The Other Side of the Coin

By Sondra Whitt

I guess it was too good to be true … a cafe where we loved to go, not only for the food and atmosphere but also for the service. All of which were consistently good. We hadn’t been for a few weeks so we stopped in recently and were disappointed to see that neither of our two favorite servers were there and our “usual” table was occupied. Should’ve been our first clues. We ordered an appetizer to share, which was just as excellent as it has always been and then each ordered a bowl of soup. Lobster bisque for me and chicken tortilla for Jim. We’d had them there before and they were delicious. The server unsmilingly “did his job” if you know what I mean. But the kicker was when Jim asked about the lack of chicken in his chicken tortilla soup (there were also no tortilla strips) and the server said, “I’m not a cook. I’ll have to call the owners and find out if they made it different this time.” I’m not a cook! Call the owners! Good grief … and to top it off, my lobster bisque had a strong scorched flavor. We sent both soups back and decided to just leave as soon as we could settle the bill. However, our server seemed to be avoiding us! After we finally got his attention we paid, left … then stopped by a Quizno’s on the way home and picked up some of their excellent green chile soup, served by a couple of smiling, friendly and helpful teenagers. What a contrast!

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