Eddie’s Food Frustrations: Booking a Patio Table
Adeline (nickname: Eddie) loves food, lots of it and often, both at home and out. Usually, that goes well, but sometimes it doesn’t. You can read about the latter in the series Eddie’s Food Frustrations . This time: that damn booking system on the first patio afternoon.
If you had told me in 2019 that I would get annoyed by sticky salt shakers on the table, waiters crouching beside a table or paper straws at a festival, you would have immediately nodded and said, ‘yes’. But you probably wouldn’t have understood the struggle of wanting to sit on a patio at thirteen degrees in cloudy weather, between noon and six on a weekday. All I’m saying is: you don’t know you can develop something until you develop it.
Grumbling over wine
The first snag on opening day is that I’m supposed to work on Wednesday. You might think, ‘Honey, just take an afternoon off,’ but unfortunately that’s precisely the one day when I can’t. So Plan B is to start ridiculously early, so I’ll be done around three and can still go. Which brings me to the next struggle: what time do you book? I’m aiming for around four, because that still gives me two full hours to grumble over a glass of wine. Which should be just enough for a quick fix.
Who do you take with you?
Next question: where do you go? I last sat on a Greek patio at the end of September, so now that I’m allowed to again seven months later, I want to make a good choice. Finally: with whom? Do you go with the colleague you’ve already been working with all day, or with your significant other? I’m telling you: these are all questions and choices I couldn’t even have imagined at the beginning of 2020.
Wagging with joy
After weighing, considering and weeping, I didn’t choose my favorite patio, because it’s still a thirty-minute drive away and that would eat into my patio time, but I picked a lovely nearby alternative. The kind of wine bar where you pay a fortune for a good glass, with the option of sheltering under an awning when it rains, and where you can eat olives costing about one euro apiece on the side. Totally my kind of place, so I was wagging my tail with joy.
Guess what? FULL
I log on to the site, open the reservation system, feel the muscle beside my eye start twitching, because guess what? FULL. So you spend seven (SEVEN!) months restlessly waiting at home until you can finally hang out on a patio again, and your choice is fully booked within a nanosecond. I now suspect people have carefully reserved every time slot at every nearby patio, guaranteeing themselves a table for those six hours. Call me suspicious, but I know people who would pull that stunt (me, if I had the afternoon off too).
That damn patio reservation
So there you have it, the food frustration you never thought you could develop: that damn patio reservation. What a time to be alive, once again.
Also read:
- Eddie’s Food Frustrations: can we please stop sharing food for a minute?!
- Eddie’s Food Frustrations: restaurant turn-offs (that I’m almost starting to crave now)
- Eddie’s Food Frustrations: the supermarket spot check
