Today, I missed an old haunt, 42nd Street Cafe, which used to be “the” place to go for a nice, quick meal at Elizabeth Shopping Centre, South Australia.
I had to go elsewhere, and still can’t believe I had to stand my ground with the girl cashier over where I was to sit, what I wanted to eat, and why she added a surcharge for a ‘custom’ toasted sandwich which had half the ingredients of the standard menu.
When I lined up behind a woman being served, a man walked past, behind me. He walked towards the rear of the cafe, picking up a newspaper on his way, and settled his bag and newspaper at a table. Then he walked back and stood behind me, awaiting his turn to order.
“What table are you sitting at?” asked the Bright Young Thing.
“I don’t have a table yet,” I replied. “Can I sit at the table behind the women there,” I added, waving towards the only other seated patrons in the cafe.
“You can sit at that table”, replied BYT, waving her hand at the three single tables with bench seating on one side, and each with a single chair that would place the patron with their back to the room, facing a particularly boring wall. I don’t like facing walls, nor do I like sitting with my back to a room. It has nothing to do with feng shui, and everything to do with feeling like you’re in a naughty corner. Or maybe it has everything to do with feng shui, manifested as an instinctive need to not sit with your back exposed to the enemy, or where predators can sneak up on you.
“I can’t sit on the bench seats,” I excused myself, trying to politely defuse an awkward situation, “They are too high for me.”
“You can sit on the chair. There are chairs at the tables, and they are lower than the bench,” she said, stating the obvious. I would be sitting facing the wall. I’d be in the naughty corner. I’d be an older woman, sitting alone, facing a wall. No, thank you.
“I don’t want to sit at those tables. I want to sit at that table behind those three women,” I responded, pointing to the table I’d first mentioned. Perhaps she was perturbed that a sole woman — me — might hog a table for four, but that was hardly going to happen. The cafe was nearly empty, and I was beginning to understand why.
“I don’t like sitting in a walkway,” I demurred politely, “People jostle and bump your chair when they walk past. That table at the back will be fine, thank you. If that’s too difficult, I can go eat elsewhere.”
She looked dark, then asked me what I wanted. “Chicken, cheese and avocado toasted sandwich, and a cup of flat white coffee,” I responded, relieved to be able to move to the main attraction.
She looked confused, and searched the menu options on her computer. Then she grabbed a menu, held it out to me, and said, “Oh, you mean you want number three or number eight?”
I’d already looked at the menu, which didn’t have exactly what I wanted, but I knew from previous visits to this cafe that they prepared simple sandwiches to order. I looked at the menu again, reading the ingredients for numbers three and eight.
“No, I don’t want all those extras,” I replied. “I don’t want cucumber, tomato, and lettuce, or radish or capsicum. Just a simple chicken, cheese and avocado, toasted. And a flat white coffee.”
She rung up the order, and the screen showed the sandwich — I checked the details, yes, it was correct. Then I noticed another item. “Custom order surcharge $1”.
I looked at her, and said, “Have I been charged for wanting fewer items on my sandwich? I can’t believe you’d charge me more to have less on my sandwich.”
By this time, her two colleagues were starting to look concerned, and were hovering behind her, looking at me, and the screen.
She said, “That was a mistake. I rung it up accidentally.” The item was deleted.
Oh, yeah, a mistake. I bet. She really does think I am stupid.
“What did you want to drink?”
For the third time, I said, “A cup of flat white coffee.”
She ignored me, and waved two coffee cups in front of me. One was tiny, and one was mug-sized.
I sighed. By this time, I needed a decent surge of caffeine. I pointed to the mug, and paid, happy to escape the torture of ordering a simple meal.
I went to the table for four, selecting the chair by the wall, facing the front of room, ready to confront any sabre toothed tigers that might leap at me.
In the event, the sandwich was tasty. The appearance was third-rate, with two miserable slices of white bread, sandwiching the ingredients. The sandwich was cut in two. Not two triangles, though. It was not cut in half, not quite diagonal. It was two scalene quadrilaterals, one skewed slightly sideways on top of the other. Weird.
It tasted nice, with a touch of thyme, as if the chicken had been cooked with a generous amount of seasoned stuffing. I don’t want to know if I had been punished with something less pleasant tossed into the mix.
The coffee was so-so, and the large cup took a long time to drink. I could have left some, but I finished it, on some kind of stubborn principle.
On a positive note, my coffee and toast were served long before the three women at the next table got their drinks. Their meals — not much more than my sandwich — arrived much later. Even with more people in the cafe, no-one could call it busy. There seemed little reason for such slow service.
Sadly, this is not the first time I have received less than good service at this particular cafe. The standard was never very high, and once its closest rival, 42nd Street, closed down, it was as if they felt they could stop trying.
I loved 42nd Street, where good service was a priority for its creator, Ross. On days like today, I miss it more than ever.
