A sinking feeling outside a Memphis seafood restaurant
Jul. 30—To her credit, Mandy knew our meal would be disastrous before we'd even set foot inside the restaurant.
"This isn't a good sign," she said, or something like it, as we pulled into the parking lot and found choice parking near the front door.
"What isn't?" I said as I scoped out the joint through the rear-view mirror. The building was a sprawling complex of boxy shapes painted all the dark reds and off-whites any respectable seafood restaurant should have.
"It's noon on a Monday," she said. "The parking lot is empty."
This was true. A sparse number of vehicles dotted the massive parking lot, which shared space with a nearby strip mall. Tumbleweeds trundled by as I scanned a landscape that was unusually desolate for what was ostensibly lunchtime for all but night-shifters and Lost Boys.
"Well, the Google reviews are good," I said. I then offered to take us somewhere else..
"No," she said. "Let's try it."
And so we did. Which was our mistake.
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The napkin holder was our second red flag.
"Why is it all sticky?" Mandy said, rubbing grease between her fingers.
Before I could answer, the server appeared.
"Hi," she told us with about the same amount of affection I'd give a discarded cup of chewing tobacco. She told us her name and then scribbled an illegible version of it on the butcher paper covering our table. "What can I get you?"
I told her we'd both be ordering the fish and chips lunch special with a calamari appetizer. For drinks, I said, my wife wanted an unsweet tea. Just water for me, please.
"OK," she told me, and then turned to Mandy. "And for you?"
Mandy and I looked at each other warily, then back to the server.
"I ... uh ... also want the fish and chips," she said.
"Oh, yeah," the server replied, furiously scribbling something into her little book. "Got it."
She then disappeared for 10 minutes or so. When she returned, she was carrying two glasses of water. She tossed these on the table and then hurried off. We wouldn't see her at our table again for approximately 45 minutes.
"You want me to flag someone down and see if we can't get the tea you ordered?" I said to Mandy, who was shaking her head as she looked at the glass of water.
"Nah, just make sure we're not charged for it."
After an eternity, one of the cooks brought out the dehydrated, rubbery husks of our fried calamari; sometime later, another cook brought out the dehydrated, flavorless husks of fried fish. We ate our food in silent disappointment.
"When do you think she'll come back?" Mandy said after roughly 30 minutes of picking at our food.
"As soon as she's done with her conversation with the other employees," I told her, nodding toward the booth at the back of the restaurant where several members of the restaurant staff had been seated for the past half-hour. It was the only table within a half-mile that had anyone in it. Besides our own, of course.
As most parties do, this one eventually broke up. I watched our server head to the back.
"Check should come soon," I said. "I'm so sorry I picked this place. You were right. It's awful."
Mandy nodded and told me she'd seen enough Gordon Ramsay-based shows to spot the warning signs.
"Here she comes," I said, pulling my wallet from my pocket. "I'm going to toss the credit card to her when she hands us the check so that we don't have to wait another hour for her return."
But she didn't hand us the check. Instead, our server placed a single glass of unsweet tea on the table between us.
"Here you go," she said.
Mandy and I looked at each other, then at her.
"Um ... we don't want this," I told her.
She appeared taken aback.
"You don't?"
"No," I said. "We're done. We'd like the check, please."
"Oh," she said. "OK. I'll be right back."
She wasn't.
