I Want My Money Back, Money Back, Money Back....

Pygmy #1







Pygmy #2



I was coming home from work and I got "the sigh." You know, that sigh when asked what is on the menu for dinner.

Beth (my wife) had a long day, as did I and neither one of us wanted to cook and do dishes. After all, it was a Friday night. Let's live it up. Woohoo. Check my post Close to Thanksgiving - So Let's Talk Food to understand what I think of eating at most restaurants.

Now that we have full disclosure on to the rest of the story. Beth called ahead at a "fast casual" restaurant so that I could quickly and easily grab carry-out on the way home from work. Fine. I go to the place to pick up the food. As packed and as loud as this place was you would have thought the Stones were giving a free show there last night.

I get my food from the sulking teeny bopper and head home. I walk through the door and the pygmies practically eat of my hands as I carry in the bag of food.

I laid out the spread - the pygmies got chicken "strips" and cinnamon apples, Beth got a grilled chicken sandwich and I got a salad topped with grilled chicken. We all sat down and I opened my styrofoam box. Yikes, I got the scrapings from someone else's plate!! Not really, but the way this "salad" looked you could have fooled me. The grilled chicken on it was the same pre-packaged, re-heated crap you get any fast food place. The only difference here was that I paid more for it. I mean seriously, is food really meant to be made, served and eaten this way?

Beth's sandwich looked better, but was made from the same frankenchicken and tasted just as rank. The pygmies' chicken "strips" looked more like chicken globs. They looked to have the same beer batter that you would see on fried fish, and were in these really freaky shapes, almost like the chicken pieces were glued together by Pablo Picasso. These "strips" must have been made from some really odd looking chickens.

Lat's just say I did not feel like Dad of the year after letting my kids, er, I mean the pygmies, eat the strange chicken formations.

Once again, I have my feelings solidified about these chain restaurants. I can't stand them, their food is comparable to fast-food yet they charge more, and the service does not make up for any of it. The microwave popcorn I used to supplement the less than stellar meal provided for a better experience.

Lessen learned. Next time I will opt for doing the dishes.

Don't worry, I am not going to rant about the implications this bad food has on their brand. By the looks of things, they are not hurting for business (for the life of me I do not understand why).