Loyal FrontBurnervians will remember my new favorite intern, Bonathan. Remember? The guy who described his financial situation as “comfortable”? Yeah, that’s him.
Anyway, Nancy sent him on an errand, and Bonathan filed a report on it. If you have a few minutes, you should read it:
Nancy Update: If you’d like to respond to Bonathon’s review, we offer all-the-comments-you- can-type here.
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My Lunch
As the lowest, newest intern, my twice-a-week, six-hour shifts here at the mag are the kind spent analyzing every fact that might come across my poorly lit cubicle in an attempt to remedy the mistakes from those higher up than me on the literary food chain. This would seem like a relatively simple, albeit repetitive, job and it is for the most part. Essentially, I am tasked with highlighting pertinent numbers and names and then finding out if one of those things just doesn’t belong there.
This should be simple. After all, I have that vast array of tools at my fingertips known as Google. (And a telephone. I will never doubt how reliable a simple call can be again.) So I should be able to just type in the name of a restaurant, find the phone number, give them a call and move on to the next one down the list of what seems like 50,000 eateries in Dallas.
I should be good at this, but as my boss Tim so succinctly pointed out, there are two Ls and one F in Grafalloy, which prompted him to get someone else to re-fact-check a golf story I had checked already. So apparently, I’m not just useless, I’m a liability. This slip-up of the mixed metal variety was slightly embarrassing and wholly motivating so that when the time came to fact-check yet another list of newly added restaurants to our master key of eating, I was compelled that I leave no stone unturned, no spelling unchecked, no address unlocated. (I know unlocated is not a word. I uncare.)
As I checked my facts once, then again, I noticed that one restaurant had gone unchecked due to their faulty phone connection: Vern’s Kitchen. I scoured the Internet, looking for a solution to this dilemma, only to find that others had run afoul of this same roadblock. I approached my other boss, Nancy, and told her the situation.
“Hey…” I said. She ignored me. This happens a lot.
“Hey uh, Nancy,” I weakly, pathetically mumbled, “Um…Vern’s Kitchen’s phone number listed isn’t working but everywhere I look on the Internet they insist that’s the number and that it’s not closed.”
“Whatever,” Nancy replied, “Figure it out, just stop talking to me.”
“A Mission!” I thought, as Nancy started spraying me with a water bottle and yelled at me to get out of her cubicle. “I will find this Vern’s Kitchen and I will discover the truth about their phone! I might also eat there since it’s about lunchtime!”
As I pulled out of the parking garage in my truck, I whipped out my iPhone so I could figure out where I was going. I still do not understand how people did this before iPhones but whatever. The past is lame anyways. The listing had me going down Elm Street to the east side of Central Expressway. Now before we proceed, let me explain something, for one summer in high school, I ate at three places: my house, Wendy’s and Chipotle. I do not like to go exploring in Dallas very much. I like what I know. Also, one way streets confuse me to no end.
After driving for about fifteen minutes (or as I also call it: forever), I found myself in an area of town known as Deep Ellum. This is a place I went once, in seventh grade, for a Bowling For Soup concert. That was awesome. But what I did not remember about that trip was just how unique Deep Ellum was.
Unique for Dallas that is, because it actually has some flavor to it. It looks like an area that grew up in Austin, but then decided to eat red meat and punch Greenpeace activists in the face for asking them to save the animals. Those animals should get a job and quit asking for handouts. America.
As I pulled up next to Vern’s, I was nervous. I did not know what to expect when I walked inside, nor how I would react. To be honest, as a white male who went to private school and then joined a fraternity in the south, my experience with those not like me can vary from nervousness to bewilderment to fright. These are things I’m not proud of.
But when I walked into Vern’s, the first thing I noticed was how upscale this place looked, especially considering it serves home-style meals of country fried steak, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and the best black-eye peas I’ve ever had. The tables were minimalistic with simple stainless steel chairs. The brick walls contrasted well against the bar which housed the cashier and one older gentleman who may or may not have also worked there.
The second thing I noticed was that everyone working behind the counter or at the serving station said hello and asked how the day was going. It’s a simple thing, but one I greatly appreciated. Immediately, I felt at home. That was, until I asked if they took debit cards and quickly found out it was cash only, which, I of course, had none of.
“No problem,” the cashier replied when I told him the problem. “Just get some money out of the ATM down the street after you eat. We trust you.”
This kinda floored me. These people had no idea what my reputation was and they were cool with it. So I sat down, ate my enormous, thick chicken fried steak, filled up on mac and cheese and the aforementioned black-eye peas while watching SportsCenter on their TV. It was a relaxed lunch, one devoid of any priorities, and for a moment I just lost myself in a good home cooked meal.
After I finished devouring this feast, I stood up, and realized I had just grown a food baby in my stomach. The meal might be a bit high at around $10, but trust me, you are gonna be full until dinner at least. I handed the cashier my keys, because I was drunk. (Kidding Nancy.) No, I gave them to him as my way of showing him I wasn’t gonna dine and ditch, and I made my way down the street to the 7-11, came back and paid.
Making my way back home, I was reminded of the fact that a good home style meal in a friendly atmosphere is often hard to come by. Too often, restaurants are nothing more than money makers concerned with cramming as many people in as often as possible. To just sit, relax, and immediately feel at home even though I wasn’t that similar to the people there (the majority of diners were African-American) was liberating.
I was also reminded of the fact that Elm is a one way street and that I should really consult a map before deciding to wing it with directions.
My office is not near Fair Park, but that’s where I ended up after ten minutes of driving. But getting lost and yelling at my iPhone to fly me home was well worth it for the meal I experienced. And I now know where to go if I’m ever in Deep Ellum and need a comforting meal.
Oh and their number is 214-823-0435. It was just temporarily down the day I checked on it. Give them a call. They’ve got room for you. –Jonathan Rienstra
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I’ll say this, Bonathan. That’s pretty solid work. It makes up for the Grafalloy mistake. But please note: it’s “7-Eleven,” not “7-11.”
