Have you eaten today???? Today is National Better Breakfast Day, so eat something yummy to eat your fast.
I remember those early days of widowhood when it was enough to get dressed. There wasn’t much cooking in those first days here at Winterpast. I relied on some wonderful restaurants for nourishment, risking the possibility of Covid. Through widow’s fog, it was all I could manage to be served, eat, and pay the bill. Perhaps you can relate.
These days, breakfast is a given. HHH is such a great cook! It’s all good because I don’t mind washing dishes while putting everything back in order. He loves cooking and is always looking for new and exciting recipes. Another way we’re a great match.
He delights in surprising me with fresh hash browns or homemade pancakes. One day, while in line at Walmart, I marveled at the gentleman in front of us buying frozen pancakes and waffles. Not in our house. In our house, bacon is on the menu every single day. Eggs. A starch. All enjoyed after asking God’s blessing. Perfectly wonderful.
As a treat, HHH and I wanted to visit the new restaurant in our little town. It’s always fun to try something new, until it isn’t.
In this crazy world, after spending an entire summer creating a new restaurant, you would hope the meals produced in the first few weeks would be better than “Just okay”. We’d heard meals there were FANTASTIC. So, off we went.
“Just Okay” would have been acceptable. What we got was “Just Plain Awful”. Soupy scrambled eggs, runny fried eggs, dry and overcooked sausage, and terrible biscuits with thin and drippy gravy. What a statement about lack of pride in one’s business or job. An all-around zero stars out of 5. In a town of 25,000, the word will spread like wildfire and sadly, another business will bite the dust.
This is the second meal in a week in which we’ve experienced unacceptable customer service or terrible food. The other was in Las Vegas at an establishment with the name of a very famous chef on the door and a surprisingly bad experience once inside. $90 of lunch money later, we left shaking our heads in disbelief. Being married to an amazing cook has wrecked me for eating in the real world. Meals at Winterpast never disappoint, even if I need to do the dishes myself.
The response from both places was to come back and let them show us the “REAL” experience. New business owners forget this important fact. You have ONE chance to make a GREAT first impression. In the case of those two restaurants, that ship sailed.
Only one local restaurant is consistently GREAT in our little town. DENNY’S. The manager is a mountain of a man who works more hours than he is home. He watches every detail like a hawk and checks often to insure his customers are happy with their meals. It is one of the best restaurants I’ve eaten in since moving to Nevada ten years ago. Why so? It’s only a “Denny’s”, you might think. Nope. It’s the best because the manager treats the entire operation as his own, loving his customers and eatery.
The work ethic of our country has been lost . It’s pretty obvious the youngsters working in the food industry don’t quite grasp what it takes to be a GREAT eatery. Soon, they may find themselves wondering what happened to their jobs. All the while, HHH and I enjoy food we’ve grown and prepared ourselves. At this point, it’s not worth the disappointment and effort to try new restaurant food.
Tonight, we’ll enjoy another hand crafted meal. It will be so nice to enjoy a quite moment with the man I love in the privacy of our own home.
Whatever you do today, think of something wonderful for dinner. Try a new recipe. If you must, order something you love, arrange it on a pretty plate, and enjoy a your meal. If you are lucky enough to have a great restaurant near you, hug the manager and know you are very lucky, indeed.
