So, this afternoon, I went with 3 co-workers to the Cheesecake Factory. I had a decent time there for lunch the first time or two I went, but I did have one time with poor service (food coming out in a haphazard manner, getting the wrong order, or food not coming out at all ... and to top it all off, a manager that was willing to apologize to those people in the party who made it the whole hour without seeing any of their order).
Well, this time was different, and I seriously will think hard before going there EVER again. Or ever eating salad. Or vegetables. Ever. Really. Or maybe never eating. Except I'm hungry because I didn't get lunch.
First off, we had a waiter who was really into the word "certainly" ... it was basically his only response unless he was trying to explain away a mistake. "Certainly," in case you aren't fluent with the Cheesecake Factory lingo, means "fat chance" or "maybe if I've got nothing better to do." Bread, for instance, required a personal request ... which only came 10-15 minutes after placing our orders ... and after trying to hunt the guy down for a while after that. Certainly.
So, I have (at least in the past) been a big fan of the pizza and salad lunch combo. Salad is huge. BBQ pizza is great. And so that's what I ordered, as did 2 of the other guys (with different pizzas). After a decent wait, the non-combo lunch came out as did the salad for the guys on the other side of the table. A few minutes later, and out came pizzas for me and the guy next to me. I had had 1/8 of my pizza, and out came the pizza for the guy across the table. Then, there was another wait. I was seriously having moments of imagining the Hell's Kitchen guy (from the all of 1.5 episodes I've seen) just flipping out, throwing food, and making all of the cooks cry for the poorly timed preparation and delivery of the food). I'm just guessing that 15-20 minutes after the last pizza was brought out, my salad arrived (as did the one for the guy next to me). I found it strange that the salad was significantly smaller than I am typically used to, but decided that I can't eat it all anyway, so no harm done.
I have now slowly consumed 1/4 of the pizza (seriously, I'm not SOOO hungry as to kid myself into thinking that I could eat the whole meal and salads are not as great after a day in a box in my work fridge as is the pizza - so I was "saving myself" so to speak). I take a couple bites and then the co-worker across the table gets a horrified look on his face and extends his hand to bat down the hand and fork of the co-worker next to me. Fortunately, this action caused him to lower the fork prior to taking a big bite from which a large (1" from antlers to tail, I'd guess) WASP drenched in ranch was crawling out from a piece of lettuce.
Well, I was sooooo grossed out, but managed to make a minimal scene by pushing away from the table, and the guys stuck another plate over the salad plate (encasing the fork and wasp). Still, whilst sitting clearly in the aisle, and all tables around us starting to look as grossed out as I was, and prodding their food for any live "extras," it took a good 5 minutes before anyone came over to see what was going on - and that's only because I flagged the waiter down.
We were then subjected to "well, gee, I've never seen that happen in all my time here." Heck! I should hope not! Did they think that I expected that at least 5 dishes per lunch came out with something crawling in it? Eeeewww eeewwww and eeewwww. The manager came over and mumbled, after of course mentioning again that he had never seen that before, that he would take care of it, and smartly offered to get my co-worker another replacement salad. My co-worker declined. We sat there for a long time again (not eating anything of course), discussing the live bug in the food, until we flagged down the waiter again so that my co-worker could order his wife some cheesecake to go (as the manager had mentioned to save room for dessert). After the waiter had time to make the cheesecake, he brought it out on a nice plate and we had to send him away to box it up.
The check came with the salad and cheesecake deducted. We were ready to pay just to get out of there and with the final notion of 'heck, we're never going to come here again.' When my co-worker asked why the whole check wasn't taken care of. Subsequently, the manager came over and my co-worker asked again. The manager grabbed the check in a bit of a huff, and came back with a reduced bill. It took me a minute to figure out that he had entered the employee discount. Seriously. The manager said "here, is this good enough?" to which my co-worker said that we'd all be happy to pay, but that he thought it was a poorly handled situation and he didn't understand why the whole table wasn't paid for (particularly in light of how little we all ate as a result of the live bug in the food). The manager then said fine, grabbed the check, crumpled it up, and stomped off.
So, I don't know if you are expecting large live insects capable of biting you back in your Cheesecake Factory food (assuming you are crazy enough to go there), at least it will minorly suprize the manager, or that's what they'll try to convince you.
Happy eating!
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