The Riverside Grill

Tonight we had quite the interesting experience at dinner. Suzy had previously purchased a restaurant.com certificate for a place called, "Riverside Grill". Which was a restaurant inside the Doubletree Inn. You know it was going to be classy. With the restaurant.com gift certificate you have to spend a certain amount to get the 50% off.

I should have suspected something when I called, and asked if we needed a reservation and the girl on the other end of the phone said "No, we're not very busy." I thought, well, at least then there will be no one to hear our kids make noise (by kids I mostly mean Jace, who is very loud these days).

We arrive, and by no one to hear Jace yell, I mean NO ONE. There was one other group at the far end of the eating area. The waitress brings the menus. Which we later compare and notice have different prices on them for each item. We ask the waitress if there's a kids menu. Her response? "I don't know, let me ask." Hmmm...she doesn't know if they have kids menus?
Later on, after we have the kids menus, and have asked her for a high chair for Jace we ask if the kids meals come with drinks.
Courtney (her name), "I don't know." Not, let me find out. Just I don't know. You'll notice a theme here.
"Do the entrees come with a side?"
Courtney "I don't know."
Can I get some kind of cup that Jace can drink out of?
Courtney "Sure" (never brings it)
I go up and ask for a paper cup. To her credit, she did give me a straw that I didn't ask for.

Turns out it was her first night working there. We also figured that she was probably home schooled (no offense of course) and had never been out to eat. Or had a job.

She brought out the desserts (we had $10 more that we needed to use up before the discount hit). There were two platters of desserts. We started asking, what is that one?
Courtney "I don't know"
Finally, I think she realized that "I don't know" is not really the response someone is looking for. I had just pointed to one and asked if it was some kind of Ice Cream/custardy thing. Courtney "No, maybe Bread with frosting."
We finally asked her to go find out what the deserts were. After she came back, she was able to fill us in (it was a lemon custard type desert by the way).

She brought us the bill. It was about 1/3rd of what it should be. We should have just left it at that, but we mentioned that to her and 20 minutes later they finally brought us the correct, much more expensive bill. With no thanks for pointing out that they had almost let us go for pennies on the dollar. Or at least 33.3cents on the dollar.

We realized that this was not entirely Courtney's fault, since it appears that the other two workers there weren't giving her much direction (despite her obviously home schooled past, again, no offense. I was home schooled. Which isn't saying much, and that probably just gave home schoolers more offense than anything else which I've written).

Also, the Caesar Salad I ordered came with a side of Sour Cream and Chives. And cherry tomatoes. And some really soft croutons.

I was also surprised that Jace's corn dog (yes, we ordered a vegetable dish for him (corn) since we're helping him eat not just what he wants, but also super healthy) wasn't too hot. I thought that was weird, since usually you have to let that kind of thing cool off. Turns out it was still cold inside. Luckily hot dogs are fully cooked, so we just went with it.

After about half way through, we just started enjoying the experience for the experience's sake. We were laughing quite a bit. Poor Courtney. And poor Riverside Grill (Inside the Riverside/Doubletree Inn). Anyway, it was worth it just for the laughs.