A group of us were at dinner the other night when one friend pointed out something we hadn’t thought much about.
“Have you noticed that restaurants don’t have salad bars like they used to?” she asked.
She’s right. I remember those days well.
You’d go into a restaurant. Almost any restaurant, it didn’t matter. A hostess would show you to your seats. Someone else would bring water and bread to the table. Then the waitress would come to take your order.
When you were finished telling her what you wanted for dinner, she would invariably say, “You can help yourself to our salad bar.”
The trend was so large that even fast-food restaurants jumped on the salad bar experience. Shoot, I even expected placed that didn’t specialize in food would start advertising salad bars.
“Vanderweele’s Funeral Home. We’re the last place to let you down. Now featuring the best salad bar in town.”
I don’t know what changed about the salad bar. Perhaps it’s the germophobe nature of our society today. But let me say I’m stand wholeheartedly in favor of its demise.
I’ve been completely against the idea of salad bars since the first time I was told to help myself to one. I don’t go to a nice restaurant for the opportunity to prepare my own meal.
I’m a decent cook, and I can make plenty of delicious meals. But I also love dining out. When I go out to a place prepared to spend good money, I expect a few things in return.
First, I want good food.
Second, I don’t want there to be any pool tables in the area where the food is served.
Third, I want to be waited on hand and food. And I don’t mind tipping well for the privilege.
If, one night, I decided to make my own salad, I could do that. In my own kitchen. Where I could make it in my underdrawers if that’s what I wanted to do.
My friends think I’m crazy. Most of them love salad bars.
“I love building my own salad,” one friend said. “I can get exactly what I want and I can get as much as I want. Why do you have to be so difficult?”
Au contraire, I say. I’m not being difficult. I can get exactly the same thing as you, and I don’t have to move from my seat.
“Miss,” I ask the waitress, “what are the available toppings for salads in this establishment?”
“Well, we have lettuce, of course,” she replies. “We also have tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, cheese, radishes, mushrooms, green peppers, onion, bacon bits and croutons, plus Italian, thousand island, peppercorn ranch and balsamic vinaigrette dressings.”
“Fine. I’ll have all of that except mushrooms, which grow on the walls of caves and not out in the sunshine like the Lord intended, and a healthy serving of the ranch dressing.”
Then my waitress, who is a trained professional in this sort of thing, goes off and makes a salad for me. She’ll get an extra tip if she remembers to hold the mushrooms.
I’m glad the salad bar fad seems to have ended. I can only imagine what restaurants would have come up with next.
“I’ll have the filet mignon, medium, with a loaded baked potato,” I tell the waitress.
“Right this way,” she says, taking me to the kitchen. “There are the steaks. Please help yourself to our grill.”
I suppose they’ll want to me wash my own dishes, too.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2016/6/410355/the-apparent-demise-of-the-salad-bar