An Open Letter to Ruby Tuesday (Gallery Place)

Dear Ruby Tuesday,

Congrats on killing any of what little desire I had to eat at an “upscale” franchise!  Last night, my friends and I had the worst effing dining experience of our lives. Omgwtf kind of ship are you asshats running over there in Chinatown?  I get it.  You’re a crappy chain restaurant, and maybe we were just messing around when we decided to enter your establishment.  But, Modig had never had the pleasure of eating at this cornerstone of suburban casual dining and we just had to show her some good ol’ fashioned chain restaurant eats.  We’ve all seen your commercials where you urge us to do our tastebuds a favor and head on over for some friendly, enthusiastic service.  We bought your cloyingly folksy promises when you announced SIMPLE FRESH AMERICAN DINING on the outside of your restaurant.  Apparently “simple fresh American dining” means a horrendously bad waiter, and even worse food.

Never before have I witnessed the mayhem of the clusterfuck that was YOUR restaurant last night.  I don’t think there was a single person in the entire place that was experiencing anything close to a simple dining experience.  If simple means “wait until your hair turns gray before anyone even acknowledges your presence” then you’ve hit the nail on the head!  I watched multiple tables just get up and leave — exasperated, frustrated and still hungry  Unfortunately, we decided to stick it out and ended up shackled to your table at the mercy of your slow, inattentive, dimwit of a waiter who failed to get our orders right, clear the tables or refill any of our drinks.

Props to the poor busboy who had to field all our requests while our actual waiter was off in LaLa Land with the rest of Team Worthless.  Who are these jokers you have standing around idly at the hostess station?  Not to mention the manager who, despite getting reamed out by basically every customer in the restaurant, failed to make any attempts to quiet the angry crowd.  Not only should you have comped my meal, but you should have paid me for having to endure your tasteless, joyless wasteland.  I won’t even waste time complaining about how bad the food was.  Even after setting the bar embarrassingly low it still failed to meet even the bare minimum of culinary expectation, and was edible at best.  I thought I was safe ordering chicken tenders, but obvs I was wrong.  They were a bready, gross mess served with a side of mashed potatoes (which I didn’t want but our waiter, who had the memory of a goldfish, could not seem to remember) that tasted like wallpaper paste and some limp, watery frozen broccoli.  Barf.

Needless to say, I will NEVER be going back and will vehemently reject any further suggestions to return. Goodbyeeee Ruby Tuesday but unlike the Rolling Stones, I’m NOT gonna miss you.

xoxo,
Snarky