Expensive Sandwiches

A couple weeks ago, my coworkers invited me out to lunch to a place I had never heard of - Sweet Peppers. Apparently, it's a chain (hence its inclusion in this blog) and there's even one in Athens. One of my coworkers was raving about their Cuban sandwich. I was hesitant. I consider myself to be somewhat on the frugal side and as such, I make an effort to bring my lunch to work most days. Now I love going out to eat. It's one of my favorite ways to spend money but we all know it's an expensive habit so I try to limit myself to one dining out lunch per week (unless of course, someone else is offering to pick up the tab). So on my one day a week of venturing out of the office, I like to go to a restaurant where someone will actually cook me something because I've been eating sandwiches, wraps and salads out of a brown paper bag all week. Hence, I was not thrilled at the idea of going somewhere and paying money for a sandwich, even if my coworkers were raving about how good they were. However, after a few weeks of politely declining, the desire to hang out with people and make new friends at my new job out weighed my restaurant snobbishness and I agreed to go, dragging my husband along for the ride, of course.

When we arrived the place was already looking up as I noted plenty of out door seating and it happened to be a beautiful day outside. We walk in and there's a counter to order from, just like at McDonald's. Also there's a large menu on the wall behind the cash registers, just like at McDonald's. I already knew what I wanted because I'm obsessed with food. So I enjoy looking at the menu online before coming to a restaurant, especially if I'm on my lunch break and pressed for time.  I wouldn't want to be forced to make a hasty decision and then regret it, consequently ruining the rest of my afternoon. However, I had to wait about ten minutes behind my coworker who was flirting with the cashier. He's one of those people who thinks he's really witty but most people just find it exhausting to keep up with. Normally it's amusing to me but not while I'm starving!


Finally, a manager opens up another line and I get to order lunch for me and my husband. After I order, the manager hands me two empty glasses for our drinks (just like at McDonald's) and our two cookies out of the display case. When he hands me my receipt, there's a place on there for a tip. I hesitate, but decide to leave $2 on our $18 lunch. Then he hands me the $2 in cash and instructs me to leave it on the table for our server. Server? Say what? Apparently, after we order at the cash register, pay at the cash register, get our own drinks and then sit down, a server brings us our food. Isn't that a charming touch?

At this point, I'm regretting mentioning earlier that I'm frugal. It's not that I have a problem tipping - I was in the restaurant business for years!  Actually, the years of working in the restaurant business is probably contributing to my stinginess in this situation. I worked the lunch shift at a very popular restaurant and I use to get killed by the lunch rush. Everyone comes in at the same time and I would bust my ass to greet people, get drinks, hand out menus, take orders, ring orders in, communicate special orders to the kitchen and then the worst part - splitting up the check and making change for each person paying with a twenty dollar bill on her eight to ten dollar lunch. So at the risk of sounding like a cheap bastard, I am simply not going to tip a waitress 20% for merely running the food out and busing the table. Hell, at the restaurant where I worked we had food runners who did that and they made an hourly wage plus a 1% sales tip out from each server.  That's right 1%, not 20. 

All that being said, the business plan of this restaurant has its advantages. For one, having people pay before they get their food eliminates the problem of people walking out on the bill and undoubtedly cuts down on a lot of human error and possibly theft. Also, it makes it so much easier to handle people coming in for lunch and paying separately. I also don't mind making my own drink because then I can put the right amount of ice in it. If I'm getting tea, I can mix the right concoction of sweet and unsweet. From a servers perspective it must be awesome as well. "Wait, I have six teas on my tray and I know some are unsweet, some are sweet, some are half and half and one is three quarters sweet and one quarter unsweet. Shit, which one is which?"

So we take our drinks and find a nice table outside. The server brings us our food and my sandwich is on the wrong kind of bread. There are two versions of the sandwich I ordered, a smaller, healthier one on wheat and a larger, less healthy one on ciabatta. I went with the less healthy version but it came out on a gross wheat bread anyway. I ordered a roast beef sandwich that was suppose to have horseradish on it. It had some white stuff on it, presumably mayonnaise, but the sandwich had no spice to it what so ever. There was no taste of horseradish at all and horseradish has a pretty strong flavor. I think the people of Sweet Peppers chose the non-horseradish horseradish to satisfy the bland palate of the average American diner. No chance of someone sending this sandwich back because it's too spicy!

So all and all I was not too impressed with the place. Today when my coworker asked me if I wanted to go because she was craving a Cuban, I just said "Awe chucks. I already brought my lunch."

They did have pretty good cookies, though.

Next day follow up:

 Today I had lunch with my husband at a restaurant with the same type design as Sweet Peppers - order and pay at the counter, get your own drink and someone brings you your food. The system is actually growing on me. Another advantage that I noticed is that people seat themselves. Trying to seat people in a restaurant is just about damn near impossible. People always want to sit at a different table and even though it's going to mess up your rotation, there's really nothing you can do about it. I appreciate that these restaurants have accepted the futility of trying to seat people and came up with a different system. One thing that Sweet Peppers is doing right is they give you really big glasses. The restaurant we ate at today did not and we had to get up during our meal to refill our drinks. This is arguably an advantage because at least you are not sitting there thirsty, waiting for the server to come over. However, it left me inclined to leave no money on the table for the person who dropped off my food. I did, however, leave a dollar in the tip jar by the cash register and they probably split tips there. In conclusion, this new hybrid of fast food/sit down restaurant was something new for me and hence it made me a little uncomfortable at first. Now that I've given it a chance, though, I think it works well for lunch. It's all the efficiency of fast food without falling into the typical fast food category. This allows the restaurant to charge more for their food and snobby White people like me to eat there and still maintain "I never eat fast food." The new system poses some questions about the role of the server and tipping etiquette. As someone who waited tables for five years and is now a restaurant critique, I would like to suggest 5 - 10% as a reasonable amount to tip at these restaurants. I would like to invite my readers to share their thoughts and opinions on this new restaurant business model.