Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Meridian Pint - chairs on lockdown?


(Photo from Yelp.com)


I read a lot of DC blogs and over the last year or so I’ve read about Meridian Pint (http://www.meridianpint.com/) several times, but had yet to check it out. Well last Friday I was hanging with some friends enjoying white wine from a plastic jug that my friend had recently brought back from Europe (I was told this is how it’s bottled for shipping, but I’m skeptical :-) though it was pretty tasty), when we decided to wander down to Meridian Pint for some food.

It was a gorgeous night, especially for August in DC – warm, but not sticky – perfect for sitting outside. We were happy to see that there were a few open tables on the patio. When we went in to talk to the host though, he was a little frantic – even with some empty tables inside too. There was nobody waiting to be seated before us. We were three so we asked to pull up a chair to one of the empty two-tops outside. This seemed to fluster him even more and he went into some confusing explanation about how the chairs were all “locked up”. They had “very strict rules” about the patio and couldn’t change anything. We suggested taking a chair from a table for 4 that only had 3 people sitting at it, but instead he went off to ask the manager to unlock a chair for us to add to our table. We stood waiting, looking out at the patio to see from where this mystery locked chair would appear. Wouldn’t you know, he ended up pulling it from another empty two-top at the end of the patio. We all just laughed in confusion and went to our seats.

The beer list is pretty extensive. It happened to be DC Beer Week and the list of specials was on the menu. Friday was all Long Trail beers for $4 – great! We thought. The first thing the waitress said when she came over was that they were out of all Long Trail beers. What?!?! It was only 10:30 – they still had a long night ahead. And aren’t you supposed to stock-up, or even overstock, on whatever your special is? Not looking good for my first MP experience….

At any rate, we proceeded to eat, drink and have a good time brainstorming about a big money making scheme to get us out of our office jobs (let’s just say food trucks will have NOTHING on us!!). So will I go back? Yes, almost every place deserves a second chance. Plus, I didn’t get a chance to see the basement with the table taps – why is it so fun to pour your own beer??

Shortly before we were ready to leave, the host reappeared to seat more people. He went right over to the table of 4 with the extra chair, grabbed it and dragged it over to the two-top he had taken a chair from for us. We shook our heads and laughed….I guess that one wasn’t locked.


1 comments:

Anonymous said...

haha. "locked" chairs.