Afterwords, Dupont Circle

I like Afterwords[Kramerbooks] and I will continue to like Afterwords, but I have to say, I’ve discovered something as the sole result of consistency: if you’re seated on the second floor, service will be horrible. Monkey and I went this Sunday morning with our neighbor, Karol and started coming up with a few reasons why this may be the case. First of all, it is one server and about 30 people when it is busy. Food from the kitchen must be carried up by the server when the runner isn’t bringing food up. These are the scenarios:

1) Poor waitstaff get assigned to the second floor for one or both of two reasons

a) they are new and are unskilled – this will be trial by fire and they will need to balance meeting everyone’s needs with making hasty exits to the kitchen for everyone else’s food
b) the management wishes to have poor waitstaff quit without firing them – they figure the overburden as described above with cause service, and thus tips, to decrease; the poor schmuck will quit as a result of his or her worst tipday ever.

2) Kitchen runners are lazy and do everything in their power to delay climbing the stairs to bring food to those waiting on the second level

3) Waitstaff of any degree of proficiency are unable to handle the throngs of demanding customers, resulting in poor balancing act, as described in 1a, above.

I don’t really care which of these factors is attributing to the lack of me receiving my food. Just don’t get seated on the second level. If you do get seated there, ask to be reseated. Believe me, asking to be reseated is a lot nicer than waiting an hour and half for food and leaving a less than 15% tip.

This Sunday’s adventure, though, was probably the result of ineptitude. I will not elaborate, because, as I said, I like Afterwords, but in brief, drink orders were mixed up, delayed, and refilled with the wrong degree of caffeination for all three of us, at least once each. We placed our names on the list at 11:39 and were seated by around 12pm. At 1pm, still no food in sight. I considered ordering another mimosa, but I don’t like ordering more to drink BECAUSE I am waiting for my food. You never know when waiters hold off on delivering your food to see if you order another drink, thus upping tippable total. I don’t know that I have ever been the victim of that, but it’s not inconceivable that this would happen. Also, the point of eating with alcohol at brunch is so you have an excuse to drink in the late morning/early afternoon and not get tipsy. Eventually, we did receive food, and it was rather small. Not because the servings actually are small, but because in the time we’d been waiting, we’d become ravenous. All of our food was cold, albeit in varying degrees (hollandaise at room temperature isn’t so bad…) When we left, I looked at my watch: 2pm.

Initially, I had felt good about going to Afterwords rather than Dim Sum, because I felt I wouldn’t be wasting my day, but at the end of it, that’s exactly what it felt like.

As Monkey put it later, “I’m sad my extra hour from the time change was spent waiting in Afterwords.”

Afterwords word to the wise: don’ let yourself get seated on the second level.