My closing thought is a shout-out for the emerging Short Pump site, DowntownShortPump.com.  If you’re not making this site a daily read, you’re missing out.

Friday night, my wife and daughter and I went to Short Pump Town Center to do some shopping at the toy store and Dick’s. We phoned ahead to California Pizza Kitchen to reserve our place in their waiting list. We showed up a few minutes ahead of the promised wait time, knowing we’d have to wait just a little bit for our table. We checked in at the hostess and we were told we’d be seated soon. Five minutes became ten and then became 15. When I checked again at the podium, the hostess said our name had been crossed off the list accidentally and that we’d been passed over. They got us a table within 5 minutes, but it was a frustrating 15 minutes extra wait. There was no apology from the hostess, no manager providing reassurance or sympathy. This was our third visit to CPK in the past 9 days (don’t ask — we sometimes binge on restaurants we like), and this third visit was our only bad experience here.  Who knew it would be a precursor of things to come?

Saturday night our son had a baseball game at Tuckahoe Little League, and Glory Days seemed like a natural post-game meal. Also, our hometown Dallas Stars were on the tube in the NHL playoffs, and Glory Days has lots of TVs there. (A sports restaurant with TVs – who knew?) We’ve been to Glory Days a half-dozen times in our year here, and we’ve always enjoyed the food and the ambience. Saturday night was a different story. We went there at the height of rush hour, and we knew there would be a wait. They told us “30 minutes” when we checked in. We passed the time in the lobby and the game room. After 30 minutes, we checked with the hostess, and just like the night before, we were told we had been accidentally crossed off their list. The young lady at the hostess stand just gave the glassy-eyed “Gee – I don’t know what happened.”  But no apology.   She must have made that mistake before, because she didn’t seem phased by it.  Five minutes after we found out we’d been passed over, we were at our table.  Glory Days has some new menu items, and we enjoyed our meal.

Today we thought we’d do Mother’s Day lunch at the new LongHorn Steakhouse.  Above, I called it one of Short Pump’s “better-known” places, even though it’s brand new, because no doubt everybody’s seen it go up on Broad Street.   Today’s restaurant story outdoes the others, but it has a much better ending.

We had a party of 8 (my family and another family of four), which is never easy to seat.  We tried to call ahead to LongHorn after we got out of church, but neither 411 nor my Treo phone could locate the number.  (It’s 364-3800 if you want to know.)    We showed up at the restaurant at 12:15pm.  When we were told it would be a 60-70 minute wait for a table for 8, we didn’t blink.  We knew every other place around would have a similar wait.   We passed our time in the lobby and by making a side trip to the new “Five Below” store in the same shopping center — not a bad way to kill an hour.

About 1:15pm, we’re told that there’s a table in the back where the guests have paid their check.  But the guests were very slow to leave.  At 1:20pm, one of the managers walked past us carrying in a table from a storage closet somewhere else.  He told me he’d be setting that table for us.   At 1:25pm, we learned that the table was given away to another party.   At 1:30pm, we were told there was still another party of 8 in front of us — something we weren’t aware of up to that time.   At about 1:40pm (85 minutes), we were called to a table that had just been vacated.  We were asked to wait while the manager cleaned the table.  Five minutes later, we were still standing.  The table hadn’t been fully bussed.   Then another problem.  While they had found a table for us, they didn’t have 8 chairs.   More waiting.  Finally, a booth opened up next to the table.  We put the table and its 4 chairs with the booth and we were seated.

That’s the bad news.  90 minutes with three small children (who were exceptionally well-behaved) is more than I want to do again.   The good news is what happens next.   The manager first offered free appetizers.  We said thanks, but we really needed to order, eat and move on.   He profusely apologized for our wait and for also being teased with tables that were handed to other people.  We told him that we understood the challenges that large parties can bring, particularly on a big family eat-out day like Mother’s Day.  He said he wanted to make sure we left smiling.  I said that we all looked forward to some very good meals.   The rest of the dining experience was fairly routine, though we did enjoy our entire meal with empty drink glasses.  The waiter went MIA for about 10 minutes right after we were served our meal by another waiter.

At the end, another manager came back by.  He asked if we wanted dessert.  Since we had birthday cake at home, we thanked him but declined his offer.   He then said LongHorn would pick up our entire check.  Wow, that floored us.  We protested just a bit, but he insisted.   We then asked if he would give us a $1.00 check so we could charge a tip on our credit card.   My friend left a generous gratuity and we got up to go.  As we left, one of the managers personally sought me out, gave me a discount card, and his personal business card.  He told me to call him personally and he’d make sure we were taken better care of next time we visited.   We’ll definitely be back.  Like that manager promised, we did leave with a smile.

Three bizarre experiences in three days.  But only one restaurant went above and beyond to acknowledge the initial mistake.  That’s worth a blog post here.

One note about LongHorn.  We look forward to our next visit, but it probably won’t be on a big family holiday.   The nice thing about their dining room is that it has a lot of booths and not many tables.   Booths are much better for comfort and privacy.   But LongHorn’s layout works against them for large parties.  You just can’t push booths together to make bigger booths.   Their lack of space for big parties caused them a big traffic jam today, and left several families quite frustrated.   We’ll certainly go back with our party of four, but I’d want a reservation there for any group bigger than 6.   LongHorn takes call-ahead seating, but they told me today they don’t take reservations (although I’m sure there’s an exception for a big big group).

One of the things I’ve discovered here in Virginia is “Texas Pete” Hot Sauce. Wait a minute, Chip. You said “discovered”. You mean, you’ve spent all those years in Texas and never heard of Texas Pete Hot Sauce. Nope. Been living in Texas for 31 years, and ain’t never seen that stuff before.

Hmmm. So if Texas Pete isn’t from Texas, where is it from? According to their website, Texas Pete was born and named in Winston-Salem, as in North Carolina, as in nowhere close to Texas.

Even though I’m from Texas, I’m not a huge hot sauce fan, so I can’t tell you whether Texas Pete is actually any good. It sure seems to be popular here though. It’s easy to find in the grocery store (photo above), and a lot of restaurants put it out on their tables.

Here’s the real rub though. Even though we native Texans think we can do anything we set out minds to, real Texans know the best hot sauce doesn’t even come from Texas. It comes from Avery Island, Louisiana. Most Texas restaurants serving hot sauce put good ol’ Tabasco on the table.

By the way, our new favorite Mexican food joint in Short Pump is Plaza Guadalajara, next to the ice rink. This is what they put on the table:

One of those bottles is from Mexico. The other is from California (where lots of Mexicans live). That’s authentic too.

I e-mailed our elected Three Chopt Supervisor, Mr. Kaechele, and asked why we couldn’t get a “Short Pump VA” while we were going to the trouble of going this “Henrico” designation set. He quickly wrote a nice reply, and I’ll excerpt it here:

Since the address change initiative process became public we have had some citizens suggest changing their addresses to Short Pump, VA and others wanting to change to Varina, VA. Frankly, either of these would be counterproductive to what we are trying to accomplish at this time — namely an address that is closely descriptive of Henrico County.

Yeah, I get it, Mr. Kaechele. Focus on one thing at a time. But Short Pump has been around longer than many U.S. states. It deserves its unique place among the great mailing addresses in the world. If you get Henrico approved, then let’s get working on Short Pump, VA. I’ll even back our friends in Varina VA.

Believe it or not, one of our local mainstream media outlets has just published a terrific article on the state of the Richmond-area grocery store race. “Grocery Wars”, the article is called.

There’s pages of good analysis of the local store market, even a decent price comparison that tells me maybe Ukrops isn’t as comparatively expensive as we all think. (I shop there anyway.) So I won’t recount all the articles’ facts here, but I will filter in the news that affects Short Pump the most. Since I hadn’t heard of any of this yet, it’s breaking news to me!

• Whole Foods Market is on schedule to open at West Broad Village in 2009.

• Trader Joe’s plans to open a smaller store later this year at Short Pump Station.
  
• Kroger will soon build a new store at Lauderdale and Broad, and they’ll close “a store nearby”. I think this means the nearest store, on Broad next to Target.
  
• Ukrops will remodel its Short Pump store, starting this summer.
  
• Tom Leonard’s will double the size of its store by the end of the year.
  
• Even Food Lion will soon begin a major remodel of nearly all its Richmond stores. I would assume the two Food Lions close to Short Pump (on Lauderdale and on Nuckols) would get the remodel.
  

My favorite store? The Ukrops at John Rolfe. It’s a bit smaller than the Short Pump store, but it’s got everything I need (except Texas Toast, which for some reason I can never find there). It’s also much less crowded than the Ukrops in Short Pump. The Ukrops in Short Pump, however, is a much younger crowd than the Ukrops at John Rolfe – have you noticed that?

In my nine months of living in Central Virginia, I’ve crossed the river perhaps a dozen times.  I kid the folks on my staff (many of whom live in Chesterfield) that I always remember to bring my passport when I go there.  I keep expecting to have to speak a foreign language or use different currency, or so I tell my friends and coworkers. 

But there’s two things Chesterfield has that Short Pump (or all of western Henrico) doesn’t have — a Schlotsky’s sandwich shop and a Sonic Drive-In.   So tonight, the family took a field trip (passports and all) to Chesterfield so we could enjoy two of our favorite haunts from Texas. 

Sonic’s really ramped up their television advertising in this market, which is a good thing because the ads are generally pretty funny.   I did a quick search for Sonic ads on the net.  I came up empty, but if you search “Sonic commercial” on YouTube, you get a gazillion amateur knock-offs.

There are just some foods you eat at Sonic and nowhere else.  Their fountain drinks are better than anyone’s.  Diet Coke just tastes better at Sonic.  So does iced tea.   Their breakfast burritos are second only in freshness and taste to the Texas mainstay Whataburger, which unfortunately is nowhere near Virginia.   Sonic does shakes and malts better than anyone around. 

So why don’t we have a Sonic here?  Perhaps we will one day.  The nearest Sonic for now is a brand-new location on Hull Street Road, just west of 288.

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I e-mailed the Sonic folks at their Oklahoma City corporate headquarters to find out when a Sonic might show up in Short Pump. They said they are currently expanding in the area, but they can’t announce any timetable because they haven’t secured real estate yet. Their website says they’re no longer accepting franchise applications here, so they must be pleased with the expansion progress for the franchiser(s) already established here. I read online that they may be building a restaurant at Virginia Center Commons. Crossing fingers for that, but how could they not have built a restaurant in the most lucrative restaurant territory in this part of the world — Short Pump?

As far as Schlotzsky’s goes, there’s only one in all of the Richmond area, and you’ll have to get to 11607 Midlothian Turnpike to check it out. There are a lot of good sandwich shops out there, but none do what Schlotzsky’s does with their bread and ingredients.

Once we get these two joints on this side of the river, I can put my passport away and save some gas too. Til then, we’ll probably take this Schlotzsky’s/Sonic field trip at least once every couple of months.

All our Short Pump friends seem to rave about Casa Grande (Pump and Broad), and we’ve been there twice with large groups.   It’s just the neighborhood hangout for Mexican.  The salsa and chips are OK, not the best, but not bad.  The main dishes (enchiladas and burritos mainly) are OK — again, not the best, but not bad.   As usual for Richmond Mexican, the sauces are too runny and the tortillas get too wet and soggy.  If you thicken the sauce up just a bit, the tortillas will have a chance to survive the trip from the kitchen to your table. 

Casa Grande is always busy – particularly on Sunday afternoons after church.   Click to their website and print out some coupons.  Might as well save a few bucks. 

Thanks to my job, and my boss, I’ve had a chance to eat at some of Richmond’s finest restaurants.  Here, six months after I arrived in Richmond, is my first list of my favorite local joints.  And another short list of the ones I didn’t like so much.

Favorites:

• Lemaire — Wow!  What a treat to dine at the Jefferson Hotel.  I’m thankful someone else was picking up the tab.  Figure about $100 a person for dinner if you order anything alcoholic.
• Extra Billy’s — The best barbecue I’ve had since leaving Texas.   The sausage is as good as I’ve had in the old German parts of south central Texas.   Buz n Ned’s barbecue is also good.  
• Comfort — this restaurant at 200 West Broad specializes in “comfort” food — food you’d make at home, just better.  Service was unnecessarily haughty in two of my visits, perfect in a third visit.
• Bistro Twenty Seven — one of the prettiest street-scape restaurants in town.   Gorgeous windows to watch the traffic, terrific food.
• Bank and Vault — another downtown favorite.  I don’t hang out at bars, but if I did, I could spend a lot of time at this beautiful setup.
• Glory Days Grill – this neighborhood favorite on Ridgefield Parkway has a broad menu with a lot of family favorites.  Oh yeah, and lots of sports on TV.   I like Glory Days better than the Home Team Grill on Nuckols Road.
• Vinny’s Italian Grill — I didn’t realize they’re a small Central Virginia chain.  The restaurant on Lauderdale near the Wellesley neighborhood has a family-friendly feel and a terrific Meat Lovers people.
• The White Dog — Located in The Fan, this quaint little operation has a neighborhood feel with a higher-end menu.
• Strawberry Street Cafe – Another Fan favorite, I love their salad bar.  And they make a killer curry soup.
• That nice Arby’s on Pouncey Tract at Broad — I never knew Arby’s could go upscale like this. 

My least favorites:

• Any Mexican food joint I’ve been to.  No one does good Tex-Mex here.   I think it’s a Mexican-food law that you can’t make enchiladas with flour tortillas because the flour gets all soggy under the sauce, but no one seems to know that law here.  Ignorance is no excuse for not following the law, folks.
• Bill’s Barbecue –Maybe it’s a local favorite, but not for me.  I like my barbecue dry and smoked — I’ll put on sauce if I want it.  The barbecue plate I was given was drenched in sauce and not very tasty. 

That’s just one man’s list of favorites.   Your mileage will vary.  Feel free to comment if you’ve agree or disagree or want to recommend somewhere else.

This morning, I joined the Novice runner gang as we headed out for our first Saturday of training.  We ran only a mile, but it felt like 10.   I guess I’ve got some work to do.