Christopher Rowe

We returned from Alcatraz to the mainland at 11pm, feeling both humbled by our experience on Alcatraz and frozen by the wind, the idea of a late night clam chowder had never sounded so appealing. With dining options severely limited due to the late hour, Michelle and I settled for the nearby Applebees, the only restaurant in the area still open.

We were seated promptly and told our waiter will be with us shortly. Looking around the restaurant, there were as many kitchen hands out and about wiping down tables as there were waiters on the floor, with the restaurant looking at 20% capacity, I figured they were slowly winding down for the night. Eager to order my clam chowder before the kitchen closed, I waved down a nearby waiter. He approached, but without stopping, uttered he’d be right with us and continued on. Fair call really, he had just finished with a table before us.

A few moments later, a very eager kitchen hand, we’ll call him ‘Bill’ approached our table all smile. He started with apologising for the other waiter, saying the waiter was stressed from a previous customer and had referred us to Bill. A detail I didn’t need to know, but whatever.

Since our order was to be short and sweet I was not fazed by this. Michelle and I both ordered a glass of wine and the clam chowder. Bill excitedly wrote it down on paper and looked up, ‘is there anything else?’ he said, still smiling from ear-to-ear. Clearly he hadn’t had much opportunity to wait on customers before, he was way too enthusiastic. ‘Well this looks simple enough’, he continued, ‘I’ll take care of this personally’ he said and walked towards the bar.

After a considerable amount of time Bill finally returned with our drinks, Michelle had ordered a sparkling white, her glass standing tall and proud as it should. I ordered a glass of merlot, which can always be hit and miss. So far in San Francisco we have dined at two Italian restaurants, an expensive posh one in Union Square and a cheaper one in Fishermans Wharf. The expensive one gave me a ridiculously large glass with what looked like only a shot of red wine in it, whereas the cheaper Italian place filled the glass half way. Smiling Bill on the other hand, clearly his first day pouring wine, had filled the wine glass, similar to Michelle’s sparkling white, to the very top. He placed the glasses down. My jaw dropped. ‘Is everything alright?’ he enquired. ‘Yes, no worries here, thanks’.

‘Good, I’ll go and prepare your chowder now’, and he was off.

Still perplexed by the overwhelming glass of wine before me, his last comment bothered me slightly. Shouldn’t someone else be preparing the meal? Not him? He is only a ‘waiter’ after all?

He returned back a while later with an even larger grin, and proudly placed down in front of us two bowls of chowder. ‘You guys are so lucky’, he started. ‘You see, it’s the end of the night and the kitchen is starting to close up. There was only just enough chowder in the pot for you guys – and the best part, it is really choca-block full of clam chowder!’

I put my spoon into the bowl and it stood up right, he wasn’t wrong about that! ‘You guys enjoy’ he said very excitedly. If I didn’t motion him to leave us, I’d say he would have stuck around to witness the first spoon full.

Happy to be reunited with a steaming hot clam chowder after such a cold evening out, I tucked into it. It was cold. Hoping this was a once off I then dug my spoon into a different area and tried again, this time it was barely warm.

This won’t do, I thought to myself, slightly reluctant as I hate to be the guy who has something returned to the kitchen (for one, you don’t know what else they’ll do to it back there), I quickly considered my options. There was no way I could continue eating this, and I had come too far damn it to settle for cold chowder. I flagged down a nearby waiter and gestured to him that both Michelle’s and my chowder was cold. The waiter offered a replacement, but I kindly declined ‘There is no need for that, it just needs to be hotter – can you warm it up?’

Minutes later the waiter returned. This time you could see the steam rising from the chowder bowls. He placed them on the table, it certainly looked hot, and with giving him a nod of approval, he walked away. In addition to being hot, the chowder wasn’t as gluggy as it initially was, in fact, it looked more like the chowder you would expect. My guess would be that there was an additional serving step that Smilie Bill didn’t do – perhaps something as simple as mixing in some boiling water?

Both satisfied with our meals and with a little room left over we glanced at the desert menu. At this point our smiling waiter had returned. ‘Was the chowder okay?’ he looked concerned, clearly a fellow waiter had informed him of the situation. ‘It was fine’ I reassured, ‘just needed some warming up’. His smile returned, ‘but it was packed full of clam wasn’t it!!?’ I returned a smile and nodded, not having the heart to tell him what he mistook for clam was actually an abundance of potato. The clam chowder was nothing spectacular at all.

We both made our desert selections, Michelle opting for a Hot fudge sundae in a shot glass, a novelty desert Applebees does. I opted for the Churros and hot chocolate sauce. Same as before, Smilie returned with the two deserts. Michelle’s desert featured a plastic spoon. Bill began to apologise for the spoon, and in great detail informed us that the spoons were all in the dish washer and he couldn’t find one anywhere so he had to improvise and use a plastic spoon. He then proceeded to compliment my desert, saying he had picked the best looking one, and that usually they don’t come out looking this good. By this time, I couldn’t shake the thought that our dining experience would have been quite different had we had a qualified waiter instead of this clearly unqualified kitchen hand trying to please. Just as with last time, I had to gesture him to leave us so we could enjoy our desert in peace. My churros was fine, the hot chocolate sauce was indeed hot. Michelle’s on the other hand left something to be desired. Although it was delish, there was nothing hot about the hot fudge sauce.

Eager to wrap up our little dining experience, we ushered Smilie for the bill. He came bouncing back with the bill like a dog would with a bone and proceeded to tell us of the internal ranking and points system the waiters have, how they accrue points and lose points during the night and proudly stated that since our meal was reheated and not replaced, it was okay, he didn’t lose any points. I smiled at him, clenching my teeth together at this point. This guy clearly didn’t know when to stop talking. ‘That’s great’ I replied.

We quickly settled the bill and left. Definitely an interesting experience!