bugs

A few years ago my family decided to take me out for Mother’s Day Brunch. Since they did not make reservations anywhere and I wanted everyone to be able to get what they liked, we chose what I’ll call the “Yellow Round-Up.”

It was an unusually warm Spring day and half of the restaurant did not have air-conditioning and the side that did was packed. We sat in the warm side and decided to make the best of it.

I started with a salad and after eating half of it I discovered a dead lady bug lying in the lettuce. I brought it to the attention of our server who really only cleaned away the dirty plates since this was a buffet-style restaurant. He looked at it and only said, “Sorry.” I understood they were busy so I just pushed it aside and went on to something else.

After choosing my dinner and getting a roll I went to get butter from the buffet table on the non-air conditioned side. I looked in the crock and the butter was completely melted. May have been good for lobster but not for rolls.

I went back to the table with my family and my daughter whispered she needed to use the restroom. I pointed it out to her and after she came back she said she had slipped and fallen because the floor in the ladies room was wet. I went to check it out and the floor was tiled and actually had condensation on it from the lack of air conditioning. She was not hurt so we let it go.

I returned back to the table with the family which was in a half walled-in area with a small space between the walls for entering/exiting the dining area to the buffet. I got up to go back to the buffet for something but I could not leave. The heat must have gotten to someone and they had vomited all over the carpet in the enter/exit area. Which meant we were sort of trapped where we were until they could clean it up which took forever since they were so busy and it appeared no one (and I can’t blame them!) wanted to clean it.

Once we were able to leave I went back to the buffet to get my son some ice cream. He wanted the various sprinkles and such on top. When we got to the crock with the chocolate-covered-raisins I just had to laugh. At this point I didn’t know what else to do! The crock was nothing but chocolate syrup and raisins sitting at the bottom from the heat.

I told the manager before we left of all the misadventures we endured during our visit and he just shrugged and said, “We told you the air conditioning wasn’t working in half the restaurant and you chose to sit there anyway.” I did write to the corporate office a few days later just to let them know of my experience on what should have been a special and pleasant Mother’s Day. They explained that they would forward my complaint the manager. Needless to say, I never heard from the manager and I knew I would not. We have not been back to this particular “Yellow Round-Up” and it has since closed down.

Tagged as: accident, buffet, bugs, food & beverage issues, medical & illness, owner/manager

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