We went to the local Piccadilly cafeteria with Zal's parents at the request of my father-in-law, after our first choice was closed for renovation. I was kind of leery, as the restaurant's in kind of a bad part of town in a shopping center whose anchor stores were abandoned years ago. He seemed really excited about it, however, so I hated to be the party pooper.
We pulled in and the parking lot was mostly abandoned. Uh-oh. We went inside the surprisingly nicely appointed restaurant and found it even more barren of fellow consumers. Double uh-oh. I wish I'd listened to my instinct to say "This doesn't look like a good situation. We should probably go." at that point.
Going up to the counter, the ancient woman behind the counter stared at us with wild eyes and babbled something that sounded close enough to "What you want?" for government work. This woman had an Old South accent like I've never heard before, and I grew up in the back woods of Northwest Florida.
I asked for the shrimp dinner and pointed towards it. More babbling, completely incomprehensible this time. "I'm sorry?" I asked. Staring. Babbling. My wife interpreted this as her way of requesting my sides and informed me of such. "French fries and macaroni and cheese, please." "Don't got no french fries." "Ohhhhhkaaaay...." She then thrust a plate at me and said something about a lack of fried shrimp. Whatever, I took the plate and moved down the line.
Did I mention what the food looked like? Not appetizing in the least, I can tell you that much. It was sitting under heat lamps, a position the food had clearly enjoyed for many, many hours. The meats sat in congealing, greasy juice, and the crust on the casserole-type entrees and sides looked thick and rubbery. Yum!
After additional confused babbling, I managed to get some macaroni and cheese and a garlic bread, along with two empty plates that somehow signified that I was to get shrimp and french fries at some later point in time. We got to the counter and were kind of shocked to find that the total for my wife and me added up to almost $23. With only one drink between us. For terrible-looking cafeteria food served with a grimace and unintelligible babbling. Plus tip. Sigh.
We walked to our table, passing by our first choice because it still had remnants of the last meal eaten there. Our waitress (way too nice and good at her job to work there) eventually brought my fries (OK) and my shrimp (tiny things sized somewhere between a popcorn shimp and a normal restaurant shrimp, fried to a dark brown color). She said to let her know if I wanted them to be sent back. As I had a feeling they'd return to my table with some of the chef's "secret sauce" added, I elected to soldier on with what I'd been given. I overheard the waitress telling the woman at the next table to send her food back if she wasn't satisfied as well, so kitchen problems appear to run rampant.
The food was as terrible as it'd looked. My wife's crusted chicken would have been good at some point, but had been sitting around long enough that the coating was now a greasy mess. The mac and cheese was completely flavorless. How do you mess up mac and cheese?! My garlic bread was soaked almost completely through with some sort of fake butter product and piled high with a horrible-tasting herb mix. My shrimp was as burned as I'd feared. I found out from Zal later that her rice dish was, if anything, even less flavorful than the mac and cheese.
I only ate enough to be polite, and I'm someone who has no shame licking the plate after a good meal. My in-laws said they liked their meals afterwards, but I noticed that they left food on the table as well.
I'm not sure why that Piccadilly's is still in business. There were a few more people when we left, but the restaurant was still at least 80% empty. Unless they have a massive lunch business (unlikely), they're probably throwing away as much food as they serve and probably not even meeting salaries much less making a profit. It's too bad, as the space is really nicely set up, well-maintained (lack of paper towels in the men's room notwithstanding) and, if our waitress is any indication, there are some employees who still care about the restaurant.
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