Saturday was busy with Girl Scout Cookie Booths, baseball practice, basketball games, and a friends baptism. As we were finishing up the last activity we had scheduled for the day Grandma and Grandpa Terry arrived to stay for a few days.
The rest of Saturday through Monday we made our house the gathering spot and the kids played and had fun together. Grandma had brought her usual stash of candy and crafts or other activities for the kids to do. They had a lot of fun art projects to decorate their rooms with (or sell was Allison’s plan). Grandpa was recruited to read or make up his own stories too.
Emilee went to work with her dad one of the afternoons. She has been begging to go with him for awhile so Ryan took her. She actually loved it. She brought her lunch and they ate in the kitchen together and she sat next to him at his desk and helped or watched a movie on Netflix.
To feed everyone I went with my favorite winter meal planning for dinners-soups! Chicken noodle, broccoli cheddar, potato, and chili were all part of the menu.
Tuesday the kids went back to school. Roger and Rhonda visited with me for the morning and then went to look at houses for a bit before everyone met at Matthew’s basketball game. He had a good game and enjoyed showing off his skills he has been working on the past few months. After his game we decided to do a ‘traditional’ dinner out together for our last meal with all of us before Grandma and Grandpa Terry headed back home.
The past few years when Grandma and Grandpa come to visit we have been going to a place called Steak-N-Shake for dinner one of the nights they are here. It has a variety of options for adults and kids so everyone is happy. It is a fifties style diner so it is casual and a fun environment. It isn’t usually to busy so all 12 of us can get a table together pretty quick, and the food is decent and pretty cheap as well. The best part is they last part of their name…the Shakes are delicious and there are many choices. We have gone there probably a dozen times at least in the past few years.
However, each time we go we are always a little surprised to see that Steak-N-Shake is still actually in business. The service is ridiculously awful. Not intentionally, which is why instead of never coming back we usually joke about it instead. They are very polite and try their best it is just…silly. This time we discussed it might really be time for us to find a new dinner place when Grandma and Grandpa come to visit. Here is how our last dinner there went.
Once we all got situated at the table our waiter arrived about 10 minutes later, which is much faster than usual. We estimated he was maybe 15 years old, maybe I am old so everyone seems young to me but I don’t think anyone working there including the cooks looked like they were older than 18. He took our drink order (11 waters and 1 coke) and disappeared to fill it. He made several trips back and forth between our table and the kitchen but eventually successfully got everyone something to drink. He then left. A few minutes later we flagged him down and asked if we could place our food order. He apologized for the delay and says yes but then realized he didn’t have his pad or pen he needed to take our order and runs to get it. When he returned with his pen he made the announcement that he was a little flustered because he was new. Brand new. We were his first order. We were not surprised at all because EVERY time we eat there the waiter at some point or another tells us they have been working there for less than a week. We don’t know if this is true or a tactic they are trained to say to get more leeway with their horrible service. In this young mans case I think he really was taking his first order. Whoever the person in charge was, thought giving the new guy a table of 12 people for his first go as a waiter was a good idea.
He went around the table and took each of our orders. He was very thorough and asked a lot of questions. When he was all done he asked if he could repeat it back to us for accuracy. When he did this we thought he didn’t know how to read his own handwriting but found out that the restaurant uses its own short hand or abbreviations when taking orders to make it ‘easier’ for everyone to understand. However, our waiter (I’m just going to call him Ben from now on) didn’t quite have the abbreviations down so when he tried to repeat it back to us he wasn’t sure what he had wrote and he basically had to take our orders again.🤦♀️ Eventually he got it down and once again headed back to the kitchen to give our order to the cooks.
This is about the time we get nice and settled in because we know we aren’t going to get our food for a while. I often look around at this point and do a little people watching in the restaurant. There is usually one or two other tables. One of them has often placed their order sometime before we even arrived but hasn’t got their food yet. Sometimes the mom might be reminding everyone to be patient, “It can’t possibly take to much longer.” The dad sometimes will be muttering about his irritation at the wait. Often at some point people start comparing with other tables about how long they have been waiting.
Since the kids are older now, it isn’t to big of a deal for us to wait. Especially since they each have a cousin to interact with while we wait. About 15-20 minutes go by and Ben comes over to check with us. We tell him we are doing fine. He tells us that the cook ‘flipped out’ when he saw our order but it shouldn’t be much longer. We kind of laughed and said something about we hope that means he doesn’t spit in our food, to which he replies, “Oh no, I don’t think he would do that.” 🤦♀️ In the mean time the shakes we ordered are ready so he will bring them out. Seven of the 12 of us ordered a shake with our meal. They only brought 6 shakes and of those, only three were made correctly. After figuring out what was ordered and if anyone wanted to switch their order for what was actually brought they had to remake two of the shakes.
While the new shakes were being made they brought out the first few trays of food. I was watching Ben the hole time and saw it happen but still couldn’t figure out how. About half way to our table the top half of one of the burgers just rolled right off the tray to the floor. Ben tried to catch it but just hit it and flipped it around a little more before it hit the floor. I don’t think he realized how close he came to dumping the other four plates of food still on the tray while trying to save the burger. Luckily it just teetered a little and smacked the lady at another table still waiting for her own food to arrive in the back of the head. Ben decided to leave the burger on the floor and come set down the tray he still had (very smart decision Ben). He told us that HALF of one of the burgers had not made the trip from the kitchen to our table so he was getting that fixed. Then he gave everyone else a plate of food. When he left to get the new ‘top half of a burger’ we all switched plates and gave it to the correct person who ordered it. I was the lucky winner of the half cheeseburger plate. I watched Ben like a hawk to make sure I actually got a new burger and not the same one that had been brushed off. Instead of a whole new burger he quickly brought back a new cheeseburger on a top bun with lettuce ketchup and mustard and slapped it down on top of the bottom bun and tomato that had survived the first trip with all the grace you would expect from a 15 year old on his first day on the the job.🤦♀️
After a few more trips to the kitchen and back we all ended up with our orders. Jovee was in the mood to be a problem solver instead of waiting for Ben so she went to the kitchen three times herself to request items we were missing once we had our food. Once for silverware, once for napkins, and once for spoons because the silverware didn’t come with spoons.
It was about a 1 1/2 hour ‘fast food’ meal by the time we were ready to leave. We all got a good laugh about our experience and enjoyed our meal together. That is not the end of the story though. You still have to pay for the food. It doesn’t seem the restaurant has a clear plan for how to check someone out when they are ready to leave. You have to stand in front of the register and announce you are ready to pay about three times before someone comes over. Then they always seem to find the one person that appears to have never seen a cash register before, let alone used it. It takes FOREVER. We have all found things to entertain us while we wait. Roger is sweet to pay for everyone. Ross assists Roger because he usually has some combinations of coupons he insists we use that complicates the process for the already frazzled cashier. Ryan and Rhonda recalculate and sneak in an extra tip at the table without Roger noticing. The girls beg for quarters for the candy or toy machines they have. Matthew and Ethan pretend they are too cool for the candy machines by explaining they are designed to take your money without giving you a toy but if the girls have money they will help them get the toys, and Lauren and I try to figure out what this sign directly above the checkout counter means.
Fun times at Steak-N-Shake! Hurry in and have your fun time before the health department visits and shuts them down, it burns down because they have five new untrained teenagers running it every week, or they go bankrupt because no one knows how to run the cash register.