Restaurant Ruminations

I am midway between Pawleys Island and Lexington tonight, as I am dropping my mother off ar Raleigh-Durham Airport tomorrow morning before continuing towards the beginning of Winter Term ad dear old Washington & Lee. After checking into the first Holiday Inn I've ever seen with LG flat-screen TVs in the rooms, we set out for the nearby Streets at SouthPoint and Main Street mall. The place is a bustling monstrosity with two full levels of stores, including Nordstrom, Macy's, and JC Penney. After encountering an hour-long line at the Cheesecake Factory and a two-hour (!!!) wait at the Maggiano's, we came upon Champps Americana, a pretty standard American-ish place with many, many TVs for easy football viewing.

Gripe #1: The Name--Intentional misspelling of words in place names is common and stupid, especially this example. This one would make the likes of Webster and Auden writher around in their graves--a true bastardization of a perfectly good language.

Anyway, we were pleased when the hostess at Champps said that the wait for two people was a mere 20 minutes. We were seated 45 minutes later.

Gripe #2: The Wait--Few things irritate me more than being the victim of gross underestimation of restaurant wait times. I can understand a few extra minutes, but when the actual wait is more than twice the estimation, people are going to be cross.

The food was decent and ample, and I ended up not finishing everything. I asked the waitress if I could have the rest of my food wrapped up. She brought me a styrofoam to-go box and walked away.

Gripe #3: The box--This may fly at cheap places, but I was astounded that the servers at a restaurant that charges upwards of $15 for an entrée wouldn't do what seems to be a no-brainer. Ah well.

That's enough of a diatribe for one evening. Back to Jolly Lexington in the morning.

Cheers for now.