Wild Oscars - Tell The Customer What They Want

I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.
- Oscar Wilde

I think my friends and I can apply that Oscar Wilde quote to our situation at Wild Oscars. Let me start from the start.

We were going to the footy to see the Hawks play the Swans at the 'G. So we decided to have lunch on Swan Street. We've had some bad experiences with meals before sporting matches, we tend to have to eat rather quickly to get to the match on time. On Swan Street, we've probably had one of our worst experiences at Red Lemon, where we had to walk out without eating at all. Well this time, the plan was to eat at the Swan Hotel. But such is the case, we always divert from our plans. We can now add Wild Oscar as another terrible pre-sporting match meal.

When Justin spotted the lunch special sign at Wild Oscars, we stopped to read it carefully. It sounded quite good. Then I piped in with the fact that Wild Oscars was on The Chopping Block (where they lost). We were now intrigued and decided to give it a go. That was our fatal mistake for the day.

We were "seated" by the waitress, who waved at a table across the room and told us to have a seat. I remembered from The Chopping Block that Wild Oscars' service was rather casual, it didn't seem to have changed, and that opinion was backed up later on. However, I'm not writing to review the place. I'm writing to air my grievances at the way they run the place.

When we got the menu, we all made our choices. Adrian wanted to try their "best on Swan Street" parma. They stuck the sign up again even after Matt Moran told them to take it off since the sign was just their own self claim. Anyway, I decided on the lunch special Chicken Burger. When the waitress came to take our orders, we asked if we could order from the lunch special. It was now that she said we could only order from the breakfast menu. So, we thought that the lunch specials didn't apply yet. Despite being slightly upset at the false advertising sign outside, we decided to order off the normal menu. Again, she said that we couldn't order anything from the lunch menu at all, only breakfast. What the?

Who wants to eat breakfast at 11:30am? Apparently, ALL their customers want to eat breakfast until that time. So we quadrupled checked with her that we couldn't even order the normal meals that cost a lot more? Nope, nothing at all off the lunch menu. "Before 12pm, only breakfast, and after 12pm, only lunch".

What the fuck is this, a regime by the Breakfast Nazi. I know McDonalds has that policy, but they're a multi-million dollar chain that can't change the rules for one customer only, and even then, they're befreakfast menu only goes to like 10:30am. But what is stopping the Wild Oscar chef from cooking the parma a few minutes earlier. I understand that a lot of places don't want people ordering the cheaper breakfast menu after a certain time, but to not allow us to order the more expensive meal a few minutes early is just crazy. She then even had the nerve to ask if we wanted to wait till 12pm to order off the lunch menu. No, we don't want to wait. We had been tricked into entering. There was no time on the Lunch Specials sign. And then we could only order, eggs, eggs or eggs. What if I am allergic to eggs?

Adrian, a lawyer, then said to us, what if we order before 12pm but the food doesn't come till after 12pm. What then? Are we obeying this apparent rule that I've never heard of. I then chimed in that we should say that we can't accept this food after 12pm and demand a free lunch. Justin then joked that his stomach can't handle breakfast after 12pm.

We were in a rush so couldn't be bothered leaving and decided to eat our "lunch". The whole time, I also got an eyeful of the waiters underwear. They were in directly line of sight of the TV that I was watching. Their belt-free skinny jean uniforms just kept coming down each time they bent down to get a glass. They also stuffed up our coffee orders, had no quality control on the serving sizes and tried to charge us an extra coffee. Luckily we spotted that error and pointed it out to them.

The service may suppose to be "relaxed", but to me, they're just tardy and unprofessional. And in total contrast to the supposed relax style that they operate the restaurant in, their breakfast/lunch debacle is just ridiculous. We tried to talk some sense but it was useless. We kept asking for clarification that we couldn't order anything at all on the menu? The ludicrous nature of the question was clearly lost on the waitress. Reason was clearly not something they employ (pun intended) at the restaurant. My tip, give Wild Oscars a pass unless you're in for a challenge and want to try out your brute reasoning skill.

EDIT: I think this video with Jack Nicholson sums it up pretty well.