The Woodlands Biotch

last night boyfriend and i went out to dine at the newest pizzaria in town. we’ve been anxious for it to open for months now, walking by every other weekend, peering between the sheets of plywood. so imagine our excitement when, two weeks ago, on a lovely crisp fall evening, we stumbled across their “soft” opening.

so we went last night, and here’s what happened… brace yourself.

first, we went downstairs and were seated immediately, which was fabulous, considering we’d arrived at 7:30, the peak of dinner time. Our server, Jackie, a cute little thing, brought us the menus and wine list. She asked if we’d been in before and gave us her spiel about how great it was, the reverse osmosis filtering of the water to make it authentic like in The Bronx. we requested water and i, after reviewing my choices, asked if they had a sangria. blankly, she looks over the wine list herself and says no. well, gee, thanks. so she asks what kind of wines i do like, i say zinfandels. a quick glance at the list confirms that no, they don’t have any real choices there, either. so i agree to try a coppola shiraz blend and off she goes to get it. when she returned a few minutes later, i tasted it and was completely put off. there was no way i was going to be able to consume it. she takes it away (no charge, thankfully) and upon returning offers me… pepsi? no, i say. so we stick with water…only to realize later that she could have, but didn’t, offer me something else from the bar. which was of course pretty well stocked.

meanwhile, we’ve been reviewing the relatively limited menu and have discovered it lacks green peppers as a topping selection. so we ask jackie, ‘do you have green peppers?’ she says, well, yeah, on one of the pizzas, called a ehm… well, its got beef and onions and green peppers and it tastes sort of like a philly cheese steak… but no, we don’t have peppers on any other pizzas.’ so i say to her, ‘so you have specialty pizzas that aren’t on the menu?’ and she says no, just the one, but they don’t have the little stand up cards yet that have the specials on them yet, they’ll be in next week. so i say, okay, so do you have any other specials tonight? and she says no, just the one.

and did she tell us this when we arrived? no. and did she offer to let us have green peppers, which they must have for the “special” pizza, on our pizza? no. but she does ask if we need more time to decide. which we didn’t really, but it got her to go away again, which was good. cause she was getting on my last damn nerve. when she came back a few minutes later, pen and pad in hand, boyfriend says, “okay, we’ll have a large with italian sausage, roasted red peppers and garlic” at which point she takes the pen away from the pad, looks at him incredulously and says, “a large? for just you two?? are you planning on taking some of it home?”

i raise an eyebrow. boyfriend pauses, opens his mouth then closes it. pauses again and then says, “no, we’re going to eat the whole thing,” his voice acidically dripping with sarcasm. she replies, “you’re joking, right?” and we both make our best effort to laugh this off. despite the fact that she really is at this point being downright rude. so he says, “yeah.” to which she now replies, “okay, so that was pepperoni and what, again?” which was the last straw. i said “no.” boyfriend says, “no. it was… you know, can we get another server?”

so she takes our menus away, walks away, and eventually here came the manager on duty. we explain to ronald these past few minutes of exchanges, he apologizes profusely and takes our order himself to put in. he then sent jessica over from the bar to take care of us the rest of the night. she was attentive, polite, conversational. ronald came back around to ensure we were taken care of properly and asked us to save room for dessert as he was providing it.

so as for the pizza, yes, it’s very different than you’re used to. i can’t say that i’ve found my winner in my quest for the perfect pizza, but it was good. despite the limeted amount of available toppings, those that we had were flavorful. it was a thin crust that didn’t turn to mush. and incidentally, a large was enough for us to each eat a quarter and take the rest home, as we planned to do anyway. later, ronald had jackie bring our cheesecake to us for whatever reason; perhaps jessica was drawing beers at the bar or whatnot. she did so by sliding it onto the table as she passed by, barely pausing. no apology. no thank you. not a word.

at the end of the experience, we thanked ronald, telling him he had an interesting last name (as he had introduced himself as “ronald manageronduty” – he talked fast). we thanked jessica for very good service and tipped her well. and, alas, we asked her to give jackie some pointers on how to be a better server.

puhleez.

so go to grimaldi’s. experience it for yourself. you might like it. we did. you might love it. you just might want to ask that you’re not seated in jackie’s section.

i’m just sayin’.

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Tags: 20 waterway, grimaldis, pizza, pizzaria, shiraz, wine, woodlands waterway

Saturday, October 31st, 2009 at 11:57 AM • consumption, i $hit u not, rants • RSS 2.0 feed Both comments and pings are currently closed.