In Louisville, you can have ho-hum deli sandwiches, somewhat decent Chinese food, and pizza delivered.
This dearth of local delivery options is all the more reason to treat our rare, professional delivery drivers well. Continue reading Just the tip
Category Archives: Commentary
Robin Garr’s musings about food and restaurant matters that don’t fit neatly into the “review” category.
Welcome, PGA visitors! Looking for Louisville’s best eats?
The gang over at the LouisvilleHotBytes forum has just completed a monthlong process of narrowing down to the city’s favorite restaurants, with 14 worthy eateries making the final cut.
Whether you’re here in our town for the PGA goings-on or other tourist, convention, vacation or business matters, or if you’re a local looking for new ideas, the HotBytes favorites will offer you a good “bucket list.”
Continue reading Welcome, PGA visitors! Looking for Louisville’s best eats?
I should have asked
I’ll call him Doug in this story, since that was his name. Doug was a young man of 24, a co-worker at the restaurant where I work. He’d been hired a few months previously as a delivery driver with some other duties: light prep work, food running when not out on deliveries, expediting the pass. Not rocket science, but a job certainly requiring more brainpower than “just” being a delivery driver.
Continue reading I should have asked
Smoke gets in our eyes? Not necessarily …
Sometimes it is good to be wrong.
Consider, for example, this prophecy I uttered in 2010: “Since the passage of Louisville’s no-smoking law for restaurants and bars, the patios have become the de facto smoking section. If this doesn’t bother you, great! But to be blunt, it makes most patios no-go zones for me.”
That forecast made sense at the time Continue reading Smoke gets in our eyes? Not necessarily …
Restaurant stereotypes
A recent spate of chef-memes posted on Facebook has me thinking. These lists probably seem harsh to diners who have never worked in a restaurant kitchen, but if you work in one for a couple of weeks, you’ll encounter all these things.
Continue reading Restaurant stereotypes
Small distinction, big difference
My long-suffering fiancé and I, peckish on the day after Derby, decided to try a hip new-ish spot. It’s not so new that they shouldn’t be on point already, but still new enough that most folks we know hadn’t been there yet.
We didn’t make a reservation. Continue reading Small distinction, big difference
It’s getting loud in here
What? What did you say? I’m sorry, what? We nod, we smile. We cup our hands behind our ears. We attempt lip-reading. There is a number of times (right between four and five, I believe) that Americans can bear to ask and re-ask “What did you say?” After that, all bets are off. We nod and smile again, but this time, we are sort of pretending we understood what you said. Continue reading It’s getting loud in here
Kitchen communication
In a full-service restaurant, the front (service team) and back (cooking, prep, warewashing and janitorial team) of the house have to work together in concert. As two teams, we rise and fall together like a chamber orchestra, like a synchronized flight demo team. If everything’s going well, we look like heroes. But if even one team member gets off script in any way, it’s chaos we have to look forward to.
Continue reading Kitchen communication
The Terrible Couple
A few days ago, a server friend of mine posted the following Facebook status: “I’m at a restaurant and I’m looking at this couple I’ve waited on somewhere. They were regulars wherever it was. They were rude, bitter, bad tippers and everyone would cringe when they walked in.”
Continue reading The Terrible Couple
Oh, baby
Is it OK to bring an infant to a high-end fine dining restaurant? My short answer is no, but I have a column word-count allowance to blow, so allow me to elaborate.
Continue reading Oh, baby