Marie Callender's

Today's lunch choice was Marie Calendar's. A family establishment known for their great pies and home style cooking. Well, I don't know much about the famed Ms. Calendar, but what I do know is that I didn't feel that much at home. We came for the pot pies... what we got, was some lame backwoods excuse for a casual lunch with a side of highway robbery. Upon walking in, we both commented how it was freezing! Bam! 3 shitburgers right away! The hostess said she "would be with us in a moment" but then bent down and grabbed two menus and led us to our table... what? Improper conception of the passage of time! 1 shitburger. Our waitress was a straight shooter, and that's how I like them, so at first I wasn't going to give her any shitburgers at all, but perhaps she was hungry for some shitburgers because she definitely earned hers as you will read later. We both ordered water, and the legendary chicken pot pie and, I would like to emphasize this... Specified separate checks. I added a side salad for $1.99 with Italian dressing. The waitress brought my salad out and told me they were out of Italian dressing. BAM! 2 shitburgers... Now, call me crazy... but... It would seem to me that Italian is probably one of the more popular dressings out there, second to ranch maybe. Certainly more popular than Russian, or French, or Swedish. Swedish? I'm sure its out there. For an institutionalized bastion of the Americana of country cooking to be out of Italian dressing is just appalling. On the plus side of things, the waitress kept my water full for the better part of the lunch, which is rare... ever been to Buffalo Wild Wings? Don't get me started. I've based many a boycott of restaurants on simple water refills. Anyways, our meal was served quickly... and that was probably the high point of the entire lunch. The pot pie was really mediocre at best. I mean, from my memory the frozen ones actually taste better, and they are a lot cheaper. This thing came out at $12.50 and was served in a deep dish slightly larger than a soup bowl. The value just wasn't there for me and I think that in itself is worth 3 more shitburgers. After the pot pies we were asked if we wanted desert, we decided to split a piece of coconut cream piefor $4.39. The pie was served in a bowl, and slightly chilled. Now, I have one problem with this. The only time you should serve pie in a bowl is if it is being served Ala' Mode. 1 shitburger for their blatant lack of culinary refinement. Now, the pie itself... besides being overpriced (1 more shitburger) was pretty tasty. However, the more I ate, the less appealing it was; I noticed the taste was kind of slowly dissipating as it came to room temperature. At this point the waitress brought the check, and screwed up her flawless victory. She gave us a single check! Oh no! We had to wait several minutes before she would acknowledge us to come rectify the situation... remember we had specifically asked her for two checks when we ordered and she thanked us for doing so, so its not like she could claim she was hard of hearing or anything. For this, she earned herself 2 shitburgers. The only redeeming factor to this entire lunch was walking out the door and realizing just where we were exactly... Flamingo & Decatur! and that we have hundreds of other options for our next lunch.

Final Score: 13 Shitburgers