I stopped into Checkers for lunch today. The place was empty. Empty like a church on a Tuesday afternoon, with the lights still humming but nobody around to pray. Despite that, my food took forever to appear. The young woman behind the counter was friendly enough, but the pace was what you'd expect from a restaurant on the bottom of the sea.
I was not very hungry, which was fortunate. I decided to try something called GloRilla's $4 Unbeatable Meal Deal. I do not know who GloRilla is. Perhaps she is a philosopher of modern value meals. Perhaps she is a spirit who blesses small burgers with mediocrity. In any case, her deal indeed seemed unbeatable in price.
I chose the BBQ Jacked Burger. It came on bread that dwarfed its humble contents. The burger itself was small and shy, hiding somewhere between the pickled onions and the BBQ sauce. The onions and sauce were the stars of the show. The rest was just there to give them something to cling to.
The fries were good. Seasoned. They tasted like someone in the corporate kitchen that formulated the recipe cared for a brief moment. I paid an extra sixty cents to make the fries and drink medium sized. It felt like a decision of great consequence at the time.
All told, it was a disappointing lunch, but a gentle disappointment. The kind that teaches you a small truth about capitalism and sandwiches. You truly do get what you pay for.
Three stars for the fries, the friendliness, and the lesson. read more