This past weekend some girlfriends and I checked out a newish, hyped-up restaurant called Green Street Smoked Meats. On the way in, I complained to my friend Julie about a previous dining experience I had recently had at a restaurant called RPM Italian. My friends and I sat down, got the menu, and then had to put our conversation on hold for fifteen minutes as the waiter "explained" the menu to us, basically showing us what was on it and reading it to us. This drove me nuts, because I can read, and I was paying a babysitter to be at home while I was out at dinner (OK, this is a lie--my husband was at home that night. But it could have been the case!) Having a waiter read me something that I can read myself is not a fun new development in dining (nor is the waiter having to explain what small plates are, especially when the menu is organized into "small plates" and "large plates," as if I'm going to say "Now when you mean 'small plate,' does that mean 'large'?")
"Restaurants are treating people like they're stupid!" agreed Julie, and then we entered Green Street Smoked Meats. The only way I could describe the organization of this restaurant is that it was a shitshow. I felt like I was trapped inside a Disneyworld ride as we entered the restaurant and were trapped in a small crowd as a man who worked for the restaurant explained to us how it all worked. The line for food starts here. The bar is over here. You can hang out at the bar or get drinks and wait in line for food. There are also beers you can grab from the ice chest and pay up front. This seemed, in the moment, impossible to grasp, especially as the restaurant was dimly lit, the music was blaring, and people crossed in and out of various areas causing confusion--were we in the line for food, or were we still in the "getting explained-to group"? Are you in the line for the bathroom or for food? OK, now we've got our trays, we do what now? Find space at the communal table? WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU.
Once we figured out what was going on, we got in line for food. "This system seems confusing at first," I said to the guy who was putting together my pulled pork sandwich. "I know," he said. "But it's really not. It's really the most basic restaurant configuration of all time." I know he didn't mean it this way but his opinion sounded like, "I can't believe people are so dumb as to not get this."
My friends and I got a table but could barely hear each other over the music, and then there was a delay wherein I realized that while I had put in my order for my sandwich, it didn't come up and all I had paid for was coleslaw and broccoli salad and I felt like a jerk while I basically cut in line and waited for a new sandwich to be made. I was pretty over this restaurant.
Until. I tasted the food. It was amazing. I mean, barbecue is by nature amazing. It's hard not to like barbecue. But this was maybe the best barbecue food I'd had in Chicago, anyway. Everything was amazing--the pork, the brisket, the bread on my sandwich, even the coleslaw (and who cares about coleslaw?) The food was heaven, not to mention pretty inexpensive, and this stopped me from having to hate this restaurant based on its dumb organizational flow. In the end, the pulled pork guy was right--it was a simple setup for a restaurant, except for the fact that like RPM Italian, it made things more confusing by treating the customers like they were dumb. Plenty of restaurants, from Manny's Deli to Potbelly to Chipotle, have a line-up system that's self-evident due to clear signage and convenient restaurant blocking. If Green Street Smoked Meats had just set its restaurant up to be self-explanatory, instead of relying on a dude to "explain" the lineup system to those inside, there would have been no problem. I would have lined up happily. But by acting like the system is confusing, the restaurant made it confusing. Once the restaurant decides a bunch of adults can figure out how to line up for some food, I will be back in line and be happily on my way to weighing 500 pounds of pure meat.
Well, also maybe once they've touched up the bathrooms. Because I don't know where they got the idea that people want to feel like they're in a prison cell when they go to the bathroom. But that's another complaint for another time.
