{Slidin’ Dirty} After much anticipation, a great disappointment
Pulled Pork Nachos: I can't believe I'm going to say this, but they would have been better without the pork
LB and I were in Troy today to take a photography class at the Arts Center, which was amazing.  We had to drive a bit to find a parking spot because... Troy.. and we ended up parked in front of Slidin Dirty, which was pretty exciting as I'd wanted to get there for ages (they've been open for 3 years now).   I hadn't actually bothered to find out where it was because we don't go to Troy very often, so it was a nice surprise to accidentally find it. We knew we would have a lunch break so we figured we'd make the three minute walk back to have lunch. This was a mistake.  A big one. We broke for lunch at 12:25 so we made it to Slidin Dirty by 12:30.  We had an hour for lunch.  We thought that should be plenty of time for an appetizer and an entree, given that it's essentially pub food.  There was one open table left and we were seated within three minutes and immediately given menus. We thought our timing was good because people started stacking up behind us, waiting for a table. Our server was at our table to take our our food and drink orders pretty promptly and I had my beer in my hand by 12:40. (I know this because I took a picture of it and it was time stamped). (Side note: LB went to the restroom and when she came back, she said, that it looked pretty but smelled like a port-a-potty.  I tend to judge a restaurant by it's attention to details like this.  It makes me wonder what the kitchen looks like.. but I digress) The appetizer arrived at 12:47. So far, so good. We finished our appetizer pretty quickly because we were pretty hungry, having had only a bagel for breakfast.   The plates were cleared promptly and because we had to be back by 1:30, I had my eye on the clock.  It was 1:00. And that's when things started going downhill. I had hoped we'd get our sliders and mac & cheese within a few minutes of the appetizer being cleared since we placed our orders at 12:35-ish.  Perhaps this was unrealistic.. and if so, well that's on me. However... By 1:10, I'm trying to catch the eye of our server.. who had walked past our table several times but never checked in.   At least once she actually, intentionally averted her eyes from me.  If she had once gave us an idea of when to expect our food or maybe showed a little interest in us, it would have gone a long way to making me less twitchy. I looked around and I see other tables waiting for food... people who were seated when we came in...  there was a 3- top of teenagers who had been waiting for food for so long, they stopped looking at their phones and were looking around, hopefully... desperately.. and there are at least 4 families waiting for tables and two of them were there when we were seated (I know because they all had really crazy cute toddlers with them and I had a view of the door). It's now 1:15 and we are calculating our tab for what we consumed already and are ready to leave a $20 on the table and head out the door.  Because I cannot get the attention of our waitress....  and not for lack of trying....  she literally walked past our table 3 times.. and actively avoided looking at me each time... I am not exaggerating. LB says to me that she just saw our waitress go back to the kitchen and that hopefully our food will arrive. It does five minutes later.  It's now 1:20 ... we have 10 minutes to eat and get our check and pay and get out the door and we will still be late.   Our waitress puts the food on the table, says "there you go!" in a perky voice and she's gone before I can even ask for the check.. which I was going to do so that we could get things rolling.. We start wolfing out food down.. at 1:25, I see our waitress cruising past our table and I'm looking right at her (again) and she doesn't notice so I hop out of my chair with my arm in the air and say "excuse me! Can we have the check as soon as possible please?"  and she says sure, no problem. By the way, LB's Mac and Cheese had very little cheese and was room temperature, My Dirty Colonel Slider was cold in the middle and my Dirty Ninja was overcooked and dry and also not hot.  This is food that was sitting under a heat lamp waiting to get picked up. We get our check at 1:30 and we leave just enough cash to cover the bill. This is the one and only time in my life I did not leave a tip.  This waitress was actively avoiding us. Either kitchen was slow, or they were understaffed or something but honestly I can forgive all those things. I cannot forgive being ignored.  The poor service was appalling.  Everyone working there had a look on their face like they were either exhausted, annoyed or apathetic. I'm honestly, truly saddened by this.  In the past I had enjoyed the food from the food truck and one time Tim went out of his way to deliver food to my office.  That was the kind of thing that made Slidin' Dirty stand out. Maybe they were understaffed because of the Nine Pin Cider event today but...  for crying out loud, taking 10 seconds to say "your food will be right out" or "sorry for the wait, we are a bit busy today" would have shown some concern for the customer. When we got back to class, we apologized for being late and said we picked a slow restaurant evidently. Our instructor said not to worry and then she asked where we went and when we said "Slidin' Dirty" she replied "oh.. yeah, they are really slow there". Ugh. I hope this is a one off... because I've met Tim and I like him and I really am happy that they opened a second location..  and perhaps my time table was off... but I know bad service when I see it.  And holy cats, was this bad service.      

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