As Advertised
A Sparrow was looking for a cool place to get some lunch. She had been flying for hours hoping to make good time as she headed towards her winter home. Usually the Sparrow wasn’t a very picky eater but she had recently read an article highlighting some James Beard Award semi-finalists and decided that was a sign that she should make the effort to find a really good meal somewhere.
It’s not always as easy to find a good meal in a good restaurant as you might think. Often times meals in restaurants only satisfy two conditions:
1. It is food
2. It is there
That’s it. That’s all it takes. If you want to be a restaurant and you have those two things you are free to operate and no one can stop you.
But a truly great meal was something else. Something transcendent. Something that makes you stop and think holy moly, why am I not shoveling stuff like this down my gullet all the time?
The Sparrow hadn’t been truly blown away by what she was shoveling down her gullet in a very very long time. She first checked to see if any of the James Beard Semi-Finalists were on her route. Turns out none of them were and that was a huge bummer.
But the Sparrow was never one to worry. She knew all one ever had to do to find a good restaurant in any town was to go to a bar, chat up the bartender, and ask, “Where does one get a great meal in this town?”
(Please note, you have to specifically ask for a ‘great meal.’ If you’re looking for a great meal it’s best to avoid what typically gets asked which is “where’s a good place to eat around here?” While that question might find you some good places everyone typically just gives you the default options of wherever you are and those are not always the place to get a great meal)
So the Sparrow walked into a bar in the middle of the afternoon and ordered a local beer on tap. As the bartender handed her the beer the Sparrow asked her well crafted question:
“Hey, where can I find a great meal around here?”
The Bartender, a Raccoon, looked unusually crestfallen. This was not a typical reaction. Not only was it not typical, the Sparrow had never seen anyone react this way before.
“Well,” the Bartender began, “There’s a restaurant here, right down the way actually, of great renown. It won awards, it dazzled palates, it completely changed the ways people even approached food.”
“Wow, that sounds great,” the Sparrow chimed in, “Sounds like something bad happened to it though?”
“Oh yeah,” said the Bartender, “Big time…”
The Sparrow was left hanging. Her foolproof way of finding a great meal had met a fool it hadn’t anticipated.
“Well, what happened?” The Sparrow prodded.
“They started using QR codes instead of menus…” the Bartender spat with an acid tongue, “Can you believe that?”
The Sparrow was a bit confused. Originally the Bartender had made the place sound like it was a mythical, glorious, restaurant with wonderful life-affirming meals, that had met some disastrous or untimely end. But, this?
“Wait, so did the place close?” The Sparrow inquired further.
“Oh no, it’s still there,” the Bartender offered, “But good luck to you if you want to put up with that bullshit sanitation theater.”
Oh, oh dear, the Sparrow had ended up asking a nut job the most important question she had to ask that day.
“Well, yeah, those suck,” the Sparrow said, cautiously, “Um, is the restaurant still open though?”
“Yeah, it’s about 5 minutes down that road, not that I’ll ever step foot in there again,” the Bartender replied, while also spitting on the ground. A spit, the Sparrow surmised, that was clearly meant to put a curse on the restaurant’s name.
The Sparrow quickly finished her beer, thanked the bartender, then got the hell out of dodge. She headed over to the restaurant and found it packed and bustling. The QR code menu was, admittedly, not her favorite part of the experience but the food… Wow… Divine… Heavenly… In fact, as advertised.
