J is low-key. Chill. He didn't want a big to-do. We just hoped for beautiful weather- which we got. We wanted to relax and drink beer on a patio- which we did. The rest of the story, I'm not sure I could make up if I tried.
We arrived at one of our local breweries in the late afternoon, and hit the jackpot right away with a large table to surround with a few friends. Our server came over to take our beer order. Any Parks & Rec fans out there? This guy was pretty much Orin. After he left to get our drinks, J said "He's high right now!" Totally deadpan. We weren't sure if he had any idea what was going on around him. But surprisingly, we did get our drinks and appetizers without any trouble.
Then we got hungry for dinner. And that's when things started to go downhill.
Orin (I don't know his real name, so I'm going with Orin) came and took our order. A few minutes later he came back and told us that the kitchen was really backed up, and that he was going to have to wait ten minutes before he put our order in. Okay, no big deal.
An HOUR later, he came back over, and we found out that our order had not yet been put into the kitchen.
Apparently, some major shit was going down in there.
A manager came over and apologized, telling us that she was helping out in the kitchen, and that food was starting to come out, but that it would be at least another 40 minutes before they made it to our ticket. (And apparently my sister overheard this manager yelling at Orin, telling him that he was supposed to tell us it would be an hour before he could put our order in, not ten minutes. Yikes.) Everything we wanted to drink in the meantime was on her.
We were relaxed about it- luckily J had already had a few and no longer had any cares in the world, otherwise I can't imagine he would have been so pleasant about it. Also, in lieu of sending him a beer, my sister had sent him a pint of bacon earlier in the day, so he wasn't hangry like I was.
I decided I was fine with the delay. And this is only because I walked a few shops down and bought one slice of pizza to hold me over. Because isn't it totally normal to have to leave one restaurant to buy food at another, just so that your stomach doesn't start digesting itself before the first restaurant brings you your dinner??
When I returned, the table was still in jolly spirits, waiting on our food. We may have been the only jolly table, though. The tables around us were dropping like flies. Families with kids, groups of twenty-somethings, and everyone in between started deciding that waiting two hours for a mediocre meal just wasn't worth it. They were abandoning ship without having eaten.
Not long after this, food FINALLY started coming out of the kitchen.
I know this because Orin came over to our table with a chicken sandwich and fries.
"I know this isn't the chicken wrap that you ordered, but it's chicken. I figured you'd just want some food. I won't charge you for it." And he set the plate down in front of me.
Weird! But hey, we're all hungry here. We'll take it.
Shortly thereafter, another server came over with a tray of food...that we hadn't ordered. He told us that our server had told him to just bring us any food that came out of the kitchen. The people who had actually ordered this food had long since left, so I guess their meals were fair game? And the food just kept coming. Multiple servers, managers, kitchen staff- they just kept coming and coming, setting down more and more food.
We had a couple of chicken sandwiches, some wings, mac & cheese, a giant pretzel, some kind of wrap. It just became a smorgasbord of other peoples' meals. NONE of it the actual meals that we'd chosen, and none of it at any cost to us.
Guys, we couldn't stop laughing. It was the most bizarre dining experience any of us had ever experienced. And for the life of us, none of us could figure out what could have possibly gone down in that kitchen to cause that kind of shit show.
Eventually we were full and ready to leave, but we weren't 100% sure what we should do. Not that we were hungry anymore, but we didn't want to leave if they were about to bring our order out. Although I suppose if we did, they could just give our food to some other poor schmucks that had been waiting for days to eat?
When Orin came back, I asked him. "Just to clarify- are we going to get the food that we actually ordered?"
"OH! ...No."
Guys, I'm dead. It was so, so funny.
We all left saying that this was certainly a memorable birthday celebration, and one that J wouldn't soon forget.
It was a crazy, kinda perfect day.
Happy (belated) birthday to you, my love! My wish for you this year is that you never have to wait more than two hours for dinner. And that if you do, it's someone else's dinner that's delivered to you. I love you!
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