Restaurants

It's a party!

I may be a restaurant enthusiast, but I’ve never been confused with a Pollyanna. I’m quite vocal about their faults, as my friends and family will be glad to bend your ear.

For instance, tell me I have to wait more than 30 minutes for a table, and you’re talking to the back of my head. If our party insists on staying, I do my impression of a 2-year-old: pacing, whining, complaining and endless criticism on how to move the crowd faster. I swear the hostess has bumped our name to the top because she’s sick of seeing my face asking, “Are we there, yet?”

Second, I hate listening to the staff sing Happy Birthday. That was the one silver lining when Chi-Chi’s closed several years ago — I had a knack visiting during no less than three such celebrations per meal. My husband once told the manager at Olive Garden it was my birthday just to see the steam build up behind my eyeballs when they came over to clap and sing that lame advertisement they wrote to get out of a potential copyright jackpot with Happy Birthday.

So I cringed when I watched the wait staff gather around a table against the far wall at Red Robin’s over the weekend. With my luck, it would be some version of that yakky “When the red, red robin comes bob, bob, bobbin’ along” theme they have going with their burgers and steak fries. I took a deep breath, hunched my shoulders and assumed the “I’m miserable” position … for all of two notes. In the middle of the pack stood a small guy belting out the familiar birthday words in the most beautiful baritone I’ve heard this side of Carnegie Hall. 

It was melodious. It was flowing. It was shockingly great. All around us, diners put down their forks, stopped dipping those onion rings in the campfire sauce and stared. Most of us still had our mouths open, but in wonder rather than hunger. Our waiter assured us it’s a common reaction. “I’m constantly telling Tom if I had a voice like that, I’d be over at Beef and Boards. Or auditioning for American Idol,” our waiter, Kyle (no slouch himself in the personality department), confided to us. 

The Red Robin mascot

But the trouble with Happy Birthday is that there’s only one verse with a few lines. I was seriously contemplating lying about my birthday when the crew lined up at the table behind us, and I enjoyed an encore performance even closer. (I suspect they fibbed about the birthday thing just to hear Tom, too.) I’ve already resolved to go there on my actual day in September, and make a special request: I want to hear him croon Oklahoma! “Oooooak-la-homa where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain…” If I’m really lucky, he’ll do Phantom of the Opera for me.

Heck, I wouldn’t complain if he picked Red, Red Robin.

Red Robin Gourmet Burgers

9965 N. Michigan Rd.

Carmel, IN 46032

(317) 337-0183 — make sure Tom is working the shift before announcing your celebration, real or fake. If his section is full, put in a request for Kyle. Tom will still sing.

Photographer credits: Abarndweller, jencu