Fran’s Rule of Restaurants
Let your nose be your guide.
We just returned from a wonderful vacation week in Chincoteague, VA. It’s a beautiful, unique seashore vacation spot, and if you’ve never been there, I recommend it. Since we spent the week in a hotel, we ate all of our meals in restaurants, which is pretty much a good thing. With the wealth of fresh seafood in the area, I don’t think I had a single dinner that was meat based. I filled my appetite with shrimp, crabs, clams, oysters, and flounder. It’s always a treat, and most of the restaurants can be counted on to deliver the basics, well-prepared. However, there was one dinner that was unforgettable.
In all of the years we have vacationed in Chincoteague, there was one restaurant that is heavily advertised, that we have never visited – we’ll call it “Wrong’s”. It’s obviously an established place, and with ads every way you turn, it was tempting to try it out. So one evening we took our beach-weary, starving selves off to Wrong’s for a much anticipated dinner. As we drove up to it, the waterfront setting looked impressive. We all trooped in the front door and were slammed with the smell of old, dank, and cleaning fluids. My gut reaction was to turn around swiftly, and the girls both wrinkled up their noses. But, we had been so eager to try out the place, we marched forward, hoping the smell was only in the entryway.
We marched into the dining room and were promptly seated by the waitress. It was too late. The smell carried throughout the restaurant, and confirmed our expectations. The place smelled as worn out as it looked, there was a feeling of stickiness to everything, and you couldn’t help but taste the smell with your food. To top it all off, although this had nothing to do with the restaurant, there was a family seated next to us with screaming, misbehaving children and a mother who behaved even worse in her management of the situation. It was so disturbing that one of the waitresses apologized for the family as we finally left the place. But to be fair, if we could have tasted the food minus the smell, it was prepared well, although the side dishes left a bit to be desired (when was the last time you saw one of those artificially colored, spiced apple rings?)
It was while we were trying to make ourselves comfortable with the situation that Louisa told me her piano teacher’s rule of restaurants, one that I will never again ignore.
Fran’s Rule of Restaurants: “If it smells like a bowling alley, turn around – IMMEDIATELY!”
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