can i get some service around here?

Sometimes I wonder how in the world some restaurants stay open. Today, after a few bouts of bike shopping and a quick antique store stop, I was starving. And, by starving, I mean, I had to eat right then or risk turning to the dark side of my personality. Matt saw the frustration brewing in my eyes, so we decided to hit a new cafe that just opened in our old neighborhood, Highland Park.

I had just read an article about this place, The Highland Cafe and Bakery (two thumbs for such an original name), in Avenues. The paper seemed to think positively of it, despite the failure of many other restaurants that previously called that location home.

We walked in and saw a sad-looking bakery case with a tray of unwrapped cinnamon rolls perched on top growing more stale by the second. We were seated and given a menu that quickly turned out to be uninspiring. Though I was hungry, did I really want a BLT or tuna melt? No. I got a salad. Matt went for the tuna melt. We both ordered turkey wild rice soup--soup that we never tasted by the way. The waiter must have been flustered by his two tables and our complex order of one garden salad and one tuna melt. When we told him to just forget the soup, he offered some lame excuse of how we were his last table of the day even though we just overheard his boss tell him he was on for three more hours. Hmm.

When we received our food, I realized that I could have very well poured a bag of salad on a plate at home and had the same taste experience. Matt's tuna melt was just that. Some tuna mixed with mayo and relish perhaps on some mediocre homemade bread.

The worst part of it? In a near-empty restaurant, we were seated at a booth next to the off-the-clock waitresses and their boss who chatted in rock concert-loud voices about annoying subjects. Do I care what time they work tomorrow? Or how they get sick of customers? Um, no.

So, yet another prime piece of foodie real estate is being wasted by yet another blah restaurant. After getting our ticket, we crossed the street to the new DQ where we could at least count on local teenagers to deliver malts without delay.