The Booze Pit, or dinner out with the family

We got an invitation out to dinner with the hubby's parents and a couple of other family members not too long ago. It sounded fun and we don't see family much during the summer, so we accepted.  The six of us met up at a popular chain restaurant and settled in to catch up and enjoy a fun evening.  It all started out fine, and so quickly went down hill.  I'm just flabbergasted, kinda pissed off and want to vent.  (Times are estimated, but pretty close)

6:45pm:  We arrive.  The rest of the party is there, so we sit down and order a drink.  I order a cosmopolitan and an unsweetened iced tea.  The waitress asks if I want to make it a double (the cosmo, not the tea).  I think that means it will be in a big fancy glass, so I say sure.  Hubby gets a beer, which means he gets two beers, as it's 2 for 1 drafts.

6:50pm:  Our drinks arrive.  My cosmo is a single because, and I quote the waitress, "The bartender wouldn't let me make it a double".  That's just as well, as it's really just too much vodka and a splash of some sort of pink juice.  *blech*  We order our dinners.

7:20pm  The waitress comes by and asks if we want more drinks.  I get a second iced tea, my MIL gets a water, and the waitress asks hubby if he wants two more beers.  I remind him he's driving and the waitress says. "Oh, it's okay, your dinners aren't here yet, and I can stand and talk to you for an hour if I need to."  I look at her. blinking in shock as she proceeds to encourage hubby to drink and drive.  "Besides, they are small beers.  You can process...." she continues on in this vein for a while.  He orders the beer (I think as much to shut her up as anything else), and they agree to split them among a few people at the table.

As she walks away, I turn to the rest of the table and ask if the waitress was really just actively encouraging my husband to drink and drive??!!  Yes, we all agree, she surely was.  Hmmm.  Not Cool.

7:30pm:  She comes back to see if we need more drinks.

7:50pm:  She comes back to check on our drinks (she was really all about the drinks) and apologizes for the delay with the food.  We express our displeasure in the hour wait.  I'm thinking an free appetizer would have been nice.  The place wast that busy.

8:05pm:  The dinners start to come out.

8:15pm: My dinner comes out.  It's stone cold.  The whole thing is stone cold.  The salmon is so dry that you can't tell there was ever a sauce on it; the shrimp are cold and rubbery, the broccoli might as well have been right from the fridge, and the mashed potatoes were congealed into a big hard lump.

8:25pm: The waitress asks how things are.  I wasn't going to say anything to her, but Uncle prompted me, so I told her mine was cold.  "Yes, yours was probably done first and waited there for the rest.  Do you want it reheated?"  Well, the salmon was already like leather and the shrimp were like little erasers from sitting under the warming lamp, so I turned down that offer and told her why.  I waited over an hour for a cold dinner, and several sides around the table were ice cold, too.  Not Cool.  (Well yes, cool, but not cool.  You know.)  She speaks to the manager and they tell her to comp the table.... wait for it ...  a round of drinks.
So I was the lucky soul to get a free cheap cosmo and a cold leathery dinner, and I got to listen to the waitress try to convince the hubby that it would be fine to drink and drive. Yay, me!

8:35pm: I leave The Booze Pit (not its real name) for the first and the very last time ever.

I would normally be posting the name of this restaurant all over the place, but if this is the typical service experience at their fine establishment, they will drive themselves out of business all on their own.  They are in a busy section of town, and they are surrounded by other similar choices, such as Outback, Smoky Bones and the newly opening Longhorn Steakhouse, along with several more.  In fact, as we left, I said to hubby, "I told you we should just eat at the cafe in B&N!"  

I do kind of wish I had said something to the waitress about the drinking and driving part.  Ah, well.  Live and learn.

Thanks for listening!