Quality or Quantity - What's happening?

Sometimes, as the expressions goes, less is more. In the case of what I have been witnessing over the past few years in the restaurants I frequent, less is not always more or better for that matter.

I have been noticing since our economy is suffering, let's leave the politics out of this article for now, that when I visit a familiar place that used to serve generous (or an American portion of food, as I refer to them) that lately, both the portion and quality of the food has gone way down, as is the service provided. I am, of course, not referring to every restaurant I have blogged about in the past, but a few in particular.

Last night, for example, I enjoyed an evening out with my sister and our good friend, Terry. Just the girls. We agreed upon Marlow's Tavern in Alpharetta, having not been there is quite a while. Good burgers and better yet, good martini's and a nice wine menu.

We were quite surprised when arriving. No wait, so we were seated straight away. This should have been a red flag immediately. Looking around we saw most of the usual faces, not too many changes in staff. Our waitress, however seemed a new ad on, and not for the improvement of staff! She was, let's say ditzie (I actually never spelled that word or know whether its really even a word). Her first order of business was to let us know that we were taking to long to order and she had three tables and would come back. THREE TABES and she couldn't handle it. Better start thinking of going someplace where it's not so busy. Oh, wait Marlow's wasn't busy. After placing our order, which in some case was "leave that on the side", "omit that" and other detailed instructions (not on my part this time!), she left our table to attend her other patrons.

Long story short- Terry's Sangria order came as white wine instead of red, which is never what she orders. Terry doesn't like white wine. Servers response to Terry after she told her she ordered the red Sangria- "You ordered the white" Terry- "No, I don't drink white wine" Server- "yes you did order it, remember you were talking about white wine" and so on it went. My sister didn't like the house wine after tasting mine and ordered a martini instead, also with specifics to confuse our server even more. Stirred not shaken to be specific- chilled glass and blue cheese stuffed olives, yummy. After finally bringing our booze, she proceeded to taking our order to the kitchen to prepare.

Ok, so we made a few changes. This should not have any affect on the quality of food. Shouldn't a pulled pork sandwich be pretty simple, juicy and tasty? Here's where I began to question what has happened to the quality and quantity of Marlow's. Sandwich was completely dried out with, should I say, minimal pork on a HUGE bun. The chicken pannini was much the same. No I didn't order chicken, but Terry did and it was a pretty sad portion as well.

So by now you get the picture. What has happened to the quality of servers and food? Could it be perhaps that the college professor who lost his/her job is now a waiter or that the engineer who can't find work has to feed his family by becoing a server? Not sure and I said I would leave the politics out of the article. This is an on going issue in several restaurants across Alpharetta, Roswell, and Atlanta in general. I am not saying it's everywhere, but certainly in enough places to prompt me noticing. This should have nothing to do with the quality of the food, but I am sure the economy has forced many restaurant owners to add more chicken to their menus and reduce the better cuts of meat in order to save money someplace to make up for the lack of patrons.

In an effort to continue to support our local eateries, I am trying to frequent as many as possible, recommend them to my readers and keep the money flowing, but I cannot tell you that they are all fabulous places to dine.

What do you all think the problem could be? I am interested in hearing your opinions about whether you agree or disagree about the service and quality of food lately. If you are looking for another example of what has happened to quality, look no further than the local, not privatley owned I know, Longhorn's chain. What happened there?

Let's discuss.