Ted’s Montana Grill
Yesterday, Shaun and I talked about what we should do for dinner, and I suggested pork chops because he made applesauce in his Crock Pot on Saturday (we are actually secretly twice our age). Instead, we went to Ted’s Montana Grill, where they serve lots of bison and traditional American comfort food. He’s been there before, it was my first time. “Two?” the host asked. “Would you like to sit outside?” As it was a beautiful night, we agreed.
The first contestant on the Be Our Server game was William (I think), who said he’d be “taking excellent care of us.” A few minutes later, John (I think) came by and kept the game going with, “Hi, I’m John. Welcome to Ted’s Montana Grill…” “You, too?” Shaun asked. At least John brought us pickles. Our third and final entry was Robert (“Hi, I’m Robert, and I’ll be taking care of you this evening…”), who, after we told him he was our third server, went off to work things out with the host staff. The couple at the next table asked if they should recognize us from a television show or something. Robert returned to take our orders because he had won the game and was our actual server. We ordered salads and a couple of bison burgers (from a long list of choices), and he wrote down our order. In case you missed that, I’m going to say it again. He wrote down our order.
Then, the waiting began. And, the waiting. We should have gotten salads right away, but nothing came. In fact, we never got salads. I might also mention that during the waiting, the food runner tried to deliver several dishes that were not ours to our table. Onion rings, a burger with guacamole on it, other things. At one point, Robert came back to our table and seemed a bit disoriented. He checked his notepad with orders. He asked us if we needed drink refills. He left. This was a bad sign.
After a while, the manager came to our table, apologized for the delay and assured us our meals were in the kitchen, getting the finishing touches. A few minutes later, that poor, confused food runner brought two plates to our table that were definitely not what we ordered. I told him it was not what we ordered. He left and conferred with Robert. He returned and told us our server said this was our food. Ha! Nice try, buddy.
Robert returned, apologized, and said he must have gotten our orders mixed up with another table’s. We had to order again. Robert was no more after this. Possibly he was sent home. Possibly he was fired. The manager came out after our second order had been put in, told us another server would be taking care of us. She thanked us for our patience. Our meals were free, we should order dessert, and she gave us a 20$ gift card to come back. Yet another guy came out with food, two burgers, and—I kid you not, I can’t even make stuff up at this point—they were not the burgers we ordered.
This seemed to be a smaller mix-up, because we got our real food shortly thereafter. The manager asked us if she could do anything else, and we asked to move inside because it was dark by this point. Dessert was a chocolate brownie with ice cream and chocolate sauce. “What else do you want?” Shaun asked. As long as we had the run of the place, I suggested some steaks to go. He suggested a whole bison. Two. We could keep one as a pet.
When we left, a valet took the ticket right away and went off to get Shaun’s truck. A few minutes later, another valet asked us if we had been helped. Déjà vu.
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