entrees at the same time. I'd say it took longer than it should have, but not horribly long for the appetizer to come. We all dig in to this finger food but alas we have no napkins so soon there are forty greasy fingers waving in the air.

Did I mention no napkins? What usually comes with the napkins? Yes. The flatware. Nope. None of that either. Some time after the appetizer came out the waiter is tackled and we beg for napkins and the flatware.

At some point the salads arrive and lacking utensils we stare at our salads for awhile longer. Eventually the flatware shows up and everyone digs in. The salads are quickly polished off and once again we are forced to either talk to each other or; the more interesting; listen to the table to my right complain about their lack of a meal. My daughter claims that although they were already here when we sat down, those dopes didn't order their main meal when they ordered their appetizers.

Another 20 to 25 minutes have gone by and no entrees have shown up. I've gotten tired of listening to the next table. The last thing I remember is something about how 3 of their 4 kids have had birthdays since they sat down.

At some point I glance back over to the next table and it looks like they are getting up to leave. The waitress is there saying something. Everyone sits down again so I conclude that they have just gotten up to stretch so as to avoid the Deep Vein Thrombosis that you have probably read about in left wing scare articles about long airline flights.

At some point our waiter breezes by and is heard to say "I haven't forgotten about you". I reply with "so your neglect is on purpose". That generated a chuckle at our table but I don't think the waiter actually heard me. 

In the meantime the food has actually come to our neighbor's table. They are happily chowing down. To pass the time I now start quizzing my daughter as to merits of her order everything at once advice.

But all at once, wonder of wonders, our food arrives. Well most of it at least. They made the wrong thing for the birthday boy. Although the rest of us beg him to accept what was brought, he is adamant. So his meal goes back. At some point I start my stopwatch and we sit another 20 minutes before his meal arrives again. Fortunately it is the correct meal this time. But I blame birthday boy for this one. If he had ordered a raw steak rather than a medium steak I'm sure we could have had the redo finished in 19 minutes.

I usually eat fish, but for this occasion I had also ordered a steak. Now I like mine rare. Steak tartar is just fine by me. I like sushi too. Never sent a steak back because it wasn't done enough. My daughter starts to snicker when she sees the barely pink inside of my steak. A steak more well done than birthday boy's medium steak. That is she snickers until she thinks maybe I will send mine back as I've done many times in the past.

Given the time we have been sitting, I assure her that I've been taking my meds and no way no how am I sending the thing back. I'd more likely just not eat it and go home to eat the left over spaghetti from the fridge or perhaps begin gnawing on my forearm before I would send this steak back.

Around the time we finish our meal, the waiter brings over the manager. This must a shift or floor manager as I have had plenty of time this evening to fire up my droid and look this location up in the browser. The location manager is a male and I am talking to a female.

The manager is very apologetic.  She doesn't even trot out one of the usual excuses for poor service such as the entire kitchen staff being taken hostage this evening by Al Qaeda. Or the kitchen staff having to work all day cooking for OWS in Zuccotti Park.  The good news is that she strikes two of our meals from the bill so we leave quite a bit older and wiser and with a few more USA fun tickets* in our pockets.

When all was said and done, it took us 3 1/2 hours + travel time to celebrate birthday boy's 30th birthday. My daughter did claim her husband was going to accuse her of staying out on purpose to stick him with the kids all night. I told her not to worry. The youngest was already in bed and the oldest would be there soon.

And so would I.



* credit to NY Bike Snob