Blame the cheese

When we have visitors from out of town we like to take them to lunch at a little restaurant which overlooks the beautiful Niagara River. You can't beat the view,the food is good and service is friendly. It can be hard sometimes (in our neck of the woods) to find a nice place for lunch so we're really glad to have found this restaurant.

On our last visit, three of us ordered hamburgers and one ordered nachos. See? Nothing fancy.

The nachos arrived. Two hamburgers arrived. Mine did not. I was told, "We're just waiting for the cheese to melt."

Now I'm a nice customer. I say my "pleases" and "thank-yous" and don't complain. I've been known to eat the meal wthat was served even when it wasn't what I had ordered. So I waited for my hamburger with melted cheese and had the others start without me. And I waited. And I waited.

Our server had vanished so we called another server over thinking she could at least find my hamburger with very melted cheese and bring it over. She could not. Apparently someone else had been served my hamburger by mistake. Not to worry, they would prepare me another hamburger. What's wrong with this picture???

So I waited. And I waited. And I waited. Called over another server. She goes to find my hamburger.

Finally a manager appears bearing my freshly cooked hamburger with the melted cheese. Apologies were made but my hamburger had been "dropped on the floor and of course, they couldn't serve me that burger, so sorry, so sorry but here you go."

I suppose our first server was just too embarrassed to tell us that she had dropped my plate - I'm assuming that was the true story since it's the worst case scenario - but accidents happen and we all would have understood, laughed and been prepared to wait. It's the

w a i t i n g
f o r
t h e
c h e e s e
t o
m e l t

that got to me.

Our original server never did come back to the table to ask if everything was ok. She never did apologize for making me wait more than 20 minutes for my lunch while the others were eating. In fact, she never even looked at me. Maybe it's because I was giving her my wilting Mother's look that says, "Is there something you need to tell me?"

No apology, no comp, no discount, no dessert, no nothing. So our favorite little lunch spot has lost a star. And I guess I've learned that if I'm told "we're just waiting for the cheese to melt" to respond, "That's ok - I'll just take that without the cheese!"