I'd never been until January, when I went down to visit a couple of friends of mine who had moved there. They warned me, but I had to see for my own eyes how crappy the service was in most places:
- a drive-through clerk who gave one of my friends something he hadn't asked for, which was far more expensive than what he had asked for, then tried to charge him for the unwanted item after he handed her a $20 and expected correct change;
- a waitress in an Asian restaurant who hung out nearly the entire time we were there in the kitchen, b.s.'ing with her cow irkers, so that even though we were one of only two parties in the whole place, the entire meal took forever;
- a counter clerk at an ice cream place who didn't bother to interrupt her chat with the friend standing there, so that I had to interrupt, "Um, you think I could pay for this and get out of here, please?"
I have to admit that there was one place at which the service was good, but it was a glaring exception. According to my friends, the fact that we're white — not Hispanic — might have had something to do with the attitude of many of the people we encountered.
