Dining on Nostalgia

Shortly after we began dating, my wife and I had the first of what would become many meals at the Georgia Diner - a surprisingly authentic New York City style diner run by a Greek family in the Yankee-free town of Lawrenceville, Georgia.  Over the years we continued to dine there most Saturday mornings, and never had a bad meal, despite sampling nearly everything on a menu which contained - as any legitimate NYC Diner menu would - at least 20 pages of artery clogging items.

I was 28 years old and coming off a series of casual relationships.  When we sat down, the nice waitress looked at us and said "I can tell you guys just started dating, and I can also tell you are going to be together for a long time".  We were sure she had said it before to countless couples, but it felt special anyway, and contributed to the positive feelings we had about the place.  On our subsequent visits, she was often our waitress, and always reminded us of her early prediction.

After a few years, without thinking about it, we began going there less often (the Original Pancake House became a more popular choice for us).  Finally, on one of our less frequent Saturday breakfasts, I looked at my wife and surprised myself by saying that I hoped the meal would be better than the last few times.  She had just ordered the Eggs Benedict, and said, "Yeah, now that you say that, the food really hasn't been good lately."   After a bit more reflection, she added "actually it has been awful -  even the Greek food - which is so strange considering... "

At this, we looked around and noticed all the people wearing turbans.  The wait staff.  The cashier.  The cook in the kitchen.  Half the customers.

Our first thought - "Ummm... when did the Greeks start wearing turbans?" - led to a more sensible question about the current ownership.  Apparently the restaurant had been sold to an Indian family several months before.  Since that time, unbeknownst to us, we had been dining only on our nostalgia - blinded to the unpalatable nature of the food by our affection and personal connection to the restaurant ( "Look honey, no one is sitting in our booth!").

Oh, and the eggs Benedict arrived with some kind of ketchup-based gravy in lieu of the Hollandaise sauce.  "Check please."