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| - I am an Arizona native, and my first time at Minder Binders was in the early 80's. Off and on over the years I returned. More recently since it was remodeled, my wife and I have been there about 4or 5 times in the past year, the last time before this most recent visit before an ASU football game when it was quite busy.
Today however, looking forward to a repeat excellent experience, we just have to ask.....what happened here? What a disaster.
First we arrived and couldn't locate the hostess, stumbled around like morons trying to figure out where they moved the hostess stand. No luck. Finally asked the bartender. He tells us they no longer have servers, you sit wherever you want, you order and pick up at a counter near the bar. We were given a pager......like you normally receive when waiting to be "seated".
Okay...
We placed our orders for a couple of burgers. Weren't asked how we wanted them cooked and forgot to tell them.
As for drinks....my wife ordered iced tea, and myself soda water, both of which had to be obtained from behind the bar, and not available from the soda fountain. We decided on a booth "in the back" where we always sit. We couldn't locate any utensils or napkins etc., so finally walked back up front and located spoons and forks, but no knives in bus tubs alongside a wall. Any and all patrons were free to rummage around touching and picking up and redepositing silverware in a very unsanitary manner. I know some fast food restaurants provide "plastic ware" in a similar display manner, but hardly all just laying in old bus tubs helter skelter. And then the napkins.....you pull them out of a wall dispenser that feels more like you are pulling out paper towels from the dispenser inside the bathroom, rather than something meant to be hygienic.
Eventually in a "normal" amount of time our pager notified us our food was ready. We walked all the way back up to the front. As we approached the area to pick up our food, about four or five patrons were hovering around "our food" reaching for it, and asking if it was theirs, and being rebuffed by the "server" behind the counter. My wife had to kind of elbow her way up to the counter after many "excuse me's" to obtain our "baskets" of food. Not a particularly "appetizing" start to a meal, feeling like we are a bunch of lions in the jungle fighting for our food, not to mention once again, the feeling, if not an actual fact, of unsanitary issues. I don't know about you, but I really just don't see the need for people not in our party to be hovering over my food. As we picked up the burgers, we were directed back over to the wall where a line of admittedly refrigerated condiments were laid out kind of like a salad bar......except without any sneeze shields, ......just open containers with people reaching over them to get their tomatoes, pickles, onions, etc. I have to wonder whether this is health department compliant. We proceeded back to our table and proceeded to build our otherwise plain burgers on bare buns. We needed ketchup and mustard.......are you kidding me....we have to go all the back up to the front again? Looked around, and found some condiment caddies on nearby tables that had grocery store like squeeze bottles of mustard and ketchup on them. Brought them over to our table and proceeded to use the mustard, flipped open the lid, and found the underside of the lid crusted with dark, dried up, old nasty mustard. At home this happens, yeah, I know it's not that weird, but at home it's my crap! But at a restaurant? Yuck! Then the meal itself.......burgers dry......likely because they were cooked well done, not medium rare as I would have requested had I been asked (or thought to specifically request) at the time of order. My wife ran out of iced tea....but since you can't refill the drink your self at this "do everything else yourself" establishment without hiking back to the front once again to have the bartender do it, she just did without. As we walked out of the restaurant, passing many empty server stations, we remarked that at least we didn't have to leave a tip.....but also noting that we probably will not be returning till the next iteration of this establishment changes once again, ( or more likely goes out of business). Now some of you reading this may find the whole self service thing perfectly acceptable......and I guess it is if you want to go to Smashburger (much better burgers), but wait that's right they bring out the food TO YOU, or Someburros, but wait that's right they bring out the food TO YOU, or even Chik-Fil-A, oh, but yeah that's right even they bring the food TO YOU! So if this style is for you great. But if you are going to Minder Binder with even the remotest idea of it being a restaurant in the traditional sense....forget about it. My sense is they must be having financial issues of some kind, because this radical change to your business model just screams of desperation. Good luck is all I can say
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