Lunch Report: TGI Friday's

I'll make this very brief; The new TGI Friday's at 151 & 410 had acceptable food but bizarre service.

My wife and I had finished up our Sunday sightseeing and on the way back home made several false starts at places to eat. I had even considered the idea of - gasp - just eating something at home.

We drove by Henry's Puffy Tacos on Bandera & 410 even though neither of us wanted Mexican food, but since we had never been there and looking to try something new, we figured what the heck. But, they were closed. I don't know if they are closed on Sunday's or don't open until later or they are really, really closed. Who knows?

Next stop, Jason's Deli. But, my wife said instead of Jason's we should try McAllister's Deli over on 151 since neither of us have tried it. So, I get going to 151 and before we can pull into McAllister's, I see TGIF's and we go there instead.

Okay, to the point. I ordered up a Cobb Salad. In all honesty, I didn't know what a Cobb Salad was, but the last time I was with some co-workers at a TGIF in New Jersey, one of the guys ordered it and loved it.

So, our waitress was friendly and pleasant and such and other than the fact that they seated us between two families with screaming kids, everything was going rather well. I got my iced tea and my wife got some sort of frozen slushy drink and was very pleased to get one of those straws that bends. That is real value if you ask me.

Anyway, we sit there a little bit and before too long, a guy comes from the kitchen to deliver our order. My wife got a sandwich so there wasn't an immediate reaction by her that something was missing. And frankly, when he set down my Cobb Salad, I was immediately consumed at just how huge the portion was. He was gone before it hit me that we had never received any silverware or napkins for that matter.

I sat there for a minute or so and thought that I might get up to ask the hostess for some silverware but just then, our waitress made her way back. "So," she says, "how is everything? Can I get you anything else?"

I stared down at my untouched salad and looked up and said, "A fork?"

I don't know what I expected as a response but she answered with an "Oh? Okay." as if I was asking for something extraordinary. My wife quickly added in a request for some honey mustard and the waitress smiled and said, "sure".

I sat there for another minute or two and I was strating to get this really bizarre feeling like I was either on Candid Camera and Mr. Funt would pop out from one of the booths of screaming kids, or perhaps I was no kidding starting to feel some sort of transferred chemical reaction from having read Hunter S. Thompson's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" (it has quite a bit of chemical abuse in the book). I mean, this had to be some sort of crazy Twilight Zone thing.

Finally, as my wife was a good third of the way through her sandwich (she was really hungry), our waitress came around as if she too had been reading Mr. Thompson's crazy account of a trip to Vegas, and casually handed me a fork. A single fork, no napkins, not a fork or anything for my wife; just a single fork.

Realizing that there would be no appearance by any TV crews to have me wave and smile, I stopped our waitress before she could move along and said, "I'm sorry. I guess there was a miscommunication. You see, we never received any forks or napkins or any other service items aside from a fancy bending straw, so really, I wasn't asking for just a single fork, I was hoping for the full compliment of utensils."

She leaned in and said, "Oh, there is a slight problem in the kitchen. We are out of forks and knives and things, but I'll get you some napkins."

I then held up my fork and asked her if this one had been washed or had she grabbed it from someone else's table. She got a nice chuckle from that and promised it was clean.

So, in the end, the food was good and in fact, I ate half of it and took the rest to work for lunch today.

I'll offer up my Tasty Treat status for the quality of the food, but you might want to give TGI Friday's at 151 and 410 another few weeks to have the rest of their silverware arrive. Either that or just order sandwiches.

How was your last visit to TGI Friday's? Tell me about it.