Rant #2,405: You Are What You Eat

Happy belated Mother's Day to all the moms out there.

How did your day go?

Over here, we had cards, we had gifts, we had a good meal, and that is what I want to focus on today.

I am happy that restaurants are open and trying hard to please during this horrible period that we are going through, but as far as curbside pickup of food, all I have to say is--

Bah!

My family and I have done it three times now, and we have struck out three times doing it.

It has gotten so bad that I have new respect for fast food places, who know how to do this and usually do it right.

If curbside pickup of food is the future, then larger restaurants are in major trouble based on what my family and I have gone through.

We used a major restaurant chain for my birthday meal, followed the instructions to the letter, and when I got there to pick up the food, I called into the restaurant as I was told to do, and it was brought out in a timely manner.

So far, so good.

When I arrived home and took out all the food from the bag it was in, I found that the order was as much right as wrong.

The side dishes were completely wrong, and they also left out my main dish.

I called them back, they apologized, and I went right back to get what was missing. They gave me a free dessert for fouling up the order. I did not tell them that the side dishes were wrong, but I did at least get my main dish.

My wife decided that we would celebrate Cinco de Mayo, so last week, she treated us to dinner on that day from a major Mexican restaurant chain.

I went there at the appointed time, I called in to say that I was there, and I expected the food to come out promptly.

After about 10 minutes of waiting, I called in again, and the pileup of cars outside the restaurant told me that this wasn't working.

I ended up walking into the restaurant, gave an employee my name, and they proceeded to get my food ... or what they thought was my food, because they proceeded to give me the wrong order. I told them that this wasn't right, and I was then told that I had to vacate the restaurant--leave right away, even as there was a line out the door of people ordering food from the counter, which was in direct violation of what they were supposed to be doing.

I left the premises, went back into my car, and still, 20 minutes later, no food at all, and the cars kept coming and coming and the line kept growing and growing.

I walked outside, and just as I was going to go back into the restaurant, an employee came out, almost instinctively looked at me, and yes, it was my order.

As he handed me my order, I told him that I was kicked out of the restaurant, and he wanted to know who did this to me. I told him, "It was the guy taking names," and that was that. As I went to my car, a woman asked me what was going on, and I told her, "Go into the restaurant and tell them that you are here. It is chaos in there."

When I got home, I found that the order was correct, but they actually gave us too much food, adding on three tacos to what we had ordered. I don't know if they fouled up the order or they were simply saying "Sorry" for it taking so long.

Yesterday, for Mother's Day, my wife decided she wanted Italian food, so we ordered from a small local Italian restaurant chain.

We followed everything to the letter again, I drove up to the restaurant, and because of the crush of cars, I had to double park my car. I called in, told them I was here, and they told me someone would be right out with my order.

Ten minutes later, still double parked, I called in again, and they said someone would be out with my order on the double.

With the minutes piling up, I saw a car pull out of a space right in front of me, so when he pulled out, I pulled in, and then I went into the restaurant.

I told an employee my name, and once again, they proceeded to give me the wrong order. I told them so, and then a manager came over, and we found the box my order was going to be put into ... but there was nothing in there. This was 15 minutes or so after the order was supposed to be ready.

So I waited for the box to be filled, along with about 20 or 30 other people. By the time the box was filled with our food, it was more than a half hour after we were supposed to pick it up. They included a dessert at no charge to apologize for the tardiness of the order.

When I got home, I noticed that they left out the Italian bread, but heck, at least the main stuff was in there.

I don't know if anyone else has ordered curbside pickup from local restaurants in their area, but as you can see from what I described, it has been nothing but chaos when my family and I have done this.

Look, I get it, These restaurant are really not equipped to do this type of food offering. They know how to wine and dine you when you eat there, but since that is not possible right now, they have had to adapt to another way to do this, and it is new, and it isn't yet working.

Eating out is one of our most popular social phenomenons, and the spread of this virus has completely wiped out this form of socializing.

Everyone loves to eat out, but we simply cannot do that anymore, or at least for the time being.

In other areas of the country, restaurants have opened, and are serving customers while using social distancing practices.

But at least people can go out and dine in these areas. In New York, you still can't do that, and I don't know when you will be able to do that again.

Sure, in the whole ball of wax, dining out is minor, but by not being able to do that, what we are getting is really, truly inferior to an exercise that we used to take for granted.

Let's hope that dining out doesn't go the way of the rotary phone--we need to be able to wine and dine outside our homes, and at least based on my three experiences, curbside pickup simply does not work at all.

It's like using a butter knife on a thick, well-done steak.

It simply doesn't cut it.