I’m not quite sure what to think about locations of “known” restaurants that are in airports, food courts, etc. Are they representative of the “real” restaurant, or are they to be graded on a(n expensive) curve because they’re really just Aramark? (Or are they?)
The truth is that I don’t know, and if I don’t know, then it’s a reasonable bet that 99% of other people don’t know, either. For that reason alone, they should be held to the same, rigid standards as their “regular” restaurants.
(If this isn’t true, and in which case, if I just made the most ignorant statement you’ve ever heard, then I’d like to be enlightened as to why not.)
Take Elevation Burger as an example. Did you know there’s a location in Georgetown? It’s just behind Georgetown Hospital in the Hoya Court.
I’d finished a particularly long appointment, and wasn’t going to make it until dinner – I thought about Stachowski Market and Deli, but then saw signs pointing me towards Elevation Burger. Quick, reasonably good, and I’d make it healthy, if I could.
It was something of an annoyingly long walk to the Hoya Court, but once I got there, Elevation Burger was one of three choices in this rather desolate food court. I ordered The Elevation Burger ($5.99), two patties, with no toppings except mustard and pickle, and a Small Diet Coke ($1.60). The gentleman who took my order was delightful (I went to a bit of trouble to give him a dollar tip, but that’s *because* he was delightful.) No temperature requests were asked or given, but my sandwich was unquestionably cooked to order, as it took a good five minutes to prepare in an empty area.
Waiting until I was outside of the parking garage, the burger had about ten minutes to either decline in quality, or magically correct itself. When I got on the road, there was no chance of waiting until I was home, so I enjoyed it in the car. Well, “enjoyed” is a stretch – this reminded me of burgers my mom used to make (she thought well-done ground beef was something close to a biblical virtue). It was a double patty on a soft roll, with the right amount of mustard and pickle, and you know exactly how it tasted – decent-quality beef, cooked to oblivion, the only curiosity being that the pickles seemed slightly sweet.
This was survival food, and ably fulfilled its role. There’s nothing to “hate” about a simple, well-done hamburger, but I realized just how rarely I order hamburgers at all, for something close to precisely this reason: It was filler. And it filled me. Contract: exchange money for product, completed. Performance: met by both ends, completed. I put the empty bag and cup in my recycling bin, and walked into my house.