Last night we went to the Cobblestone for dinner. It wasn’t great — not terrible, but mediocre and weird enough that I wanted to write about it, and go off on some tangents.
We were given gift cards to the Cobblestone at xmas and are trying to use them before the place burns down again or everything shuts down over covid-19 again so we went several weeks ago and it wasn’t very good. The service was slow, our server was weird and vaguely rude, and the food was not good. I was really bummed we still had a bunch more on the gift cards to use there but I’m way too cheap to let the pricks get away with our unused gift card money.
So we went back last night to celebrate the end of some boring bullshit I had to do at work and Jenn’s haying season. This time, our server was quite nice and attentive, and the food came quick so those were improvements. The food was somewhat better than before but about half our orders were still not great. I’d give last night’s experience a 5/10.
What I really want to talk about though are the little weird annoying details. For example, our server would occasionally sing along quite loudly to the music being played, and right when she was at our table. It was oddly showy, and not in a “I’m a talented singer, check out my chops” way — she was not a good singer at all, it’s more like she was just trying to appear super chill and comfortable or something like that. Even weirder is I noticed another server did it last night too. I wonder if they’ve been told by management to act like they’re really enjoying the music for some reason. Anyway, they didn’t seem like they really enjoyed the music, it sounded more like someone had a gun to their heads and told them to sing along or die. Very strange.
Also, our server was hanging out with two other servers by their till when one of them complained loudly about a lousy tip left by a previous table. The complaining server exclaimed “…and they only left (mumble mumble) tip on a fucking $107 bill!” She said it loud enough that us and several other tables all heard it, and we were probably 25 ft away. I thought that was brutally unprofessional.
When we paid with our gift card at the end, it was awkward because their system sucks and we had to tell the server how much we wanted to tip her so she could enter it on the gift card. I didn’t like that at all. I want to tip as I’m leaving so I don’t have to see the server’s face afterward. I feel like tips are a way of grading the service your received so if someone did a lousy job, I don’t want to essentially say “I think you did a lousy job” and then have to continue to interact with them for a several more minutes.
The last weird thing was that our bad server from our previous visit had to help figure out something with our gift card last night and then brought it back to us at the end. When she did we said thanks but she didn’t respond. She just put the card on the table without saying anything, turned around and walked away. She’s such an odd, awkward, unlikable person.
On top of all that, the music last night was the worst. It was all modern country. You know, country music with raps in it, that kind of shit. Country music singing about sliding into their baby’s DM’s. They still sing about the other shit I hate like drinking beer and going to church and being staunchly anti-abortion but they add in these other topical details that I hate just as much, and it only serves to make a bad thing even worse.
On that note, I have a special hatred for the term “slide into your DM’s.” Wtf does that even mean? I hate how these phrases inexplicably blow up and become ubiquitous for a while, only to disappear and become lame in a year or two. Remember “totes magotes”? How cool would you look if you said that now? You wouldn’t, you’d look stupid. The thing is, I think it was stupid from the start, and I feel the same way about this DM shit. It’s just the latest annoying fad that will be over in a few months, and I want nothing to do with it, now or ever.
The Cobblestone sucks.
crimson highway 