SOUTH FLORIDA
SEASON
GOIN OUT TO DINNER

Three things that just don't add up to a top notch time. Now if you have a gaggle of your best friends by you side, it sure does help.

Saturday 25 March 2006

So my wife decides to roll out and hang with a friend of hers and I'm a bit tired from yard work so I think I might stay in. A few minutes later, I have decided to crawl up to the local Italian joint for some grub. Close by, small, and normally not very full. Well four of us manage to seat ourselves after a calm 10 minute wait. Not bad so far. But from this point on you would never use the word service to describe how things panned out. After about 5 minutes I got up to grab us some menus. OK, did I actually just say "Excuse me" to one of the waitresses while tryin to get at the menus. OH SNAP! Setups, we need fork and knives to go along with this bruschetta someone dropped off at the table. I'll get it. A man who looks to be the manager informs me he'll take care of that, after I was on my back to distribute the goods. For the next 45mins to an hour things go well enough; a bottle of wine and some more bread. Orders are put in, and conversation to good. Orders were a mushroom/crab/risotto special, 2 pizza's, a tom.basil.buff, and a gnochhi with a ceasar. Simple, huh? About 45mins later the tom.basil.buff comes out, and I query about my salad. "oh, its on its way." another twenty and 2 pizza's arrive, then something that resembles the mushroom/crab/risotto, but its not. We question it and take it for what it is, and appetizer-one hour late. We continually laugh and enjoy the food we do have, all the while ordering another bottle of wine. So atmosphere and friends reigning supreme over customer service and CUSTOMER SERVICE. Seems normal. I forgot, my gnochhi, which they also forgot. How long does it take to bowl up some BOXED gnochhi and slather it with meat sauce(which you shoulda made early this AM). Well, it took an hour and 20 minutes. I boxed it and we scramed. I do need to say that the Gnochhi was delicious and i even ate it for breakfast the next day on the back porch watchin the sun shine down. Glory, Glory. So in sleepy Boynton Beach lies a restaurant called Bruschetti's. The food is good, not great. The atmosphere is quaint, Italian-American, and relaxing. Itsa half mile from the beach, so that at least stands for something, not sure what it is but I recognize it. Twice I have visited this establishment and twice failed to be impressed by the quality of service. The place is packed during season, as is every decent joint in town. So if Bruschetti's would hire some more staff, maybe 1-2 more for the floor and begin to work as a team instead of a bunch of old ladies showing up for work not having a clue how to take care of the patrons, then I may go back. Especially since its the closest Italian food outside my own kitchen. But for now, BLAH.