20240818-dystopian_values.txt
I went to a restaurant called Steak'n'Shake (SNS). SNS, when I was
growing up and even when I was an adult, was like a '50s diner. That
was their theme: good, old-fashioned burger joint. Of course they
drifted away from the hats (which was fine), but when I went there
tonight, I was just floored.

They turned the dine-in experience to a cleaner pig trough. You order
your food ONLY through a kiosk. I didn't know this and when I went in,
I asked if we were supposed to seat ourselves. Yeah, and you have to
order from the kiosk and they'll call your name when your food is
ready. Gee, isn't that nice? It's like a time-delayed vending machine
with more exercise because you have to get up from the table to do
anything but eat your food. But basically being converted to a public
school cafeteria with pricier food wasn't the worst part.

This wasn't the worst part either: I had to clean the table myself for
the party of 2 I was with. They didn't bother to clean shit. Great
fucking environment for eating, right? No huge deal, but just another
indignity.

The worst part was they had a fucking 1984 nightmare of a soda
fountain. "It's just a soda fountain. What's the problem?" The problem
is this thing is cooked up by some shitheads working for the penal
system. In order to dispense anything but water, you have to SCAN A
Q.R. CODE. What the actual fuck? Nothing says customer satisfaction
like treating paying customers like criminals that need to verify
their cup of soda that probably cost the restaurant $0.03 to fill. I
fortunately(?) didn't have to test it, but I saw another person
confused about why their soda wasn't being dispensed and then they
scanned that fucking QR code... I would never have even thought to do
such a fucking NPC thing. I understand that some fuckers are little
shits that steal drinks they didn't pay for, but here's a fucking
solution: ONLY GIVE CUPS OUT TO PEOPLE WHO PAID! It's the most miserly
thing I've seen in a while. Even Ebenezer Scrooge couldn't have
thought of that.

The cherry on top was not knowing what to do with our cafeteria tray
and trash. Again, this place used to be a nice, sit-down restaurant...
or at least a sit-down greasy spoon with a human element involved. Of
course I had to go to the trash bin right next to the bathroom and the
opposite way from the exit to throw all my food waste into a hole that
was way too small to easily dump food out. They couldn't even make
dumping food waste into a trash can easy.

I really cannot understand how SNS got this bad. This is just an
insult to the customers and I'm sure had I not paid beforehand for the
(overpriced) food, I would have left without getting my food. This was
the worst dining experience I had without real human interaction
screwing things up. Again, it was like going to a premium-priced
cafeteria with regular cafeteria food. They literally had a two-tiered
trough to pick up online and to-go orders.

At least when you do it at someplace like Wendy's or McDonald's, it's
not like you were expecting much. Hell, expecting a wait staff and not
to have your name called out like a dog to get food isn't that much to
expect, either. But SNS became a true fast food shithole without
letting me know.

Fuck capitalist profiteers for ruining a childhood institution.