Sometimes, you have to work for writing gold. Occasionally, it takes a few weeks of vacation to renew your creative brain. But once in a blue moon, something that should be completely normal, falls into the you can’t make this shit up bucket. Tonight, was one of those nights.
For the past 4 weeks, my husband and I have decided to go out on a limb and try unique, mom-and-pop restaurants. We have wonderful friends that have joined us for most of the dinners. To date, we’ve tried Nepali, Greek and Mexican. Tonight would be Eastern European.
This restaurant had pierogis and I fucking love pierogis. I love them so much that I refer to them as little pillows of Heaven. During my college internship in NYC, I would occasionally eat at Veselka, an Eastern European restaurant. I didn’t know how to pronounce it but it was within walking distance of my apartment and served good coffee and even better pierogis. Since then, I’ve had to settle for Mrs. T’s Pierogis. While I’ve got nothing against the Mrs., it’s not the same as homemade.
Pierogi Mountain- Home of the Pierogis, Hipsters and Beanies
I found a restaurant online called Pierogi Mountain. They had me at pierogi. Upon further research, I discovered it was on Guy Fieri’s show, And who am I to argue with Guy? It had to be delicious!
Upon entry, we found the restaurant cozy and eclectic. It seemed busy so that meant food poisoning probably wasn’t an issue. We had arrived at the right time because two small tables were getting up. A masked young woman who didn’t get the memo that covid was over; sprayed the tables down and reluctantly offered them to us. If she had it her way, we would have shared a table the size of the disks in her earlobes. We were prepared to put down some food and drink so we need space woman!
We asked for menus and were told there were only a few to go around and until then, we would have to scan a QR code on a table tent. Ok, we would covid our asses through this, fine. After taking our seats, ten minutes became fifteen and we had yet to see a server. For many, many years, I worked in the restaurant industry. I knew the time it took between sit-down, ordering, receipt of the meal and check. I was getting hangry and this was NOT in the restaurant’s (or humankind’s) favor. After twenty minutes, I folded my paper napkin like a bored Victorian socialite and got up, determined to find some help. I called over to a hipster behind the bar in a Hawaiian shirt, black rim glasses and a well-oiled beard.
“Excuse me, could we please get someone to wait on us?”
“Sure,” he said as he grabbed an old-school ordering pad and followed in my wake. That was easier than I thought it was going to be. Unfortunately, that was about to change.
I took the liberty of going first and placing my order.
“WHAT DO YOU WANT?” He barked at my friend while pointing at her (excuse me?).
“WHAT DO YOU WANT?” He barked at her husband then finally my husband. It was a curt, authoritative tone and it was rubbing me the wrong fucking way. While I expect this behavior at Dick’s Last Resort, I don’t anywhere else. It’s as if he became angrier with each of our orders.
Within seconds of him turning on his heel and walking away, my husband announced, “I forgot to give him my drink order.” He called after the man but intentionally, this ass-hole did not acknowledge him. Two minutes later, we knew he had heard him because he came back and slammed the beer down so hard, it spilled out. We looked at each other in absolute astonishment.
“Are we being punked?” My husband asked, wide-eyed and shocked.
“Someone’s having a bad day,” my friend’s husband chimed in.
What Doesn’t Look Like the Others? A Hipster Epiphany
I decided to observe our server’s behavior at other tables. He was friendly and engaging. Hell, he even hugged one of the guests. This is when I put 2 and 2 together. I panned the room from left to right, I even turned to see the table behind me.
“Beanie, beanie, beanie,” I said, nodding at almost every table. Oh my God, we were in the depths of hipster hell and we were obviously not welcomed.
“I’d like to see how they treat that old guy over there,” my husband said. I looked over to who he was referencing and shook my head.
“No, he’s not gonna have a problem,” I said. “He’s wearing a beanie.” They all turned to look.
Was the Beanie a Code for Hipsters?
Aside from our table and another, every single table had at least one beanie-wearing patron. But it wasn’t just beanies. Upon a quick inventory of our dress versus every other table, we stuck out like Kayne at a bar mitzvah. The lumberjack flannels were everywhere. An array of pink, blue and purple hair dotted the dining room. Meanwhile, my friend and I were wearing cowl-neck sweaters and our husbands donned their favorite sports team sweatshirt and zip-up.
“But it’s cold outside,” my friend pointed out; giving them the benefit of a doubt.
“Yeah but you usually remove your hat coming in and to have this much beanie concentration…” I trailed off, while scanning the room again.
Stefon
The Man I Call Ball Gag
This is when the food runner came out. Holy fucking shit, I’m shaking my head right now because I can’t unsee it. I want to do a good job of describing this human so for starters, if you’ve ever seen Stefon on SNL, that’s the vibe we’re going with.
He was at least 6′ tall and possibly weighed 60 pounds wet. His long straight blonde hair was shiny and tied back with a thin black bow. He wore the standard hipster black-frame glasses and a door-knocker piercing in his nose. There wasn’t a single color other than black on him with the exception of grey socks that were pulled up to his knees. His shoes were laced black army boots that gave him an additional 2″ of height. A black apron fell to his calves and probably had to wrap around his waist four times. From the back, you could see he was wearing a mid-drift that exposed a solid 3″ of his translucent back.
But the crown jewel of this ensemble had to be the leather choker around his neck. And it wasn’t just any choker. No my friends, it had an O ring, for a chain or leash. This wasn’t a necklace you get from Claire’s Boutique or Amazon. He was one ball gag short of a sex chamber. What respectable establishment allows their employee to wear a leather choker that’s made for a BDSM dungeon? This person was in charge of handling our food. Where had those hands and the collar been?
It’s like Ball Gag didn’t walk, he glided from table to table. He’d deliver the food and return to the kitchen. I had more questions: 1. What did he wear for his interview? 2. Can I get a transcript of the interview?
People Watching
Once we had come to grips that our basic-bitch entourage was not appreciated, nor welcomed, we ordered multiple drinks to piss our server off even more. Clearly, his current station in life was beneath all of this. To have to serve such average people like us, well, he would probably be crying his little ironic tears tonight over his ukulele.
We sat back and enjoyed the people-watching for the next 30 minutes. There were 2 women at the bar wearing matching masks the entire time. One stroked the other’s back with her doll-size hand. A faint smell of weed came from another table. At the largest table, no one looked as if they had combed their hair or showered in 2023. Finally, it was our turn to be visited by Ball Gag.
“How the hell are ya’?” I asked smiling, completely over the top. If this is why they hated us, I was down to play the game.
“Fine,” he whispered in a high-pitched Kym Kardashian voice. He glided away.
The food was good but not worth the poor service. But then again, for this sort of gold, maybe? We made sure to leave Hawaiian shirt a decent tip despite his attitude. He was the type of person that would be given the tip he deserved but convinced it had nothing to do with his behavior. We weren’t going to give that satisfaction.
P.S. Upon reading the Google reviews, there is more than one mention of how rude the servers are. Ironic because many of the experiences sound a lot like ours.
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