Two Toots Are Now One

No spell check again - what's up with that?

Here in Toledo we have a cute little restaurant called Two Toots Diner. It is a very small place with booths all around a center counter that has a train track with two toy trains that deliver your food right to your table via the rail cars. It is a very novel concept and the place actually has decent food with plenty for the kids to look at and keep themselves entertained.

So today my cousin Carrie (who has one of those sweet jobs with like every holdiday off) called me at work and said she was going to pick up JJ and Aunt Bea for lunch and I should join them over at Two Toots. The plan sounded good to me and I happily drove over to the diner to meet them. We ate our lunch without much excitement and JJ behaved as best as he could for the amount of time we were there (1/2 hour wait to even be seated).

We were just finishing our lunch when a mom with 5 little ones came in and sat at the table behind us. She had brought organic bread, cheese, and butter with her and asked the restaurant to use these items when making the children's grilled cheese. She even brought organic ketchup for the french fries (I still don't get why could they eat the fries but everything else had to be organic? Shea - you probably know the answer to this one). The kitchen promptly complied with the woman's request and sent the table's food out on one of the little trains. As the train approached our table, JJ lunged for the cars and grabbed the engine and slammed it down, derailing the entire train. On the floor beneath our feet was the specially made food...totally destroyed. Oh yeah - and the train was broke too.

The poor woman was trying to maintain her composure, but very obviously upset by what had happened. One waitress was trying to fix the damaged train while the other tried to explain to the woman that they would make new food right away. The mother was having none of it and said that this was special food and if it wasn't in too bad of shape she would take it. Carrie and I looked at each other, not knowing what to do next and wondered if the lady really wanted to have the food that was laying on the floor. Our question was answered a second later when the mother came over to our table and asked for the food. She totally took the food off the floor and fed it to her kids because in her words "this was all the bread I had, this was specially-made food, the kids are hungry and we have to go."

I felt awful. Is it really better to feed your kids food off of the floor of a dinky little diner just to make sure they are eating all-organic? Would grilled cheese on wheat bread have killed them this one time? I really don't know. And I'm still not sure if the train is back in working order yet. Until then, they'll just have to call the place One Toot.