Five Soulless Restaurant Trends

By Melissa McCart Fri., Nov. 18 2011 at 2:56 PM

Categories: Really?

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What annoys you about restaurants lately? Is it a side of "Sweet Home Alabama" with your sliders? Or when the server ignores you? Maybe the ubiquity of flatbreads makes you want to defect to liquid dinner. After the jump, you'll find few things that are genuinely puzzling, strange business practices, or as hospitable as I-95 in a traffic jam. Some are more grating than others, of course. Behold the bitch list.

"Truffle" oil

This condiment is the equivalent of Doritos in fiery habanero "flavor": restaurant redneck without the irony. Please, we're begging: Do not douse our house-made potato chips, our duck-fat French fries, our meats on a stick, and our ground offal in 'dog form with this fake truffle flavoring.

Too many hosts at the host stand

Do you really need three gatekeepers at the door? If you do, it would be great if they weren't falling over one another.

The fourfold mark-up of lousy wines

If we can buy your wine at CVS, we shouldn't have to pay 22 bucks to drink it in a restaurant. I'm talking to you, pinot grigio. At least provide diverse wines in the same price range that don't suck.

Purposely misspelled words

Blu Sushi and see food are two of many examples. What's clever about spelling in variations on a tween texting her BFFs? While we're at it, let's talk about abbreviated restaurant names in ALL CAPS. You know I love you, ROK:BRGR, but what happened? Did Rock Burger not quite sound right, so you gave up? And YOLO: If you only live once, why name your restaurant for a cliché?

Mandatory valet

Now that I've joined car culture, I'm apparently too helpless to walk six feet from a parking space to the door. And it costs $5 to get to the door. Why not charge a door fee to eat at the restaurant instead?

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