So… went to dinner the other night with the Wife, my parents and my brother and his wife. It was interesting to say the least. We don’t get to do ‘adult’ dinners often but we were celebrating my birthday and my Wife’s birthday (who happen to be a day apart) so this was a good opportunity. We went to a local eatery (who’s name I’ll withhold… you’ll understand why in a few minutes).
Just to set the stage… We were sitting on the patio on a beautiful Saturday evening and we sat down at about 7:00 or so. As soon as we sat down my brother said, “Oooh, I don’t even need to look at the menu. I already know what I want. It’s their signature dish (Pretzel Crusted Trout) and the reviews online are awesome.”
Naturally, about 3 minutes after he says this, the waitress comes over, introduces herself and gives us the specials, but has to apologize cause they’re out of the Trout (at 7:00 PM on a Saturday). So, the table grumbles at his misfortune and the waitress turns to my sister in law who orders the Walleye and Clams. The waitress apologizes and lets her know that they’re out of clams as well. sigh
She asks for a few more minutes to make her selection so she’s back to my brother who now selects a piece of salmon. Dad is up next who’s still grumbling about the trout, but is now super pissed cause he was going to get the walleye and clams as well. So, he asks, “Do you have scallops?”, to which she answer in the affirmative. He asks her to put the scallops with the walleye and call it a day and all is right the world.
Mom orders a piece of salmon, I have a steak, my Wife orders the scallop entree and my sister in law does the same scallop swap that my Dad did. Another round of drinks and we’re back to visiting.
Waitress comes back about 8 minutes later to inform my Dad that the chef won’t do the scallop swap cause he doesn’t want to run out of scallops for the entrees. Dad is more than a little grumpy now and I turn to my Wife and tell her to prepare her for when they come back and tell her that they’re out of scallops. The table scoffs at this idea, as SURELY they have enough scallops for the entrées… after all it’s only about 7:30 at this point.
Sure enough, 5 minutes later the waitress comes back and lo and behold they’re out of scallops. Wife has to resort to some fish tacos which were good, but weren’t the scallops she was hoping for.
Interesting Menu Planning
Just to recap…
- Out of trout
- Out of clams
- Out of scallops
All three of which are on the special ‘patio menu’ at 8:00 on a Saturday night. Wasn’t the waitress’ fault and she did what she could do to make it right offering us a round of drinks and desserts for the table.
So anyhow, dinner comes and we’re eating and my brother looks down as something brushes by his leg. My sister in law turns to him and asks if it was a mouse or a chipmunk and he responds, “A bit bigger.”
Well, Mr. Raccoon had made his first appearance of the evening and proceeds just to sort of hang out about 4 feet from the nearest table at the base of a tree with zero fucks to give about the fact that he’s causing a bit of a stir. A few minutes later the owner walks over and the raccoon proceeds to go up the tree, to about eye level and poke his head around the tree to just sort of check stuff out.
This goes on for another few minutes but to my sister in law it felt like days as she’s deathly afraid of the little critters.
Owner comes back with a broom and then with some sort of solution in a spray bottle and he eventually leaves for the evening.
All in all, a very interesting evening with wonderful company and a story to tell that we’ll remember forever. I doubt I’ll ever return to the place though which is a bummer cause I’ve been a big fan for a long time. I can almost forgive the fact that they were out of several menu items. I can’t imagine how difficult ordering and planning is during this pandemic.
What I’m not able to forgive is an owner to doesn’t care to deal with a raccoon issue. This clearly wasn’t the first time he was on the patio as evidenced by the fact that he was SO comfortable around people and the fact that the staff says he’s near that tree all the time. Sure, nature can be cute but there’s a time and a place for everything. A nice patio on a Saturday night isn’t the time nor the place.
