Breakfast Food, Burlington VT
After a long night out on the 3rd of July, celebrating the birth of our nation, all I wanted were eggs! My friends agreed, greasy food was in order. So I listed off all of my favorite Burlington breakfast places: Pennyclause, Sneakers, Magnolia’s (A name I will be crucified for listing because it doesn’t yet have a wait for a table), Henry’s and Oasis.
My companions called for CHEAP and NO lines, so that left us with Oasis or Henry’s. We made our way down to Oasis because it has a bit more atmosphere, with the old tin exterior and counter that stretches the length of the whole place, featuring red vinyl stools that spin.
After a short wait we were ushered or more pointed in the direction of our table. My friend notes I that our waitress had been working their since she was in college, back in the late 90’s. I promptly one up her with “She’s been here at least since I was in high school, probably longer.” Take that.
The system at Oasis works as follows: customer sits, waitress throws silverware and water on the table screaming “Who wants coffee?”. The customer yells out the desired number of coffees, while holding up the corresponding number of fingers, coffees arrive anywhere from 2 seconds to 10 minutes later. Cream and condiments follow shortly. The waitress takes the order while the customer frantically spurts it out trying to keep the ball moving; waitress asks friend’s husband what he wants to drink other than water and the drink is immediately brought over.
Now here is the tricky part, the waitress does not submit a ticket or tap the order into a fancy little computer. No, she waits to hear the chef yell “WHO’S NEXT” and then jumps in with her order. A pretty good system if the other waitress is nice enough to wait her turn because your waitress has just gotten another table and is frenzied trying to get their exact number of coffees down.
We were not so lucky. Our poor waitress kept getting beaten to the punch 1 order, 2 orders, “Who’s next?”, 3 orders! Finally she had a break in her flow of customers, we hear the chef yelling “Who’s next?” and hold our breath, she makes it!! Our order is in and now we can watch as the cooks prepare our delicious breakfast right before our eyes. Two breakfast burritos and one egg sandwich with bacon. The burritos take a little longer getting to the table due to a brief stint in the microwave. The breakfast sandwich arrives and my friend takes pity on her husband and I, handing us each a piece of bacon. OH BOY, this bacon was made to perfection, all i can think is “WHY, WHY didn’t I order a side of bacon!? Do I dare try to slip the order in as my food arrives? Or will that leave me waiting behind all the other “who’s next orders” that have gone in since mine?”
Before I have too much time to roll the dice and place the order my burrito arrives with a side of homefries (which I could do without) and rye toast smothered in butter just the way I like it. Life is good and I forget all about the bacon.
