Sorry, Sawyer's

So with a glut of places that serve chicken fingers now -- Sawyer's, Zaxby's, Guthrie's, Wishbone's and I'll throw in Chick-Fil-A for good measure -- you'd think that customer service would be high on these establishments' list, you know for fear of losing service to any of the other places.

Not the case, my friends.

The Modern Beau and I had a hankering for chicken fingers one night last week, so we decided to hit Sawyer's at Bearden Hill. When we got to the counter, the first thing the gal at the register told us was that they had just closed the Sawyer's on the Strip and they were in the process of combining all the stuff from the two stores (which would explain the U-Haul that was out back.)

(Let us now pause and mourn the passing of Sawyer's on the Strip. I figured it might not be long for this world considering it was lacking something Zaxby's and Guthrie's had, which was plenty of parking and seating. Still, it was a staple in my college years as I'm sure it was for many of you.)

Everything would have been fine if she'd just taken our order after that. Instead, she proceeded to tell us how upset she was about missing the CMA awards on TV that night, and then she turned around to look at the TV on the wall that was showing the program and swooned about how much she loved Alan Jackson or Trace Adkins or whomever was performing at that moment and how much she hoped Kenny Chesney won performer of the year and how much she loved his concert that she attended and 'Oh, what award are they giving out now?'

I'm not lying. I'm not exaggerating. This went on for at least two and a half minutes.

When she finally got around to asking us what we wanted to order, I decided it was a grilled chicken finger kind of night, so I ordered a grilled chicken salad.

"Oh, we don't have a grill right now."

Even though I was reaching boiling point, I didn't ask her why they didn't have two grills if they were combining the two stores that night.

I tried ordering a wrap, but that didn't work either because those are grilled. I finally settled on just the regular ol' chicken finger snack. At least they still had chicken fingers.

The Modern Beau ordered the meal, the one that comes with Texas toast and slaw, except that it didn't come with Texas toast because there was no grill with which to toast it.

Normally I don't publicly complain about restaurant service. I've worked in the industry. Everyone has a bad night from time to time. But this was the point where Sawyer's lost my business. No Texas toast? Fine, offer us something else ... more fries, more slaw, a free drink, a discount, a coupon for later. The Modern Beau said he would have accepted plain white bread. SOMETHING to atone for the fact that we're still paying full price for a meal and not receiving the full meal. And SOMETHING to atone for the fact that half of your already limited menu was unavailable that night. I wanted to complain to a manager, but there didn't seem to be one available.

The really loud high schoolers who were at the restaurant that night for 'All you can eat chicken fingers' night didn't help. I know Sawyer's has no control over that, and I'm not blaming them, but they annoyed me enough to cause me to seeth through the entire meal.

Sawyer's, you've already lost my business. I'm much happier going to Chick-Fil-A anyway, and it's easy for me to hit up Zaxby's and Guthrie's when I'm around the Strip. But let me suggest you work on your customer service a bit if you want to keep others from following suit.