So, my elderly friend told me today that she wanted to take me Here for lunch - - she's an 88-year-old woman who works pretty painfully slow with a walker - - lots of energy, but definitely disabled. She had told me how much she enjoyed coming here and said she would treat me to my first time.
When we came in the door there were about six people ahead of us, but there was only one and a half people making the pizzas so it took us a while to get to the front. As soon as it was her turn to be waited on, one of those 1-1/2 people said to my her, "I'll wait on you in a moment, I need to refill the trays" and proceeded to s-l-o-w-l-y restock the bins of toppings and ingredients.
My friend can't really stay standing up for very long, and we'd already waited behind a bunch of other people who were getting their pizzas s-l-o-w-l-y assembled. Halfway thru this restocking process another employee finally came over and said she'd help her and we began moving along again.
When our order was ready, I went up and got it from a cheerful friendly young man, then went and filled our drinks and sat down.
The pizza was EVERYTHING my friend had promised: delicious! I was pleased to have gotten to design my own pizza and for it to turn out so well. The other things receded in importance to how good the food was. The marionberry lemonade was also really tasty and worth another cup (or two!). Friday nights my husband and I like to go out to celebrate the end of the week by just having a casual dinner somewhere, so I rationalize - - it's Friday night tonight, maybe they've got their B team on for lunch, maybe they'll have their act together tonight and it could be a pleasant experience as well as good food, and I could sure have another one of these pizzas tonight for dinner!
When I left our table a little later to refill my drink, I noticed a really big spill of some kind of liquid near the trashcan but stretching across the walkway that you use to go over to the drink machine - - I went to the counter to tell someone's there was a mess that people could slip on, and the only person available was the same s-l-o-w restocker. When I told her about the big puddle, she squinted over at the area I pointed out and said "OK" and kept on doing what she was doing without making any indication that someone would clean it up, without telling anyone else that there was a mess that could land them in a lawsuit, nothing. When I went up to get more napkins several minutes later, the spill was still there, so I told the young man from home I got the pizzas - - He looked a little bit more concerned than she had, but we were on our way out, and it just wasn't worth it to turn around and see if anybody cared.
I suggested to my husband when he got home that we should go and have pizza here tonight, that I thought he would really like the food although we had had a service issue when we were there earlier today. When we arrived we had six people (again) ahead of us, and it took quite some time (again) for us to be waited on - - two very earnest young men were building the pizzas, but I think they could've had more to keep the line moving. Finally, we had our pizzas made and they were set on the sideboard to wait in line for the oven, and we stood at the register waiting to be charged out. And stood. And stood. It was completely weird; not one person would look at us. We stood there with our money in her hands waiting for someone, anyone, to take the money for the food we had just ordered, but no one approached us, no one said "I'm sorry we're occupied but will be with you in a moment," no acknowledgement whatsoever. There was a couple just ahead of us who have been waiting even longer, and I noticed that they just walked away from the counter after a long while, because there was no indication anyone wanted or expected payment for their order, either.
Finally, I just said loudly, "Doesn't anyone want to take my money?" A young woman who said her name was Mackenzie, who had clearly been trying to unsnarl some problem at the pizza oven for some time, came over and apologized for the delay, comped us our drinks and charged us out. She was very kind and sincere and clearly a bit harried; and as my husband observed, she didn't look any older than the other employees, but she was clearly the only ADULT on the crew....
As we walked to our table, there were no straws at all for the drinks, the drink lids were down to a total of four, every table had crumbs or wadded up napkins on it, and someone had spilled their root beer float onto the floor of the walkway at the end of one of the booths, and the puddle of melted ice cream spread farther the longer we were there. No one on the crew seemed to see or care. It was still there when we left.
Finally our pizzas came out, and my husband agreed with me: the pizzas very -nearly- made up for the shortcomings. But the margin was so thin h hh, we're not read more