Medium Rare

Back in the sixties, Roland’s Steakhouse was the best restaurant in town. People came from far and wide to devour any cut of meat they wanted while drinking the best wines in the city. A rustic wood interior with high ceilings offset by the white tablecloths throughout the dining room. Long gone are the days that Roland’s was considered the fanciest spot in town and a must stop for celebrities and politicians that happened to be in town. When you first walk into the restaurant, guests are greeted by a wall covered in framed pictures of my grandfather Roland with his arm around many a celebrity. Everyone from Ronald Reagan to Henry Winkler was up on that wall. No one of any recognition has been here in years, however. I haven’t checked in a while, but I believe the most recent one was when Joey Lawrence from the TV show Blossom came here for dinner in 1993. So yes, it’s been a while.

           I suppose there any number of reasons why Roland’s has faded into obscurity. One reason is that I never wanted to take over the restaurant. When Roland Sr. died, it was left to my dad, Roland Jr. He had worked there for his whole life and knew the restaurant business inside and out; it was a perfect transition. He only owned it for about a year until he had a stroke and was unable to do it anymore and left it to me, Roland III. I dropped out of college I don’t even know how many years ago to come back home and make sure that Roland’s didn’t get run into the ground. It’s what my family would have wanted.

           To put things as clearly as I can, I had no idea what I was doing. All these years later, I still have no idea what I am doing. I haven’t put any money into the place since I’ve owned it, and none was put into it before me. The décor had the dining room stuck permanently in 1976. Family restaurants have been abandoned for the convenience and familiarity of chain franchises like Chili’s and Applebee’s. In the past decade, our biggest downfall has been Yelp, the app that allows any braindead customer that has ever visited any place in the world to voice their unwanted opinion. Yelp has not done any favors for me or my restaurant.

           April 4^th, 2017, One star rating

           Katherine H.

           I stopped in with my family for a nice dinner this evening, at least my intentions were to have a nice dinner! When we walked in, the hostess was slumped on the podium scrolling through her phone, not even making eye contact with my husband as she handed us some menus and led us through the mostly empty dining room. A dining room that is dreary and drab, mind you! Our calamari was barely edible, I’m quite sure it was not seafood but a tire they sliced, breaded, and deep-fried. Our waiter, Cory, was clearly high as a kite. My youngest kept asking what the smell was, I told her a skunk must have crawled in the vents and died. My London Broil was tough as hell and tasted like shit.

           February 14^th, 2019, One Star Rating

           Doug T.

           Being the procrastinator that I am, the only place in town that I could get a reservation at was Roland’s Steakhouse. I honestly had never heard of it but after a quick Google search, it seemed okay. There was no one at the hostess station when we arrived at 6:30 and no one in the dining room. There was one customer at the bar who may or may not have been asleep. Three out of the six options on the special “limited menu” were no longer available according to our server, Wendy. My wife and I waited a half hour for our food. No one else entered the restaurant during that time. My wife ordered a Chardonnay, and Wendy brought her a Pinot Noir. When my wife notified Wendy of the error, Wendy just chuckled and walked away. My wife did not like her ribeye and my lamb chops were tough as hell and tasted like shit.

           I had to stop reading Yelp reviews at work or I was going to become even more apathetic about this place then I thought was possible. Lou, our daytime bartender called out sick so I was manning the bar until Samantha got in at four. I wiped the bottles, cut up some fruit, and wiped down the bar. I had nothing to do except watch the lights and TV raise my electric bill and the empty tables not paying my rent. During my daydream, a receipt began to print at the bar. I found it odd since there was no one in the restaurant. When I tore off the receipt, I saw that it was an order from Chompz, a new app that lazy people can use that delivers food from any restaurant to their doorstep. First order of the day, a NY Sirloin cooked medium rare with rice pilaf and asparagus. About twenty minutes later, I went back to the kitchen to bag up the order and brought it back out to the bar. Still quiet in the bar. I had almost returned to my daydream when the little bell at the top of the door jingled and a short stout man with wire-rimmed glasses and a stained button-up shirt waltzed into the bar.

           “Looking to grab an order for Eduardo, I’m from Chompz,” the man said as he flashed a Chompz lanyard with a laminated badge. I tossed a menu and some plastic silverware into the bag and handed it over to him.

           “Busy day, huh?” he remarked with a smile as he looked at the empty bar adjacent to the empty dining room.

           “Ha. Something like that. To be honest, Chompz is one of our biggest sources of income lately.”

           “Food delivery apps will help you, but they won’t save you.”

           “Tell me about it.”

           “You need a reason for people to come here. To want to come here. I don’t know, some sort of attraction.

           “Ya, that’s a good idea,” I responded somewhat sarcastically, as if I didn’t realize that I needed to attract customers to get business.

           “You ever heard of Spark’s Steak House?”

           I shook my head.

           “It’s this steakhouse in New York City. The mob boss Paul Castellano had himself a nice dinner there one night, stepped out onto the sidewalk with his henchmen and got blown away.”

           “Ok,” I replied, becoming confused by the relevance of the story. “So what?”

           “So what? Mafia fans and historians have been flocking to Spark’s for the past thirty years. Just to say that they ate dinner at the place Paul Castellano did right before he got his head blown off.”

           My fake, polite restaurant manager face that I wore at work slid away as I was becoming uncomfortable with this stranger.

           “What the hell are you suggesting? That I arrange for someone to get murdered in my dining room?”

           The stranger shrugged. “I don’t know if it has to be that flashy.”

           An awkward cloud of silence hung between us. “That steak is getting cold,” I said firmly as I pushed the bag towards him. He smiled at me, took the bag and left. The conversation had left me feeling uneasy and confused. As much as I did not want to be responsible for a murder, he did make me realize that I needed to think outside the box if Roland’s was going to survive. A few days had passed, and I didn’t think much about the stranger. In fact, I’m quite sure I forgot about it altogether. That was all until another slow Sunday lunch shift where I found myself looking for something to do. Again, I found myself wiping down bottles when the crunching sound of the printer spit out a fresh order. The only person at the bar had already ordered lunch. It was another Chompz order. We have had a few since the mysterious stranger paid a visit, but it was a different driver each time. I checked the ticket, an order for our signature sirloin salad topped with gorgonzola cheese. Something inside of me told me that this order would be him again. The ticket said the driver’s name would be Benny. Then it occurred to me that I never got his name the first time, so that gave me zero information. When Derek, the sous chef, came out with the salad, he tossed it on the bar and said to me, “Take a look at this guy.”

           Walking through the parking lot, it was definitely the stranger from before. He looked even rattier and run down than the last time we saw each other. His salt-and-pepper beard was wild and unkempt, and his eyes were wild. He wore the same stained shirt, with even more stains this time.

           “Here to pick up an order for Emily. I’m from…”

           “Ya, I know. Chompz. We’ve met before.”

           His friendly demeanor disappeared, and he leaned in close to me. He reeked of musty, unwashed clothes and body odor.

           “Have you given any more thought to my idea?”

           “No. It’s insane. You’re insane. And if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like for you to get the hell out of my restaurant.”

           He didn’t respond. He smiled at me, took the order and left. I watched him through the windows, and I didn’t stop watching him until he got into his rusted car and drove away. Something about him made my blood run cold. I wasn’t a religious man, but I prayed that would be the last time I saw Benny the delivery driver. But something told me it would not.

           Days passed, then months. We were getting just enough business to keep the lights on, but not enough to turn any sort of profit. Countless Chompz orders had been placed, and no sign of Benny. Every damn time that receipt would turn out that little slip, my heart would freeze as my eyes darted for the bottom of the ticket where the driver’s name was written. No sign of Benny.

           It must have been a year since then, long enough where I hardly thought about my disturbing conversation with the demented delivery driver. It was a busier Sunday than usual, thanks to the NFL playoffs. I was in the back office going over some paperwork when a knock came to the door. It was Samantha the bartender, and behind her was a man in a cheap looking brown suit.

           “Hey boss, got someone here from one of our liquor reps, is this a good time?”

           “Sure. That’s fine.”

           “Bad time?” the man in the suit asked.

           “Always,” I joked as I half stood to shake his hand.

           “Benjamin Stokes,” he announced. “I know you’re a busy man, so I won’t waste your time. I’m here representing PB & J’s, the hottest drink out there right now. It’s a barrel-aged bourbon infused with peanut butter and grape jelly flavors. People are going nuts for it.”

           I let him continue with his rehearsed speech just to be polite. Money was tight and a peanut butter and jelly flavored whiskey sounded disgusting to me. A trendy drink like that probably flies with a college crowd, not the beer bottle and house wine drinkers that make up ninety percent of my clientele. After he finished, I explained to him my financial situation and how I don’t think a niche drink such as that would take off with the crowd here.

           “Well, thank you for your time. If you change your mind, give me a call,” he said as he leaned forward to slide his business card across my desk. I had already returned to my paperwork when a waft of foul odor assaulted my nostrils. It was the unmistakable scent of musty, unwashed clothes and body odor. Just as the whiff of salty air can trigger synapses in your brain to bring you back to a childhood vacation to the ocean, his smell brought me back to a conversation I had about a year ago. When I looked up, I hardly recognized him. He appeared much cleaner and seemed to be about thirty pounds lighter.

           “What the hell do you want?” I demanded as I shot up from my chair, still holding a pen. Before I could even process what was happening, he lunged forward and grabbed my forearm, and forced it towards himself, plunging my pen deep into his own neck. A thin, metallic streak of blood splashed me in the face as he grasped his self-inflicted wound.

           “Didn’t like my idea? Well now Roland’s will be known as that place where the manager killed the liquor salesman,” he managed to gurgle out as he fumbled with the doorknob, misting blood all over the office. He stumbled out into the dining room to the astonished gasps and screams of patrons and employees alike. I followed him out of my office as he fell to one knee by a lottery ticket vending machine.

           “Jesus Christ Roland! What did you do?” Samantha screamed as she slowly started to back away from me. I looked down at my blood-spattered shirt and my pen that was once gold, now dripping in a thick clot of viscous liquid. Time came to a screeching halt around me, I’m not sure how long I was standing there with my dripping pen. I remember seeing Benny collapse onto the floor, followed by the paramedics, and then the police shortly after that. I remember hours in a small, dank room, handcuffed to a steel table. There was a small TV in the room that was covering the steakhouse stabbing and I remember a detective looking at me with a smile and saying, “No one is going to want to eat there anymore!”

           I was sent to rot in a cell and wonder why no one believed me. A man with no violent history up and attacks a stranger, at least that is what the jury believed. The bloody heap that collapsed on my floor did not die that day, and actually sat on the stand and helped to convict me. Three years passed and my appeals dried up and I continued to rot. A guard delivered me a letter this morning with no return address. I ripped it open and removed a flyer, advertising a new restaurant at my location which had shut its doors two years ago. Come one, come all, to the grand opening of Benjamin’s Steakhouse! I crumpled it up and tossed into the toilet in my cell. I sighed, and sat down in my bed trying to eat a steak I cooked on a radiator. It was tough as hell and tasted like shit.