A Very Wiedlin Dinner
Mar. 28th, 2010 05:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aYesterday evening, my mom, step-dad, two brothers, and new sister-in-law come into Berkeley to help Kimberly and me celebrate our birthdays. There was gifting (in the form of checks which will be at least partially spent in an Amazon-wishlist-spending binge this evening) and then dining at Chevy's.
Chevy's was my request, because we'd had a very tasty dinner there last year with Katherine and Michael. The service was less than great last year, as the power went out shortly after we'd finished eating and the staff seemed determined to hold us hostage there afterward, but that didn't affect the core dining experience. (There was fortunately cash on hand, and thus we left.)
Anyway, fast forward to this year. We got to Chevy's, parked in the always-very-crowded parking lot and headed in. They told us the wait would be 10-15 minutes, and so most of us went to sit down at the nearby benches, except Bob opted to follow their suggestion to wait in the bar, and he headed in that direction.
Except that Chevy's has a "cantina" which is pretty much contiguous with the bar, but which you have to be seated in. Bob didn't know that, and to be fair they pointed us in that exact direction, so he took a table and we all settled in, with most of the Wiedlins having dreams of margaritas dancing in their heads. A waiter came over and in pretty bad English tried to explain that we weren't supposed to sit there, but he wasn't explaining well and he was passive-aggressive about it or something, so after a minute he says, "No, it's OK. You just sit here."
And that started the hi-jinks of the evening. We ordered some drinks, and after that we got some appetizers too, and sometime in there the waiter stealthily swiped our pager that would have gotten us our seat in the main restaurant. Afterward, when we realized what he'd done, we told him we wanted a real table, and then there were many discussions with the staff at the front of the restaurant and he finally said he'd put our name in and it'd be about 30 minutes now.
By 8 or 8.30 we'd been at the restaurant for and hour and a half or two hours and our appetizers were gone, as were two pitchers of Margaritas. I don't know that any of us were terribly offended by the wait, as we were all enjoying socializing, and that was the point of the evening, not getting anywhere at any specific time. But we called the waiter back and asked him how our main table was going, and he explained to us, "The list, it was too long." Apparently he hadn't put our name back on the reservation list because of the number of other people waiting.
I really can't imagine what was going on in his head. I think maybe he was just hoping we'd leave, because we'd already had drinks and appetizers and even paid that bill. But then Bob told him to bring us back dinner menus (which we'd had at one point before he stole them back away) and we'd eat there in the cantina. At which point he said, "No, is OK." And he went back, had more discussions with the staff at the front of the restaurant, came RUNNING back at one point, stopped short of our table and walked back to the front, and then returned one more time and said, "I have table for you."
The second half (or maybe it was just a third or a quarter) of the evening was at least as entertaining as the first. We had a cute waitress who told us that she'd just been there for two weeks and she was EXTREMELY nervous about everything. At one point she told us five or six times the status of a coffee that Jason had offered.
("So first I went back, and there weren't any coffee cups, so I had to find a cup, and then I got a cup and I put it down and I started brewing the coffee, and then I came back and someone had stolen my coffee cup, so I went and got a new coffee cup, and I went to bring you coffee, but then I saw it was broken, so I had to go back and there weren't any coffee cups, so I had to find a cup ...")
The best part, though, was when we got our meals (and they came up surprisingly quick) and Kimberly very kindly pointed out that we had no silverware. The waitress was apparently mortified. A couple of minutes later she came back with kind of a wad of silverware and napkins. She put it down, saying, "I asked them to roll them up and they didn't!!!!"
Then, I kid you not, she started fanning herself with both hands, like she was about to faint or something.
Out of seven orders, six of them came up right. Bob's came back almost instantly when it was wrong. The food was very good, as I remembered. We were all very nice to the waitress.
So, I wouldn't go to that Chevy's if I had anywhere I ever wanted to be, but last night I found the antics entirely humorous. I think a good time was had by all.
Chevy's was my request, because we'd had a very tasty dinner there last year with Katherine and Michael. The service was less than great last year, as the power went out shortly after we'd finished eating and the staff seemed determined to hold us hostage there afterward, but that didn't affect the core dining experience. (There was fortunately cash on hand, and thus we left.)
Anyway, fast forward to this year. We got to Chevy's, parked in the always-very-crowded parking lot and headed in. They told us the wait would be 10-15 minutes, and so most of us went to sit down at the nearby benches, except Bob opted to follow their suggestion to wait in the bar, and he headed in that direction.
Except that Chevy's has a "cantina" which is pretty much contiguous with the bar, but which you have to be seated in. Bob didn't know that, and to be fair they pointed us in that exact direction, so he took a table and we all settled in, with most of the Wiedlins having dreams of margaritas dancing in their heads. A waiter came over and in pretty bad English tried to explain that we weren't supposed to sit there, but he wasn't explaining well and he was passive-aggressive about it or something, so after a minute he says, "No, it's OK. You just sit here."
And that started the hi-jinks of the evening. We ordered some drinks, and after that we got some appetizers too, and sometime in there the waiter stealthily swiped our pager that would have gotten us our seat in the main restaurant. Afterward, when we realized what he'd done, we told him we wanted a real table, and then there were many discussions with the staff at the front of the restaurant and he finally said he'd put our name in and it'd be about 30 minutes now.
By 8 or 8.30 we'd been at the restaurant for and hour and a half or two hours and our appetizers were gone, as were two pitchers of Margaritas. I don't know that any of us were terribly offended by the wait, as we were all enjoying socializing, and that was the point of the evening, not getting anywhere at any specific time. But we called the waiter back and asked him how our main table was going, and he explained to us, "The list, it was too long." Apparently he hadn't put our name back on the reservation list because of the number of other people waiting.
I really can't imagine what was going on in his head. I think maybe he was just hoping we'd leave, because we'd already had drinks and appetizers and even paid that bill. But then Bob told him to bring us back dinner menus (which we'd had at one point before he stole them back away) and we'd eat there in the cantina. At which point he said, "No, is OK." And he went back, had more discussions with the staff at the front of the restaurant, came RUNNING back at one point, stopped short of our table and walked back to the front, and then returned one more time and said, "I have table for you."
The second half (or maybe it was just a third or a quarter) of the evening was at least as entertaining as the first. We had a cute waitress who told us that she'd just been there for two weeks and she was EXTREMELY nervous about everything. At one point she told us five or six times the status of a coffee that Jason had offered.
("So first I went back, and there weren't any coffee cups, so I had to find a cup, and then I got a cup and I put it down and I started brewing the coffee, and then I came back and someone had stolen my coffee cup, so I went and got a new coffee cup, and I went to bring you coffee, but then I saw it was broken, so I had to go back and there weren't any coffee cups, so I had to find a cup ...")
The best part, though, was when we got our meals (and they came up surprisingly quick) and Kimberly very kindly pointed out that we had no silverware. The waitress was apparently mortified. A couple of minutes later she came back with kind of a wad of silverware and napkins. She put it down, saying, "I asked them to roll them up and they didn't!!!!"
Then, I kid you not, she started fanning herself with both hands, like she was about to faint or something.
Out of seven orders, six of them came up right. Bob's came back almost instantly when it was wrong. The food was very good, as I remembered. We were all very nice to the waitress.
So, I wouldn't go to that Chevy's if I had anywhere I ever wanted to be, but last night I found the antics entirely humorous. I think a good time was had by all.