Sandwich, Dude?

Have you ever had to make a decision between getting a good sandwich and not having to spend five minutes in the most annoying place on earth? If you haven’t, it means you’ve never eaten at the sandwich place located near my place of employment.

First off, this particular restaurant must have received government stimulus money, judging by the amount of people it can afford to employ. When you walk in, you’re faced down by roughly twenty smiling faces, each belonging to an individual no older than twenty-two, all stuffed behind the counter, which is a quite comical site. The goal of this establishment is to not only be friendly, but also “cool”, so as soon as you get through the door, each of the employees bellows out a welcome to you, heavily influenced by the speaking habits of today’s youth:

“Hey, man!”
“What’s up??!!!”
“Budddyyy!!!!”
“Duuuuuddddddeeee!!!”

It’s kind of like Norm entering Cheers and being heartily greeted, except it pretty much freaks you out, and as soon as it dies down, you have to fight the urge to turn right around and leave.

If you make it past the greeting, it’s time to order. The focus here is speed, which is where the stimulus money comes in handy. They’ve hired enough people so building a sandwich can be broken down into many small tasks, each performed by a different employee to achieve Maximum Sandwich Constructing Velocity. One person cuts the bread, one person puts down meat, one person puts down lettuce, one person puts down tomato, one person waits anxiously in case anybody else goes down with a knee injury and needs to be replaced, etc. It’s a true shovel ready project. The system works well, and your sandwich is typically ready before you’ve even paid. (This place may have its faults, but I can’t deny they make a good sandwich and do it quickly.)

The annoyingness really sets in if you decide to eat on location. This is because music is blared at an extremely high decibel level, in order to convey the fact that you’re in an incredibly cool place, and also that the workers don’t plan on keeping their hearing past their twenties. After you sit down, you realize you can’t have a conversation without using sign language. You also have to put up with the multitudes of workers, who are all hanging around killing time, because all of the other potential customers were smart enough to spare their eardrums and eat somewhere else, leaving the restaurant virtually deserted. Unburdened, the employees pass the time by doing one or more of the following:

Yelling loudly to one another

Singing loudly
Laughing loudly
Dancing
Banging their hands loudly on the counter to the beat of whatever song is playing

Basically, it’s a college party disguised as a fast-food joint. This may have been fun for me to experience about ten years ago, but I’ll admit that I’ve turned into a fuddy-fuddy, so I really have to be in a mood for one of their sandwiches in order to muster up the gumption to brave the gauntlet of annoyingness.

Once you finish eating, it’s time to leave, but you can’t do that without a hearty chorus of farewells, courtesy of the ever-exuberant workers:

“Later, bro!!”
“See ya!!”
“Bye, dude!!”

And so your dining experience is over. It does not, however, come without a price. Your head hurts, a terrible song is stuck in your brain, and you may never be able to again have a conversation without having to constantly say, “WHAT???”

Still, it just may have been worth it. It was a darn tasty meal.

Later, dude.