Frankie & Bennys

«What would Michael Winner do?» is not a question that I ever thought I would ask myself. However, staring at the underpants of the barman, I did reflect on that very conundrum.
His trousers were hitched low; it seemed quite deliberately to permit this exposure. I thought perhaps Mr Winner would poke him with a stick and berate first him and then the management. I thought that a very good idea but I didn’t have a stick. I settled for muttering and wringing my hands whilst I waited an inordinately long time for him to get me a drink.
For the record his pants were red with silver stars and those stars were somewhat faded. I don’t know if that will allow him to be identified.
This chain is a place I come to infrequently and with a heavy heart, for I know that it is truly horrible. It is, after all, relegated almost exclusively to the wasteland of out of town shopping estates, where the damned trudge around endless rows of TVs under the flickering, electrical half-​light of a fluorescent 50% off sale sign.
We were advised of a 20 minute wait, but waited for 30 minutes. We waited another 15 minutes at the table before we could order a drink. Coupled with the underpants incident I was working myself up into an incendiary rage. We ordered starters, which didn’t arrive until after my daughter’s main meal did. Which was interesting, because she was going to share our starters, which we had made clear to the waitress. But of course in the event she had finished her main meal before our starters arrived and, well what happened was entirely predictable so I won’t bore you.
I complained to a committee of managers and servers. But only after I complained about having to speak to a committee. They didn’t know what they could do to make it better and no sooner had I called them over I just wanted them to go away.
I ordered a phili-​cheese sauce burger. I don’t know why, it was an impulse purchase. I wanted to take it back even before it arrived, so perhaps I was biased before it had even been tasted. There wasn’t any cheese on it, not really. Someone had flickered a paint-​brush of cheese in its vague direction but ostensibly it was cheeseless. Some other food arrived at the table and it wasn’t poisonous but that isn’t much of a commendation.
Perhaps much of the problem was that this was the Easter bank holiday. Chocolate is nicer than anything they serve, so they were onto a loser from the outset. Plus it had been so busy that people had eaten (or at least poked at) most of their supplies so by the time I arrived their cupboards were bare and they were scraping together a menu from pencil shavings and left-​overs from the MacDonalds next door. Certainly it seemed there had been a particular run on cheese.
However, neither Easter nor the crowds can be held responsible for the underpants. Which rather set the tone for the meal and the service.