All We Wanted Was. .

My husband and I went out to dinner for our anniversary. We chose a new steak house in our town that is not too far from our house. The yummy aromas rolling out of the kitchen made us want to try them out.

As I approached the building a man standing in a small group of people greeted me with an enthusiastic, “Howdy”. I thought it strange until I saw that he was an employee of the restaurant. I chuckled a little and went in the building.

Upon entering we were overwhelmed with “Howdy” and buckets of salted peanuts. Joel and I smiled and gave each other a look that we both understood. This place was definitely hooked on the old west cowboy theme.

We sat down to eat dinner and ordered an appetizer. We normally skip the appetizer; they are usually just as expensive as the meal but being our anniversary and all we splurged. A few moments later the appetizer arrived along with a caravan of servers. Perhaps they thought it was the last caravan going east before the winter? Although it only took one server to carry it out he had three companions. The each stood there and asked us if everything was ok and hesitated to leave until we began eating it. I must admit I was a little anxious to begin eating. I thought to myself, “Maybe they’ve done something silly to our food and want to see our reaction.”

Although Joel and I had gone out together, it seemed that we were on a group date with the staff. We had glasses of soda as back up on our tables just in case we might drink our first glass. There was a pile of rolls larger than some haystacks sitting on the table with a bucket of butter- right next to that bucket of salted peanuts. And our newfound neighbors were sure to each make sure we didn’t want for anything and as we left they harmonized, “Ya’ll come back now.”

After we left Joel and I immediately asked each one another if the other thought it was a bit over the top. We agreed. There can be such a thing as Overfriendly, Overwhelming Customer Service. We weren’t able to have a conversation without a posse of waiters interrupting.