Interesting Lunch

Jon and I went shopping at the local Farmer's Market today (I got $1 back for returning the peach box - yay!), and afterwards decided to try a new restaurant for lunch. We thought it looked interesting, and it's only about 5 minutes from our house. It's an Irish pub type place and looked fun. We walked inside and went to the hostess desk - where she stared at us. This seemed odd to me - normally a hostess greets you and seems to have a general idea of why you are there (table for 2?). Finally she asked if we were there for some "drinks and grub" - um yes, that's why we entered your restaurant at lunchtime. She asked where we wanted to sit - and knocked down my idea of eating outside - since she was sweating bullets(?) from having to serve outside - TMI! She seated us inside and got us some menus. Then our waitress showed up - she got our drink orders right and it all went downhill from there. Jon asked about one of the sides - wild mushrooms - and our waitress stared at him for a few seconds before mumbling some answer about them being marinated and then apologizing to him for staring. She did tell him that his sandwich came with fries though (which wasn't mentioned on the menu). Then she took my salad order I asked if they had French dressing. She said she thought so but would come out and tell me so I could pick a different dressing if they didn't.

Then the wait began...meanwhile our waitress would come out from the kitchen and seem to wander around the restaurant as if unsure what she was supposed to be doing. The manager acted in a similar manner - except he returned to the bar often for drinks and to keep tabs on the Broncos game.

We finally got our food 30 minutes after we placed our order - except it didn't seem quite right. My salad came with a vinagrette dressing - not the French I had asked for, Jon's sandwich had coleslaw but no fries, and we were given a cup of French Onion soup which neither of us ordered. When the waitress came back we questioned this - (was this even our order??). She said they didn't have French dressing, but the vinagrette was the best for my salad, she seemed surprised that we didn't order soup, and said she'd be right out with Jon's fries. We noticed the table next to us was also given coleslaw instead of fries, and apparantly she tried to pawn off the extra soup on them. After about 10 minutes - in which she went in and out of the kitchen repeatedly - each time looking at Jon and then returning to the kitchen - she brought out his fries. She then explained that it was a mistake on her part - fries do not come with the sandwich - but that she wouldn't charge us extra for them. (Um, I hope not!)

When she was clearing our plates, we asked for the check - which she had in her hand - and then she got distracted and walked away without giving it to us. (We also overheard that she put the unordered French onion soup on the tab of the table next to us.)

We think maybe the extra French onion soup came b/c I asked for French dressing? Who knows - Jon thinks she ate too many of the "wild" mushrooms or maybe was having drinks with the manager. I really liked the food, but I think next time we're going to eat in the bar - the bartender at least looked competent!