Splurge

Well, that was a good run while it lasted. With all that I was posting lately about South Beach, I turned right around today and took a meal off.

It was just me and Bob at the house today. He was over working in the basement, and I was upstairs working on work work. Around 2:30 PM we decided to break for lunch, and walked over to a nearby Mexican place.

We settled in for a comfortable, long lunch. Given it was just the two of us… I decided to splurge. So I had some chips, ordered a Corona, and had a burrito with some rice on the side.

The place was… fine. The steak burrito was quite good, but outside of that I wasn’t really taken with much else. The servers seemed really indifferent to us (but attentive to the other patrons). In hindsight, I felt like I should have just ordered the burrito (which was $8 but came with no sides) versus the dinner (which came with beans and rice, but was $14).

The odd thing to me was that, on getting the bill, I looked it over… and saw that we had been double charged. We got two dinners (which is what we had), and two additional burritos were tacked on.

Maybe a honest mistake. When I called the server over and showed him the bill, he was quick to go and rectify it. But on returning a few moments later, he said that they weren’t able to refund my card. And what they did instead was calculate the amount we were overcharged, factored in the tax, and would it be ok if they just gave us cash back.

When I asked why they wouldn’t be able to just cancel the prior charge and run my card again, the server went back and a different person came out. That guy (who was dressed more like a busboy than a manager) began telling me about all the delays in refunding my card, how it might take up to two days to get my money back. At that point, I didn’t feel like arguing and just took the cash.

Having grown up as the child of a restaurant owner, I’m incredibly sympathetic to anyone in the business. That said, the whole back and forth I had here just made me feel… iffy about things.

The burrito was a bit greasy, but super tasty. And it did indeed feel like a splurge. Hanging out and chatting with Bob over a long lunch was definitely nice, even if the service was a little less than nice.

Related:
Birthday Night Out: Dinner at Daisies, VR Games, and Team Feliz
Starting South Beach Soon: The Last Hurrah