From: Don Guido
Date: 24 Aug 97

Went to my first Italian dinner last night since Battista's. Let me tell you, it sucked.

The atmosphere was reasonable, especially when the waiter-host-guy sat me next to the liquor locker. I spent several minutes just staring in awe at the massive collection of liquor bottles that were only feet away. Unfortunately it was locked. :(

At any rate, the service started off good. The waitress quickly greeted me and took my order, returning promptly with a glass of water, a glass of mediocre wine (ugh - $4), some bread (tasty!) and a salad absolutely awash in Italian dressing.

The first sign of poor service was that the guy who puts fresh crushed pepper on your salad looked at me and apparently thought I wasn't interested - he nearly ran the other way before he was even in earshot.

After finishing off the salad (and the bread and the wine and the water), the busboy did the best service of the evening by promptly removing my salad bowl. Unfortunately he didn't even offer to replenish the bread, nor did he refill my water. I let him slide on the wine, as he was a young 'un and probably couldn't have served it even had he asked.

The next 45 minutes were unbearable. The water, wine and bread plate all remained empty, and no one who worked in this establishment even approached to ask how I was doing, explain why the food was taking so facking long or anything. Asshuffers, all.

So after an hour in this place, I left. The really depressing part is that no one noticed that I was walking out without even paying for the sorry glass of wine. I felt robbed of my chance to really tell them off.

On a side note, the table next to me started talking about the Cap'n (Morgan to you landlubbers) about twenty minutes into my exile, and with a subtle "Argh!" to them, we got along nicely. Unfortunately, their waitress was much better than my own, so they actually *had* some of the Cap'n...

Ah well. I guess it's tough to match up to Battista's, eh?

From: Don Guido
Subject: "Glory be to the Drunks of the World..."
Date: 31 Aug 97

I , Don Guido, wrote:

Went to my first Italian dinner last night since Battista's. Let me tell you, it sucked.

You know, after this I was almost ready to figure that the world in general would be a much less interesting place. I mean after the great Las Vegas DB InFESTation of 1997, how can anything else live up?

So I went to an Applebee's for lunch the next day. Sat at the bar. I was working, but as anyone who's ever been there knows, that's the only way to get fed in the first hour. Seems no one wants to sit there. And you can get your drinks pretty damn fast, too.

As I'm drinking some sufficiently foo-foo drink so I don't get absolutely ripped before heading back to work, I start talking to a couple folks sitting next to me. Turns out they're from NJ or somewhere thereabouts, and they happen to be staying at the inn behind the restaurant. Which, coincidentally, they say has an excellent Italian restaurant. I of course disagree.

They're pretty nice folks, though, and can certainly quaff the liquor for being some older bastards, so I give them a chance - I tell 'em that I'll meet them in the bar that night and we'll see what the manager says about my story from the previous night. Turns out he didn't really give a rip, but it worked out.

The couple I met in the bar at lunch proceeded to buy no less than three rounds of drinks to start dinner. Then their god-granddaughter (wierd, don't ask) came in (unfortunately with her stiff-of-the-week, but she was still a pretty good looker) to town to have dinner. So I got some free booze and some excellent scenery for the meal.

Turns out that there was another night of shitty service, that probably even took longer than the previous night. But the company was good and I was a bit beyond caring to boot.

The moral of this story? I don't know. It certainly couldn't be "Don't eat at an Italian restaurant with shitty service unless you're likely to run into some DBs with a hot relative the next night", because how are you going to know? I guess it's just to make sure you realize just how many wonderful drunken bastards there are out there. Even when you least expect it.

Woohoo!