Ordering by Joe Taylor
I stormed out of the storefront pizza joint humiliated, raging, and–damn it!–still hungry. This was the place, Angelo’s or Sal’s or whoever’s, that locals told me to go to, on Merchant Street, the main drag in what was left of Ambridge, Pennsylvania’s mostly boarded up downtown. They told me the slices were the best. But they didn’t tell me how to do it. How to order.
It was all a blur, it happened so fast, no signs, no directions. For them, the one’s in the know, the locals, it was magical. They stood here, they said something to the guy, the guy said something to them, they stood there, bada bing, bada bang, they got their slices, they were out the door. But, where the hell did the pizza come from? I didn’t see anyone out back working a big oven. I didn’t see an old lady waitress schlepping trays from the kitchen.
I just see the guy in his 50’s, maybe he used to work in the mill, in a stained tee shirt, for all I know he may have had a pack of Camels rolled up in his sleeve. And he’s shouting at me, “Whaddya need, whaddya need?” I don’t know, I don’t know what I need. I needed a pizza, I envisioned a pie. I thought there’d be a menu on the wall, next to a poster of a smiling mustachioed Italian chef, who you imagine saying, “That’sah nice.” Instead this guy, who may be “connected”, is scowling at me. I don’t know what I need. I don’t know how to order.
The joy of customer humiliation is not confined to countermen in western Pennsylvania. Across the Keystone State in “the city of brotherly love”, Philadelphia, where being rude is considered a virtue, confusing and belittling hungry out of towners has been institutionalized at Pat’s King of Steaks. For starters, you can’t get a porterhouse, rib eye, or any of those cuts at Pats. “Steaks” in Phillyspeak means cheesesteaks. Ordering one from “the king” is fraught with opportunity for error, reprimand, and death. Signs and shouts tell you that you can’t order your fries with your sandwich, and of course you can’t call it a sandwich because, “It’s a steak, you a-hole.” You can’t order your drink with your fries and your steak. You’re even told how to order Cheese Whiz, the default cheese used in steaks. You simply say “whiz”, and try do it without giggling like a 6 year-old, at what you think it means.
Yes, the ordering process continually risks error and reprimand. As for death, ask John Kerry how ordering gruyere, not whiz, or even everyone’s second choice , provolone, tanked his presidential campaign. Reinforcing his elite “Frenchness”, out of touch with real Americans.
Philadelphia prides itself in being nastier than it’s bigger neighbor to the north. Philly, historically may be where across the ocean tyranny was voted out. But New York City was where across the counter tyranny was invented, by people themselves used to being tyrannized by others. Jewish deli’s like Katz’s and the late-lamented Carnegie Deli have proven capable of reducing visiting businessmen in thousand dollars suits to feeling like abject losers for not speaking quickly enough or loudly enough or understanding how it works, and having to skulk impotently back to their table, knowing that the old Jew behind the counter has them figured out.
America, being a diverse land, is a land where food place intimidation adapts to local custom. On a vacation trip down south I stopped at an eatery I had read good things about in a road food publication. The Beacon Drive Inn in Spartansburg, South Carolina is justifiably famous for its barbecue and burgers and sweet tea, which you have to know how “not” to order if you don’t have dental insurance. It is a mechanized, industrial, logistically fine-tuned operation disguised as your neighborhood hamburger stand. Sandwiches ordered here, picked up there, sides, here–no there. Drinks, later, but not there. Instructing you, its countermen are smiling, ever polite. Polite in that southern sweet tea kind of way, so sweet you realize later it burns. Perhaps there is some delight in still, all these years later, telling Yankees what to do and where to go.
Undaunted, I continue to ask the hotel clerk upon checking in, “Where do the locals eat?” Usually they describe some little hole in the wall ethnic place or a seafood or barbecue shack, quickly adding, “Oh, but you wouldn’t like it there” and try to sell me on the chain restaurant by the mall. But, unless I’m really tired or hassled I take my chances, get my nerve up, watch the locals, and try to figure out how to order.
But, if I’ve driven 8 hours or am really stressed and tired and just want something quick I’ll opt for a fast food burger, a franchise. Maybe I’ll do the drive thru, but that can be confounding too. I’ve been known to try to push at a screen menu item when I should have spoken into the speaker, or tried talking when the girl inside was talking to me, or pulling up to the wrong window, and actually driving away in a huff without my food. At least when I go inside I can tell a kid at the counter, burger, fries and a Coke. Although, when the scrawny 16 year old with acne condescendingly hands me a cup and points me to the self serve soda machine, like I should have known that, my old ordering insecurities return.
Fast food franchises try to make ordering easy on you and especially on themselves. It’s simple, “I’ll have a number 4.” But then they go and mess with me again, it’s a 2 for $6 combo deal. But, there are a dozen possibilities, burgers, fish, chicken, salad, I don’t know. I just don’t know.
I don’t know how to order.