Burger Bar

Wanna feel very old and behind-the-times?
Patronize the Burger Bar at Mighty Weggers in Canandaigua.
Mighty Weggers is Wegmans supermarkets, the chain that dominates the Rochester grocery-market, and is now expanding all over the east coast.
Wegmans is based near Rochester.
Locals take tourists to Wegmans, they’re that attractive.
Wegmans is what a supermarket is wished to be. Glitzy and loaded with product. Plus you don’t have to wait at Wegmans. It’s staffed to avoid waiting at checkouts.
And now Wegmans has become a dispensary for prepared food.
Bakeries are usually installed, plus a delicatessen. There’s even a food-court. Customers can scoop prepared food from counter-dishes, then sit down and eat at a table.
This was despite complaints of earlier Wegmans head-honcho: Robert Wegman, now gone.
His son Danny wanted to install a food-court.
“We’re a grocery, not a restaurant,” Robert protested.
When Robert died, food-courts blossomed.
And it was probably a good move.
Recently the TV-news reported no one cooks any more. (I still cook.) They buy prepared meals instead.
So Danny drives a megabuck Ferrari. (He’s also a car-guy. He street-raced a 454 Chevelle when younger.)
And the Canandaigua store, although it isn’t the jewel-in-the-crown, is the store near where Danny lives.
He lives on Canandaigua Lake.
His Ferrari is often in the parking-lot.
Taking the food-court idea upmarket, the Canandaigua Weggers decided to install a Burger Bar.
Instead of a waitress (excuse me, “server”) giving you a menu, then taking your order......
It’s serve yourself.
A guy at an order-counter takes your order and hands you a radio-thingy.
“And what, pray tell, do I do with this thing?” I asked.
“When your food is ready,” he bubbled; “it will beep you, after which you go to the out-counter and pick up your food.”
I ordered a cheeseburger, seven smackaroos.
“I’d like something to drink too.”
“Here’s your cup; $1.79. Just fill it at the drink-machine across the way.”
So far, so good. I successfully ascertained the order-line. Madness was all around, and most of those present were younger than me.
Little kids rocketed about, bouncing off kiosks and patrons.
Next was the dreaded Coke machine. It’s like a gas-pump; one spigot dispenses all.
I watched the guy in front of me, trying to figger the thing out.
Now it was my turn.
A touch-menu displayed at least seven kinds of Coke: regular, no-caffeine, diet, Zero, cherry, etc.
I fingered “regular,” then pushed a button.
89 bazilyun ice-cubes disgorged all over the floor, but no Coke.
I tried again. More ice-cubes, but still no Coke.
“Obviously I’m doing something wrong,” I cried.
“Here, what kind do you want?” asked the young dude behind me.
Again, we pushed the “regular” button.
No ice-cubes, but Coke this time.
I don’t get it! We did the same things I did.
(Well actually, we didn’t. I hadn’t pushed the button, which noteless is apparently ice-cubes.)
I waited off to the side drinking my Coke, then decided I should go ask the out-counter if I was supposed to wait there.
But suddenly my radio-thingy was beeping.
I got in line at the out-counter, but then decided an old geezer in front of me in a wheelchair cart was waiting in line with a non-beeping thingy.
“Perhaps we should jump ahead,” I said to another.
“Yes, you should. Yours is beeping, but mine isn’t.”
I got my cheeseburger, but it looked awful.
Rather than set up counters for ketchup, mustard and relish the cooks just slather everything on in advance.
Great! It looks like garbage on my cheeseburger — mustard and ketchup stirred, with relish heaped on top.
It looked like the recently polluted Animas river in CO, mustard yellow but with blood mixed in and garbage heaped on top.
And never in a million years would I put mustard and relish on a cheeseburger.
I managed to find an empty table, so I quietly ate my cheeseburger alone.
“Is this what food-service is coming to?” I thought. The racket was deafening and madness reigned.
Finally I had to ditch my trash and plate and tray.
I asked some guy in a Wegmans tee-shirt “My guess is you don’t want me to trash this plate and tray.”
“Of course not! The bus-boy station is right over there, and your trash goes in the can underneath.”
I walked outside. Wegmans was holding a “Cruze-Night” car show, which is why I came.
That’s car-guy Danny.
My friend Jim LePore (“luh-POOR”) was showing his Camaro.
“So Bobby,” he asked; “howd-ja do?”
“Well, I dumped ice-cubes all over the floor. It sure ain’t the restaurant where we regularly eat.
And my cheeseburger looked like garbage. I suppose what joy there might be in patronizing ‘Burger Bar’ would be figuring it out.”
Food subservient to technology. Facebook food.

• Canandaigua Lake is one the Finger Lakes, a series of north-south lakes in Central New York that look like the imprint of a large hand. They were formed by the receding glacier. Canandaigua Lake is one of the smaller Finger Lakes.
• “Bobby” is me, Bob Hughes, BobbaLew.