Recently I had two restaurant experiences where my expectations were low, but my satisfaction level was high. In both cases I learned 1) not to judge a book by its cover, and 2) Ask and sometimes you really do receive.
The first occasion was weekend before last when I went over the hill to Santa Cruz to meet some family who was in town for a week. We were a big group with a bunch of kids and, much to my anal retentive chagrin, there was no plan. So when dinner time rolled around suddenly (because of the kids and their limited ability to cope with no dinner and late hours) it became urgent to find a place to go to dinner.
But finding a place to accommodate 14 of us on short notice in a town known way more for little hole in the wall places than restaurants that can easily accommodate large parties was not an easy feat. We actually flirted with going to the Saturn Cafe (a veg place) but they couldn't guarantee when we'd actually get seated, so we nixed that. Finally my cousin found a little pizzeria who said they could take us "right now" and we jumped on it.
Now, I wasn't too happy about it...pizzerias aren't exactly the friendliest locales for vegans. I hoped they would have some pasta in addition to pizza, so I could maybe have that trusty, but boring, standby spaghetti marinara. Off we headed to
Mangiamo.
Mangiamo ended up being a pizza joint in a strip mall, one where the Safeway grocery store was the anchor tenant. They also had a guy set up in the corner singing lounge songs with a karaoke machine providing the accompaniment. And, they didn't have pasta on their menu...only pizza and calzones, laden with cheese.
It was not promising for me.
One of my cousins felt a little bad about the last minute and very non-veg-friendly choice, so he started the ball rolling by asking if the dough for the pizzas was vegan. That started the ball rolling of the wait staff going way out of their way to figure out what I could eat and accommodate me. They did have a vegetable pizza, complete with "Creamy Ranch and Garlic Sauce", so I asked if I could get said pizza with no sauce at all. They came back to make sure I understood that the ranch and the garlic sauce were two separate things, and that, in fact, the garlic sauce was just olive oil and garlic, and didn't I still want that? Of course I did.
The waiter called her manager at home to inquire about the recipe for their foccacia bread and make sure it was vegan, so she could bring me some.
I'll be honest, I filled up mostly on the focaccia (also served with a little bowl of garlic and olive oil) and mostly picked the vegetable toppings off the pizza and ate them, but the point is that this little place definitely took it upon themselves to find a way to accommodate the pesky vegan, and I appreciated the effort.I went from feeling a little disgruntled, to feeling like very welcome and like an appreciated customer, not a pain in their ass.
So, kudos to Mangiamo in Santa Cruz, CA for making the effort for the Pesky Vegan.
Stay tuned for surprising restaurant experience #2 tomorrow.
