I attended a farewell group lunch today at Pappadeaux . The farewell is to a manager who was replaced. He moved down from MD to GA a year ago, after some sweet&heavy courting.
This is the first time I ever entered a Pappadeaux. It is trendy, expensive, crowded at 12:00pm-2:00pm. Feeling a bit cool, I noticed the sweat on several waiters' foreheads. Entrees started at $15 each. No free bread or butter while waiting. Half of us finished, while the other half waited over 45 minutes to get our plates.
I planned for an hour and ended up spending two hours there for a rather simple lunch. It is not like anybody ordered a full course of meals. Most ordered just a salad, a gumbo bowl, or a sea-food plate. Fortunately my boss sat next to me and we discussed some project priorities. So, I count that as 'working' to cut my lunch time back to an hour, the originally allocated time slot. It is Friday after all, who wants to start his/her weekend one hour late?
For a person who religiously brings brown-bag every day and often frets over a $12 dinner entree at one's favorite authentic ethnic restaurant, I ordered a fried shrimp & scallop lunch plate for $14.99. There's hardly anything you can order to get below that price anyway. I know some at the table earn much less than me and have much more obligations than me. Not sure how they feel about the price tag. Everybody looked and acted happy and cheerful.
Near the end of it, the waiter was about to get checks for everybody. The supervisor of the parting manager suddenly said, "let me pay for all." Joy and shriek across the tables. Many regret that they didn't order a lobster to-go :)
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