A post in which I inadvisedly celebrate Cinco de Mayo

I should have gone home tonight and gone to bed again. But then I have never been known for doing what I should do. I haven’t seen Billy and Russ in a while, so I texted them today to see what they were up to. I was thinking that tonight was as good as any to see them, plus it was Cinco de Mayo, and they might be going out for Mexican.

It turns out that they had plans (big surprise), but they said I could tag along. It was their friend Carol’s birthday tonight. She had planned a big get-together at the restaurant that used to be Molina’s on Wade Hampton. Well there were some difficulties. The restaurant isn’t Molina’s any longer. They’ve changed the name and the ownership, although the restaurant looks the same inside. Apparently Molina left, and took the staff with her. The only thing they kept was the annoying incredibly loud band, which is now no longer confined to playing on Thursday nights, as had been prior custom. Not to worry, the band unloaded copious amounts of equipment all evening, and was just doing a sound-check when we left, about 9:45.

You read correctly. Although someone had called to make reservations, they either didn’t believe she was bringing in 20+ people to eat, or were very inexperienced about staffing for such an event. There was no place for us to sit when we arrived. There was another large party that was seated, and not going anywhere, thank you very much. We cooled our heels and socialized in the parking lot, smoking and talking. Eventually rules were flouted and cocktails were carried outside.

After about an hour, we were finally seated. Then we started to understand why the other party had been in there for so long. We had one very harried and apparently disorganized waiter, who proceeded to take about a half hour to get our drinks. I will say that the restaurant was woefully understaffed, but the situation was not helped by the fact that the server just couldn’t seem to get organized. He spent an inordinate amount of time confusedly flipping back and forth in a book that apparently contained at least fifty open checks. He did eventually take three orders from our table, only to retreat to confusedly flip for another fifteen minutes, then come back and take all the orders again. Eventually, one of the guys at our table (another guest mind you, not an employee) got chips and salsa for us, and then went back and ran a couple of loads of dishes through the dishwasher.

After the orders were finally completed, we started the wait for our food. When I next checked the clock, it was about 8:30. I had ordered nachos, and surprisingly, despite the inadvisability of placing a special order, they came out correctly. But that was the only plate that came out for another twenty minutes. When the solo plate next to me came out, people started to leave. Eventually, people just started peeling off to go other places to get some food. After another half hour or so, Russ and Billy’s food came out. They ate, and then we started making plans to leave. This involved catching the waiter, who seemed to be working behind the bar at this point. They had apparently called in some backup help, but after checking with us once, the new help got beers and sat down at tables with friends.

Another birthday party who came in shortly after we were seated, finally just sat down with us to take over the vacated tables after an interminable wait. After standing at the register for a while, as the guy checking out the people in front of us tried to figure out what the heck was going on, Billy got to pay for his and Russ’s check. I was then ignored. By the time Billy paid out, the waiter had left again – with all the checks. I finally asked the guy at the register if I could please just pay him, and told him what I had. The band was tuning up, and I knew that shortly you wouldn’t be able to hear anything in there (not that you could hear much at that point anyway). After I paid, the waiter came back up and started doing the check-flipping thing again. I just left. I did not leave a tip, although Billy did. What a cluster-fuck!

I went back to Russ and Billy’s house and visited with them for a bit, but we were all pretty worn out from the ordeal of the evening. I have no time set to go back in that place!