Delivery Disasters: A Cautionary Tale for All

On a dark and stormy night, in a far away land called New York, a young graduate student crashing on the couch of a friend desired some dinner.

Her hostess had plans for the evening, and so the young student was left to fare for herself. Since the land of New York was fabled for having absolutely everything available for delivery, the student did what anybody else at that time would have done. She did a Google search.

In her search she came across a Mexican restaurant called La Hacienda on East 116th Street, a mere twenty-five blocks from the apartment where she was resting her head. The single-paragraph blurbs by critics at nymag.com and timeout.com raved about La Hacienda's pumpkin seed quesadillas and authentic Mexican salsa. And, best of all, the minimum price for delivery was only $10. For our poor, struggling student, this sounded just right.

Hungry as she was, she obediently handed over her address, cross-streets and directions, her phone number, and placed an order for the Nachos Con Pollo and a Chicken Burrito. And then she waited.

And waited.

Twenty minutes later, her phone rang, but not with the food which our young student was so eagerly awaiting. The hostess from La Hacienda was calling to ask for the address and directions and cross-streets yet again. Surely this meant that her food was only moments from leaving the restaurant, and therefore mere minutes from her door. Toes curling with excitement, she recited the information yet again.

And then she waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

As the clock approached the time that would mark an hour since her order had been placed, the student began to get impatient. She called La Hacienda again and was told the driver had left. She asked when the driver had left; the hostess, in her limited English, could not answer. The student hung up and resolved to wait another ten minutes.

Ten minutes came and went, then fifteen, then twenty. It had now been over an hour since she had ordered her food from twenty-five blocks away, and the poor grad student was hungry. Clearly the restaurant had not been up to the hype floating around about it. She called again, and canceled the order. After all, delivery was a luxury that was probably best avoided anyhow.

Ten minutes after that, who should show up but the delivery man, demanding to be paid for his food. The student, suitably annoyed by this time, paid, but asked for change in order to gage the tip accordingly. The delivery man shook his head. "No change," he said, "no change." With anger, the grad student realized she'd been conned into handing over a 20% tip for the honor of waiting an hour. She wished the man a good night, only half meaning it, and closed the door.

Determined to enjoy what might at least be good food, the student settled down and pulled out the tin foil bowls from her La Hacienda parcel. The first, her nachos appetizer, tasted like whole grain bread, and something like that temperature. Nothing spicy and very little authentically Mexican about it, as our young student, who grew up less than three hours from Mexico, might be entitled to judge. The hair hiding in one chunk of chicken was the final straw for the nachos; she rapidly put them down and turned to the chicken burrito instead.

This also proved to be a mistake. The burrito was the taste and texture of cardboard, devoid of any warmth it might have had when leaving the La Hacienda kitchen. Not even sticking it in the microwave could revive this dead bit of gunk wrapped in a flour tortilla.

So now, here our grad student sits; a little poorer and sadder than she was two hours ago when the order was first placed. But at least one good thing has come from this delivery disaster. Her appetite has been abated. Quite possibly for good.

The moral of the story: sometimes, even if a person is a critic, they don't always know what they're talking about.

Oh, and never order from La Hacienda. Because, to put it succinctly (if arcanely), they suck.