Mr. Abner Renta.....Dinner is Served

After a brief attempt at trout fishing in the Colorado River, a clean up and a few quick cocktails, we found ourselves in The River Room Restaurant, the early 1970’s addendum to the western edge of the original 1903 structure which overlooked the stretch of river upon which I’d just unsuccessfully attempted to angle.

Our group of nine – four adults and five children - was seated at a large table, hungry, anxious and eager to order; more accurately, the kids were ready to order, as the adults with the cocktails were less eager to do anything substantive beyond enjoying the moment. The adult mood was sublime, brought on more by the place than the booze, as this warm room and its immediate proximity to the mountain and the river had a wonderful affect on the best part of your psyche.

WHAM!!!

Abner’s easel/chalkboard, which contained the evening’s food offerings, slammed down next to our table for the threefold purpose of 1) abruptly/rudely getting our attention, 2) temporarily shutting up the kids and 3) letting the adults know that their brief stay in La-La Land was now over….Welcome to Abnerville!

“I’m pretty busy so I don’t have a lot of time.” (The restaurant was nearly empty.) “Our soup tonight is Ham & Veg…A...Ta…Ble.” (He said the word ‘vegetable’ not only as if it had four syllables, but as if it was four separate words.) “We have fried pork chops, fried trout or New York Strip Steak, all served with Spanish rice. We had some wonderful Cornish Game hens, but unfortunately we’re out of the game hens.” As Abner delivered the Cornish Game Hen news, his eyes rolled skyward as if an old friend had just passed. Oh….the drama.

(Again, we were at our table early, and the restaurant was empty. So I’m guessing that Jamie – Abner’s cook, plumber, landscaper and….I’ll leave it at that, prepared but one Cornish Game Hen, and Jamie and Abner had eaten it before the dinner service began.)

“Is the trout fresh from the river?” I asked.

“It’s from a river.... What do you know about fresh trout, or rivers….and why would you care where it’s from?”

“Could we ask about…?”

“MAKE YOUR CHOICES!! I’m VERY BUSY! I’ll leave you the board but be back in a minute…. FOR YOUR ORDER!!”

‘Wow, did I miss something? We’re in this guy’s place of business, ready to spend money, and he seems pissed that we’re here? How could this be?’

From grades 1 through 8, I had the honor of being educated by Nuns – real Nuns, from the 50’s and 60’s - not these new age Nuns that were all about peace, love and wearing civilian clothes. My Nuns were first and foremost about knuckle-busting, skull-rapping discipline whilst they were adorned in restrictive costumes that obviously brought them to the point of wanting to torture the rest of the world as a way of getting things on an even keel.

Abner Renta’s customer service style made me feel as if one of those All-Pro 1950 Nuns was standing at the edge of the table, not-so-gently tugging at the tender part of my upper ear, asking, no, demanding, “You don’t want the trout,…whap!... you want the fried pork chop, and if you think you don’t want the fried pork chop, …whap…put your knuckles on the table and I’ll make you wish….whap…whap…whap… you’d have ordered and enjoyed the fried pork chop.”

Seven minutes later, Mr. Renta reappears with an order pad in hand, noticeably very testy. (Had Abner been dressed like a Nun, I wouldn’t have been surprised, nor would I have found it out of character.)

“Alright, who’s ready to order???”

I decide to jump right in to the fray…

“I’ll have the New York strip steak, medium rare.”

Abner’s response…” I’ll bring it cooked, but there’s no guess as to how it will be cooked. You won’t get sick if you eat it… that’s about all I’ll guarantee. Bwa HA HA HA … (an over-the-top, hysterically theatrical laugh, unlike any you've ever heard).

“Ok, who’s next?” I say.

My fictional wife Julie steps up to the plate, and orders..”How about the trout? How’s the trout?”

“We’re out of trout. But we’ve got a few pork chops left, and a few steaks, cooked to the chefs liking…Bwa..Ha..Ha ..Ha!.”

“But your chalkboard had trout, and…”

“WE’RE OUT OF TROUT!!! DID YOU NOT HEAR ME? WE’VE GOT STEAKS AND A FEW PORK CHOPS!!!”

Sheepishly, my fictional wife orders the pork chop, and we order pork chops for the kids, as the $30, 8-ounce frozen steaks are but a bit beyond our budget.

The food was decent (being both famished as well as a little inebriated might have helped to soften the requirements of a particular palate), but the previously sublime atmosphere was darkened by the SS-like discipline that was practiced by the owner. Possibly at this point, the first seeds to growing the ultimate flowers of our eventual demise were planted….

“Wow. This place is awesome. If we owned this place, we wouldn’t be mean and shitty to our customers. We’d try to accommodate their desires, rather than verbally beating them up for expressing their desires. Gotta think that attitude would ultimately be better for business……If only we owned this place….”

To be continued......