Monday, February 11, 2008

The Roof

I called a restaurant called The Roof 2 1/2 weeks ago to make a reservation for Valentines Day, they were already totally booked. So, instead Michael and I went for my birthday. If you aren't familiar with this restaurant, it is a buffet. Now, I know what you might be thinking when you hear buffet. A buffet for Valentines Day? How un-romantic. But this ain't no Golden Coral, or Chuck-o-Rama, although I really do like Golden Coral. This is high class buffet and the desserts, oh my gosh they are to die for! It is at the top of the Joseph Smith Memorial building, and they have large windows overlooking the Salt Lake City Temple and the valley beyond that. It is so beautiful at night.

My first experience with The Roof was when Michael was in his last year of college going to school full time and working part time doing maintenance for an apartment complex, not exactly the highest paying job. I had just had Reece, so I was no longer working, and the majority of our income was coming from student loans. My friend Megan and her husband Michael invited us to go to The Roof for Valentines Day. We declined the offer because of the cost. Megan told me it would be about $15 per person, and when you are living off of student loans, that is TON of money. That one meal would be about the cost of one week worth of groceries for us at that time. Megan convinced us that we needed to do something special for Valentines Day, and that $30 really wasn't that much money. Michael and I decided we would go, but we would have to live off of Ramen Noodles for the next week.

We got to The Roof, and we were so excited to have a 'good meal'. We walk up to let them know we had arrived for our reservation, and we saw the actual price was $26 per person. I just about died, we were stuck, we had driven Megan and Michael to the restaurant so we couldn't leave and we didn't really want to miss out on a Valentines Dinner sitting in the foyer waiting for them to eat.

We sucked it up and decided to have a good time and we would make the meal worth it. We were determined to get our moneys worth. We sat down at the table, ordered our drinks, and started to get up to get our first of many plates of food. As Megan was getting up, she pushed the table down while standing up, as it rocked back, Michael's glass of water spilt right into his lap making it look like he wet his pants. Now, it might have been OK to still go and get food had we been at Chuck-O-Rama, but this is The Roof. Michael held back his anger while I went to get him plates of food. Luckily it wasn't long before his pants dried.

Megan and Michael were college students as well, and like I said before, we were going to make sure we got our moneys worth. A few hours later, seriously, I guess our waiter had decided that we had been there long enough. Oddly enough, our server stopped re-filling our drinks, mysteriously our silverware started disappearing, and our server would not take our used plates.

We walked out of there drunk off of food, sounds weird, but it is the only way we could describe our state at that point. We had eaten a weeks worth of groceries in a few hours time. We couldn't stop giggling, we couldn't walk a straight line or touch our fingers to our nose. We were literally drunk off of food.

When I called last week to make a reservation, they informed me that there was an hour and a half time limit. I had to wonder if they made that rule after that wonderful night at The Roof 7 years ago, or maybe they traced the call and knew it was us.

7 comments:

Nora Mair said...

Funny Funny Funny. What a splurge! Creme Brulay (sp)? How was it?

RightHahn said...

Classic!! What a great story:)

Vanalee said...

I love you Marisa!! Thanks again for making me laugh!!!!

Stephanie said...

that is such a great story. i totally laughed at them giving you subtle hints that they wanted you to leave...

Kathy said...

HA HA HA! that is an AWESOME story! i love buffets - love 'em.

Kristi said...

Marisa, you should go to the Melting Pot for v-day this year. It is a similar splurge but very very good! And if Michael spills it's okay because he doesn't have to get up and go to a buffet!

dishes and laundry said...

That story is priceless! Drunk off of food and poor service to get you to leave.

How do they enforce the hour and a half time limit now? Is there a tiny timer on your table? Will the waiter discreetly inform you that chow-time's over?

Thanks for writing this.

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