The family that eats free together…

I recognize that there is entirely too much emphasis on eating in this blog. It’s not like that now we’re retired all we do is sit around and think about food. We sit around, watch TV and think about food. But seriously, folks…

I do think, however, that the latest trend in our dining experiences is worth mentioning – and that’s eating for free! It started two weeks ago when we went to Black Eyed Pea for Sunday lunch. We enjoyed our meal, and as we were finishing up, the manager came by and said “This one’s on me – just take care of the waiter.” I began to protest that everything had gone smoothly and there was no need to do this (unlike another time when things did not go smoothly), but Barbara was kicking me under the table, so I shut up. It seems that she had taught the manager’s child a couple of years ago and he recognized her. Cool!

Then today at Red Lobster, we were seated promptly, but no wait staff came by; not even a “be with you in a minute.” This has happened before, so after about 15 minutes we caught the manager’s eye and indicated we had been waiting a while and he really stepped up. He took our drink order and said he would he would treat us to some appetizers. We said no thanks; we would just order our meal. So then he wanted to know what we were having and when we told him the popcorn shrimp he said it was on him and he would go put our order in and someone would be right with us. I’m thinking at this point I really should have said, “Lobster!” but it was too late. But I’m really liking this trend that’s developing for Sunday lunch.

Now it’s Sunday evening and there’s no Care Group this week since it would only be Mom and I and maybe one other person, so we’re planning a quiet evening at home. There’s a new Pizza Hut take-out place on Braker now, and we thought we would go online and order some wings for supper. Unfortunately, the new place can’t take on-line orders yet, and the web page said they didn’t deliver to our subdivision which is six tenths of a mile from that location, so we gave up and got in the car and went and ordered some wings for take-out. The ordering part went okay, but the taking-out part didn’t work out that well. Not for us or the half-dozen or so folks who were waiting, or coming back in to bring back an incorrect pizza order. It was quite a mess. Finally, the manager came over and handed out coupons for free large pizzas to all of us waiting. Now we did pay for the wings, but scoring a free large pizza is never a bad thing!

So now I’m wondering where we can go next Sunday and expect bad service – or just get lucky.