We didn't feel like cooking a meal after returning from the workshop. We traveled to five different restaurants before we found one where we could be seated immediately. The first one usually has immediate seating available and we have eaten there many times in the 55 years we have lived in this town of 26,000. That figure is somewhat misleading since other towns and villages are immediately adjacent and passing from one to another is not very noticeable. Besides, the town includes a university with about 7700 growing, hungry students. Yes, the campus dining halls serve them many meals but eateries and drinkeries are still popular at all hours, especially late ones. Admittedly, this was Saturday night, well-known to be a likely one for people to assemble and dine together. Further, this was the end of spring break, so students, parents, little brothers and sisters, boyfriends and girlfriends may well have increased the number of diners and those waiting to dine.
We are still experiencing the effects of covid, too. Enough people can pause as patrons or reconsider their working lives and hours that businesses shorten their hours or go out of business. Confusion can result if we try to use web pages to decide on hours. Many smaller businesses have poor or no access to their own web documents to insert up-to-date hours or totally forget that web pages make statements that can be badly out-of-date.
Lynn made the suggestion that took us to the winning location but the dining room was half young teens and pre-teens. I asked the waitress about the unusual clientele and she said there was a basketball tournament in town. We are simply lucky we didn't starve to death!
