S.L.A.M.E.

Every month I meet with some of my girlfriends for drinks and dinner and gossip. It's always a lot of fun and we always talk about how we have to get together more often. On our first meeting, I even made up a name for us: S.L.A.M.E. - Sushi Lovers And Man Eaters. (The S has been swapped for Solstice - the name of a restaurant - and Sangria when we're not eating Sushi.) And even though most of us have wonderful boyfriends at this point, we're all still Man Eaters at heart.

Last night we went to a tapas restaurant in the Mission that people rave about, especially with respect to their Sangria. Upon ordering a pitcher of Sangria, we were all carded, which I suppose is expected (and flattering considering we're all 23 and 24). Our friend who arrived later forgot her wallet at school, so she was sans identification. We poured her a glass of Sangria anyway, thinking it would be fine since we were obviously all of age.

About five minutes later, our waitress walks up to our table and says to our friend "I need to see your id" to which my friend replies "I forgot my wallet, so I don't have it." The waitress says, with a brazen attitude, "then you can't drink" and as she says this she picks up my friends glass and pours her already sipped Sangria back into the pitcher.

At this point we're all a little annoyed and completely shocked. She senses our annoyance (slash hears us bitching about her) and comes back to see if we want a different pitcher. We were in such shock that I don't think any of us even said anything and she just walked away. For the rest of the night we continued to intermittently talk about how terrible of a waitress she is. And when the bill comes and we give her three cards to split it on, she says (in the same bitchy attitude) "we can only charge two cards." My friend who used to be a waitress at a five star restaurant immediately retorts "Can we see a manger?"

Ugh. The manager also happens to be the bartender, and he is shabby-looking and greasy. He also starts giving us attitude when we try to tell him how rude our waitress was to us. He says he told her to do it, and that she offered us a new pitcher if wanted it. We explain to him that we understand their liability, but her rude attitude and tactless behavior was completely unnecessary. Yet, he still finds the need to argue with us.

We certainly didn't let this debacle ruin our night, but I must say I will not be back to this restaurant any time soon because the food was only okay, the staff was miserable, and I'm sure I can find just as good sangria somewhere where they don't promote spreading germs.

The company was great, as usual :)

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