I hate Mother’s Day. Don’t get me wrong. I love my mom and I love being a mom, even if my sweet baby boy has morphed into a moody teenager.
It’s the day itself I dislike, and specifically my family’s tradition of going out to eat on that Sunday afternoon. We are among the millions of Americans helping to make Mother’s Day the second-most popular dining out occasion, according to the National Restaurant Association.
Long ago I decided that if my family ever encountered a perfect dining experience on Mother’s Day I would write about it. But I have become jaded about finding a Mother’s Day dining utopia after years of flavorless meals, spilled drinks and outrageous bills.
On Mother’s Day this year as I was picking at a plate of food collected from the buffet table at an insanely crowded seafood restaurant, it occurred to me that perhaps the lackluster experience was not the restaurant’s fault. Maybe it’s my family. We’re too big, too diverse, and it’s impossible for a restaurant to be all things to all people.
My parents had five children, most of whom now have children. On any given Mother’s Day, depending on who has the day off, who’s home from college and who’s on speaking terms, we’re a group that ranges from a dozen to nearly two dozen.
And we’re an eclectic group of ages, incomes and personal tastes. Some only want salads; some only consider meat to be food. Some make six-figure incomes; some are barely making it. The good cooks in the family consider going out to eat a waste of time if their meal is not better than something they could whip up at home. Others are just glad to have a plate of hot food in front of them.
Inevitably, no matter where we go, someone in our party is less than thrilled. Either the food was too expensive or too bland, or the server too hovering or too absent, or the drinks too watery or too strong.
If every table in the restaurant is filled with families as diverse as mine, it must be impossible to make every customer’s experience a great one, no matter how well the staff executes. I realized that even if a meal is not perfect, I can at least acknowledge a sincere effort. So here goes:
Hats off to Fresh Fish Co. in Denver for feeding hundreds of people this past Mother’s Day. The all-you-can-eat buffet had enough variety that even the most finicky person in our family went back for seconds. Our server was timely in refilling drinks, and the busser brought hot towels for us to wipe our hands. No one grumbled when the bill came.
And my mother was pretty happy the entire time, which I guess is really the reason we do this every year anyway.