spicy pickle

This afternoon I told Priya that Mark and I were going to go someplace special for supper tonight.
"Where are you going to go", she asked.
"I don't know."
"Well I know someplace special you could go. It's called the "Spicy Pickle".

We ate there once when we were shopping in Sioux Falls this summer and apparently it made an impression on her. Maybe it's just the catchy name.

Mark warned me that for some reason Sioux Falls restaurants, even though there seems to be more restaurants than anything else in the town, are always full on Saturday nights. I wasn't ready to make that call until...

After six people cut in front of me in the line to the counter, the chick at the Texas Roadhouse told me there'd be a 100 - 110 minutes wait. That was just before 6 p.m.

Across town at Minerva's, we pushed our way to the counter through the masses. It would be an hour and a half before we could get a seat there, but we could certainly make reservations for 7:45. That was at 6:30 p.m.

Back across town again at Chili's, the nice kid at the counter told me we'd have to wait 50 minutes to find a seat. That was at 7 p.m.

We crossed the street, walked in to The Spicy Pickle and were just about to order our pizzirini's or whatever they're called when the pleasant lady behind the cash register asked if we had questions and that they were out of dough for those little pizza things. No wait in line. The maximum capapcity clearly stated 70 on the wall by the drink cooler. But beside us there were only 8 other people there. We ate our panini sandwiches in quiet and moved on to the next things on our agenda.

Well at least we didn't have to eat at McDonald's...