Truthful Tuesdays Volume Twenty-Two

• Posted on October 27, 2015
• by Jamie Stahl
• in Truthful Tuesday
• 1 Comment.

This Week’s Truthful Tuesday: Here’s An Idea, Be Nice

If you work in a restaurant or a food stand or in a food truck, do you think it’s in your best interested to be nice to people?  Ignoring the obvious “tipping” factor, what good could come out of being rude to customers?  Ideally it’s a cyclical business.  I buy your food and I’m happy with your product and your service so I come back.  I doubt anyone opens a food stand thinking, “I want people to buy my food once, not be happy with the service and never come back, so that there aren’t any repeat customers.”

Now, I totally understand that everyone is human and sometimes someone is just having a bad day and they didn’t mean to take it out on you or what you perceived as rude is actually just this person’s personality.  But, explain to me how it works when you go to a food market and speak to multiple people from various vendors, all of whom have a serious attitude problem.

I love that the food market, Broadway Bites is literally just outside of my apartment building.  It’s really convenient and has a lot of options for a ton of different vendors.  I wish that it was open all year round!  This past Sunday, October 25th, 2015 I decided to pick up my dinner from there.

I walked through the market and stopped near Arancini Bros to see what kind of rice balls they had available.  In order to see the “today’s flavors” sign, you literally have to walk up to the counter which makes things awkward to begin with because if you don’t like anything, you just have to walk away like “your food sucks today, sorry.”  The guy working that night seemed pretty friendly at first, asking me if he could help.  I really didn’t like what they had left because they were sold out of 3 flavors.  There must be over 30 various rice balls Arancini Bros makes, so only having 2 options left wasn’t exactly promising for my picky eating.  In a nice way I said, “I’m not in love with the flavors you have left, maybe I’ll come back tomorrow earlier in the day.”  I didn’t think that was super weird but, he didn’t seem to like that answer because he actually rolled his eyes, turned around, and sat back down on his chair without saying a single word in response to me.

Next stop was Doughnuttery.  I love their mini doughnuts!  I went right up to the counter, said “hi” with a smile, was completely ignored because the man was tending to his precious doughnuts, and grabbed a menu.  I knew from past experiences that at the market, they didn’t generally have all of the items listed on the menu so I asked him about it.  Continuing to fidget with the machine and inspect each doughnut coming out, he told me which flavors they did not have.  I then confirmed that they had my favorite flavor, the vanilla glazed, since he did not list that one.  He looked up at me and said, “no, we don’t have any of the glazed either,” and then went back to his doughnuts.  I stood there being ignored for another 15 seconds or so until I decided it wasn’t worth any more of my time and I walked away.

I had no issues at Hill Country, other than the fact that they were sold out of brisket, the one thing I wanted.  Bar Suzette was perfectly fine also.  I ordered french fries from them.

The last stop I had made was the Red Hook Lobster Pound counter.  I wanted Mac N Cheese, cole slaw, and a lemonade from there to complete my meal of french fries.  There was a man towards the back preparing food and a woman at the front near the register.   She was also having a conversation with the guy from the booth next-door and apparently felt that it was more important for them to finish than for me to place my order.  She looked at me without smiling or saying a word, as if I was supposed to know that their conversation ended and now she was ready for me.  Feeling awkward, I said, “Hi can I place an order for Mac N Cheese?”  The woman started to type it into the computer and I assumed that meant I should keep going so I added in the rest of my order.  I took the receipt from her and waited for the rest of my food to be ready.

Honestly, all I wanted was to sit down at home and eat my greasy dinner without having to interact with any other human beings for the rest of the night.  I was very happy with my french fries and lemonade, once I got settled in.  The Mac N Cheese was okay.  It looked a lot better than it tasted.  The cole slaw was  completely inedible.  I put it in my mouth and had to spit it out in the garbage because I thought there was something wrong with it.  Maybe it went sour or it was mixed with Comet bathroom cleaner?  All I know is that ninety percent of my Sunday night dinner experience was unpleasant and I’m kind of over Broadway Bites right now.

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