Good bye my Dull, No good, Cheap, Chinese Resturant..... by Jamil Shawwa

The time has come-finally- for that place, one of my favorite hangouts to surrender to the forces of time, the economy and the improving taste of people, and declare that it cannot stay in business anymore. Actually, my cheap and dull Chinese restaurant was sold. The other day I went there around dinnertime, early dinner, and there it was, as usual, empty except for a table or two. The head waitress/manager was there, a very smart Chinese Vietnamese woman who is not the owner but related to the owners and has been running the place. The place was sad, and dull, of course, as I said earlier. The workers there told me that the place changed hands and that the previous owners can no longer afford to have it, I am not surprised, it was terrible, and that they sold it-poor new owners- to another family. The other server, originally Spanish, left the place after a fight with the cook in the kitchen where that cook lost his temper, and in the same day, he lost his job, and pushed her. That girl left the place after- as my Vietnamese head server told me-ten years of services. The only reason that I used to go to that place is that they allowed smoking- I mentioned it in another piece in this blog- but since Virginia banned smoking in restaurants, I stopped going there. See, if it was not for the smoking and the multiple free refills of soda, I really would not have gone even close to that place; the food was horrible, I mean the buffet, menu orders were a little better. That other day when I went, I ordered something and the wrong plate came, again no surprise, had to return it, got an apology but did not get a discount, see another reason that this restaurant is no good. Any way, that server told me that if the new owners do not treat her well that she will leave, of course, why stay. Sometimes you can read the writings on the wall, meaning that you can tell what will happen before it happens. The signs could be there, the warning signals could tell you not to do something or do something but we just do not look, do not want to look or maybe we are so arrogant that we choose to ignore those signs. For that restaurant, I knew that there is no way that it can stay in business with that cooking and cooks fighting in the kitchen and empty tables. I must say though and maybe that was another reason for me going there; the service has always been very gracious and welcoming- not generous though besides the fact of the multiple refills. One thing I like about America is that you can usually get multiple refills of coffee, soda, soft drinks, at almost any establishment. That is it for me this morning, nothing more to say.