The Patio Restaurant & Bar

This restaurant just opened up across the street from my office, and I wish they hadn’t. My wife and I tried it out today and I can only describe the Patio as «appalling». It was the worst meal in recent memory for me.
The interior is a disorienting tidal wave of brown. Brown will assault you from every direction. Your anxiety will be multiplied by the inappropriate flashing lights interspersed throughout the restaurant and the jukebox which is merrily blaring the entire Alan Jackson discography. I felt, for a brief moment, like I was losing my fine motor control as I reeled toward the nearest table.
After sitting down, I asked the waitress what beers were on tap. This is when the downward spiral truly began: there is no bar at The Patio Restaurant & Bar. My confusion trebled: had I walked into the wrong place? Am I in Bizarro The Patio Restaurant & Bar? What’s going on here?
Shaken, I took to reading the menu to ground myself. American food. I understand this. I am comfortable with American food. I chose to ignore the fact that several dishes had gimmicky names with no actual description of the food, because I was already within earshot of a stroke. Hot roast beef sammich with mashed potatoes. Perfect. Something to soothe me during this troubled trip to this funhouse of a restaurant. My wife, gripping the side of the table like a shipwreck victim holding flotsam, ordered the French dip for the same reasons.
When the food took less than ten minutes to come out of the kitchen, I should have just walked out. In fact, I should have knocked the plates from the waitress’s hands and slapped her for her effrontery. I should’ve bolted for the door like a man being chased by a crazed killer, leaving my wife behind as a sacrifice and saving only myself. I should have boarded the doors and set the place ablaze in righteous fire. Unfortunately for me (but fortunately for you!), I did none of those things. I offered a polite smile and mentally prepared myself for a heaping plate of misery.
I sincerely hope that, every night after work, the cook at The Patio Restaurant & Bar goes home, sits at a fold-​up Formica table with a handgun, a bottle of cheap scotch, and a picture of real food and seriously contemplates doing the right thing. He or should be ashamed of themselves. What I received was «edible» only in the sense that it’d been about an hour and I’m not dead yet. The roast beef used in both of our sandwiches looked and tasted for all the world like low-​budget, Carl Buddig, pre-​packaged lunch meat. For the French dip, this meat was plopped into — and I swear I’m not making this up — a generic-​brand white hot dog bun. Mine was tossed upon toasted Wonderbread. For Christ’s sake, part of my wife’s sandwich meat was green and shiny.
Eating their mashed potatoes (which were terrible, even for instant) was not unlike eating rubber cement. Their gravy was from a jar and they couldn’t even buy a good brand. My wife informed me that the jus was basically just beef broth with a ton of MSG tossed in. The only thing on either of our plates that wasn’t store-​bought, pre-​processed convenience food seems to have been the french fries, and even these were undercooked. I’m very easy to please, food-​wise, and this was an unmitigated disaster on every level. The only word that came to mind was «prison». This was prison food.
The only thing that prevented me from lambasting the staff and making a scene was that I didn’t want to yell at the waitress, who was friendly and prompt. Looking back, I should’ve let her have it just for working there, for having the nerve to serve that slop to unsuspecting people.