I've tried, I've really, really tried, to understand the enthusiasm that would prompt someone to make such an effort -- but to no avail. Maybe I'm examining the experience through the wrong prism. Maybe I'm just a humorless stick-in-the-mud.
You tell me.
The couple visited a restaurant chain known as much for its rude wait staff as for its greasy Southern cooking. The eatery serves insolence along with a side dish of Ass Byte Burgers and Crabby Balls. Patrons love it. So much so, in fact, that this couple reported the place was packed.
With masochists probably.
But Dick's
Hmm. For my daily comeuppance I can stay home or walk into any newsroom. Apparently, however, many people don't have these free uplifting opportunities, so they're willing to shell out some bucks to be verbally abused. What's more, the idea of courteous service, of feeling special in a special place, is too 20th Century. As passe as an analog clock or two-tone wingtip shoes.
A polite wait staff is simply not cool enough to stand out in a crowded field of tablecloth, candlelight and neo/fusion (fill-in-the-blank) dining.
Of course, Dick's
Online videos of customers getting a dress-down at the
Restaurants insulting their diners have become popular enough to rate a story by the
Right around the time my acquaintance was lauding the insults she had been served, a
Which brings me back to the platter of crude. Sure, it's served with the intention of clean, boorish fun. Sure, squirming patrons and a clever put-down can be entertaining, sometimes. But if insults are the only way to rise to the top, if the recipe to culinary success requires rudeness as an ingredient, is that a verdict on dull food or on a society dulled to good manners and civility?
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Ana Veciana-Suarez is a family columnist for The Miami Herald.