So it's a Friday in August. I've had a long week of pretending to be busy at work. The temperature outside is about 20 degrees too high for somebody with this much Northern European DNA. Heating up the stove and sweating enough to fill up a kiddie pool sounds about as fun as licking a cheese grater against the grain and then biting a lemon. Plus I ate my cheerios this morning, so the ticker should be able to handle a little grease-to-go. What to get, though? True to my indecisive millenial self, I pull up Yelp and spend way too long searching for something that looks juuuuust right. A whole bunch of no's and a few maybe's later, Bo & Vine pops up. A burger sounds like a fitting send-off to the "work" week, and there plenty of pictures of things that look like burgers, so I'm sold. A few moments later my online order is submitted, and they tell me my dinner is 30 minutes away.
Fast forward 25 minutes, after a quick drive downtown and a surprisingly successful parallel parking job, I'm walking through their door (and yes, those of you with a PHD in maths like Josh are correct, I'm 5 minutes early). The person working the counter lets me know it's going to be a bit longer, and takes down my phone number so they can give me a call when the order is ready. No big deal - my dinner date with whatever is new on Netflix is just going to have to wait a bit longer. Another 25 minutes go by, and at this point my stomach is howling louder than the song Spotify shuffled onto. The song stops, the phone rings, and it's go time. The staff is nice and apologetic about the wait, offering a free sauce and a $5 gift card. All in all it's no big deal - especially considering $5 for an extra 20 minutes equates to more $ per hour than twice that of the federal minimum wage (hooray 'Merica).
Normally, with an empty stomach and hot fries in the car, I'll show about as much restraint as Trump on a Twitter tirade at 2 AM or Jeffrey Epstein, who didn't kill himself, at a junior prom. I'm going to eat ~96.4% of the fries during the drive home (okay, that still might be more restraint than Donald or Jeffrey, but you get the picture). The good news? There were so many fries in the box that it dropped that number to something like 75%. The bad news? These fries were just plain sad. I haven't been this disappointed since... well, not that long ago considering the state of just about everything in 2020. These fries fit right in with the times. Ordered extra crispy, you'd get just as much crunch biting into a forkful of mashed potatoes. I'd understand if I had actual will power and waited until I got home - chalk it up to steaming in the takeout box. I opened that box immediately, though. And these fries limped like they were trying to get out of gym class. If these fries were men, they'd need a little blue pill in order to have a good time. It was some sad sad starch. But hey, maybe the burger will save the day.
Narrator: It didn't save the day.
The best thing about the burger was the tomatoes. If you're wondering about the rest of the burger, the fact that tomatoes were the highlight is not a good sign. Three fresh slices, not too thin, not too thick. No complaints there. The rest of it? The bun felt stale. The burger was dry enough that it'd be a fire hazard if you left one in the woods this time of year. There was a single lonely piece of lettuce that brought nothing to the party. The fifty cent addition of fried onions was so non-existent they could probably work in congress.
All in all, I'll throw in an extra star for the staff being nice. Will I go back? Eh. If a pet dies, or a relationship ends, or just more 2020 happens, at least I'll know where to go to get $5 off on feeling sad. read more