The Outing

DEAR GEORGE: Katja and I have enjoyed Sunday brunches at the Broadway Cafe for at least thirty years. We bring along the Sunday Enquirer, and Katja does the Jumble while I scan the TV Week and read the sports pages. The Broadway chefs are breakfast masters. Perfect fried eggs or French toast, delicious hash browns, crispy bacon. A delightful end of the week for families and retired folk.

All this, of course, came to an abrupt halt with the arrival of the pandemic. The Broadway closed its doors to indoor dining, and we stopped going to restaurants altogether. We finally got vaccinated this past March, and we’ve been thinking about going out for breakfast ever since. It took a while, but we made the big decision this past weekend.

We arrived about eleven a.m. There were fewer cars in the parking lot than I remembered, and we found a spot in the front row. The front lobby was empty, and we stood by the hostess’ stand for a few minutes. Restaurant staff flitted by. Finally a masked waitress came out of the kitchen. I couldn’t tell if we knew her or not. She handed us a couple of disposable paper menus (clearly intended for one use only) and asked for our drink orders. Katja said water and black coffee, and I said the same. She pointed toward the dining area and said we could sit anywhere we wanted. There was one couple seated on the north wall and a family of five in the opposite corner. Most of the booths and tables were walled off with cellophane tape and had “Closed” signs. We found a booth far away from the other diners.

As we sat down I noticed a QR code on the wall just above our tabletop (one of those square bar codes with lots of squiggly black lines and white spaces). A small sign just below it said “You can place your order and pay your bill here.” I pushed on the bar code two times with my thumb, but it didn’t do anything. When the waitress came I asked her how to order with the bar code. She said I could take a picture of it with my smart phone, then follow the prompts and email my information to the kitchen. “But,” she added, “I can take your order in person.” Katja ordered two eggs over lightly, whole wheat toast with butter on the side, and bacon. I ordered the same except for link sausage. Normally the waitress would bring a little tray with a variety of jams and jellies, but instead she asked if we wanted grape or strawberry. Apparently offering a tray that other customers had used meant danger. Katja chose strawberry, and I chose grape.

Fifteen minutes later the waitress returned with our order, just as Katja was finishing the Jumble. She gave each of us a cellophane wrapped package containing black plastic silverware and one napkin. The silverware wasn’t the more expensive sturdy grade that we get at the Party Source but small-ish bendable utensils that might come with a McDonald’s Fun Meal. There were no salt and pepper shakers on the table (also to avoid contamination), and the waitress brought little packets at Katja’s request. The food tasted as good as we remembered it, and we ate it up more quickly than usual. Katja complained that the coffee was horrible, but I reminded her that it’s always been horrible. The waitress didn’t return to ask how we were doing but she did finally bring the check. As we left the dining room was empty.

We waited quite a while at the cash register. I joked that we could just walk out without paying, and my evil self wanted to do so. Finally a kitchen worker came out. The bill was $18.50, about three dollars higher than it used to be. The kitchen guy didn’t ask how our meal was, but he did say, “Have a nice day.” To commemorate this historic event, I took a selfie of us standing outside the front door. We had taken the big step of re-entering the world. Unfortunately the world wasn’t quite ready. LOVE, DAVE