UVa’s graduation weekend quickly approaches. Many of UVa’s finest will eat at Charlottesville restaurants to celebrate their exit from parent-funded partying.
I haven’t found a data source, but the rumor is that “Charlottesvilles is the 3rd highest restaurant per capita city in the US.” We try to write as many spicy reviews as possible. We’ve been around long enough to know the dirty little secret about meals on graduation weekend. Here is the secret:
Fixed price, reduced item and set menus show that Charlottesville restaurants know graduation weekend is the best time to milk your wallet with lower quality, mass produced food
I have a few theories why no one ever noticed:
- Parents are so exhilarated that they no longer have to cover the $20,000 annual cost of sending their child to college. Dropping $500 on a crappy meal just isn’t noticeable in compaison.
- cVillain is too snobby and no one really cares.
- Alcohol!
It’s probably way too late to cancel your reservation. If you enjoy good food, avoid set menus at all cost and complain to management. I’m sorry this is coming late, but don’t expect your meal to be of quality. Also, there is a 100% guarantee something will go wrong with your meal. Trust us, we know from experience!
The food industry makes TONS of money during graduation weekend and if they can cheat you out of a good meal because you are desperate to celebrate, I shake my finger at them. Please send in your experiences. We will gladly report those who serve customers poorly and those who serve customers well.
Nonetheless, have fun during graduation weekend.
P.S. If you aren’t involved with a graduate stay out of Charlottesville this weekend. It’s insane!
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Tagged as: College, Gripes, Rants, Restaurants, Restaurants/Bars, Rumors, Traditions, UVA
Been there and done that. Having worked in many places for the joy of graduation weekend I can tell some stories. The Ivy Inn (not current owners) used to prepare and freeze its food weeks in advance and then jam everyone that made a reservation into tents all over the place. Thankfully, the food scene has expanded greatly to the point that the balance of power has shifted from owners to diners. Sadly, the students and parents are not sufficently knowledgeable about how to escape the madness.
OTOH, we shall be making some tilapia fish tacos with adobo sauce, poblano-slaw, Corralejo Triple margaritas with our feet up on the deck and the Arctic Monkeys giving us some background noise.
And BTW, we had our first bad Blue Light Grill experience. Wasabi pea crusted shrimp that was chewy and utterly devoid of character or experience. Tempura Ahi Tuna roll that was soggy. Wahoo fish that was too tough to cut with a fork. I think the chef should have been in the kitchen rather than on the cell phone smoking in the doorway two shops down.
Northern Exposure reduced their menu from over 50 items to literally 6 during graduation. All appetizers were remove from bag and heat and the dishes were wicked plain.
It was horrid, but they totally printed bills.
Back in ‘99, I worked Escafe for graduation weekend. My training was in web design, not food prep, but I needed the money. The hummus I made kept getting returned, plate after plate, by angry customers and their parents. It was eventually determined that I’d boiled the garbanzo beans at 50% heat, rendering the final hummus product “something you could hang wallpaper with” — the exact criticism of more than one disillusioned student. To this day I wonder if the miscalculation in temperature wasn’t the result of some subconscious desire to see them suffer.
“I’m so glad you’ve decided to celebrate one of the most important days of your child’s life at my restaurant! Now eat this fast so we can make more bad memories for people. No, you may not have more coffee.” These are HILARIOUS! And not at all surprising. Like Darren, I started at one downtown mall restaurant on graduation weekend as an assistant hostess. I had as much of a problem with the servers as I did with the diners. They would be upset I triple-sat them. A word to wise servers: don’t yell at the person making $8/hour in training when you’re about to pocket $500. They might seat the family that’s been waiting two hours and not tell you it’s your table. (”Oops!”)
I realize this is way too old to be commenting on, but the restaurant that I worked at in college did have a prix fix for graduation, but we still made awesome food. We did the prix fix to ensure that we could serve so many large tables at the same time so everyone could still get their food hot (there are few things worse than a table with one rare beef person and one well done, as your timing is torture and you are bound to get one person who thought medium rare meant no pink in the middle, but I digress). We did require credit card deposits for reservations because so many students would book multiple restaurants for the same night and let their families choose which one to go to, leaving us with no shows when we’d already had to turn down 50 plus reservations because we were all booked up. Graduation is like the last hurrah before the dry season that is summer (okay, so places on the downton mall with outdoor seating still do well in the summer months, but everyone else, even people on Water St or the side streets of the mall, let alone West Main St completely expire during July and August and The Corner is like a wasteland). But I do agree that most restaurants hike up the price, limit the menu and order frozen chicken kiev from SYSCO as the students and their parents won’t exactly be coming back after graduation.
That being said, I think Valentine’s Day is probably a worse racket than Graduation because they also hike up the wine mark up in addition to the food. (And it’s the first good day of business after New Year’s - stupid resolutions about waist lines and savings accounts totally screw the fine dining industry in January.)