I was first introduced to The Templeton Diner on Granville in late 2003. It was cool and chic, the retro decor complementing the laid-back feel and general aura of organic somnolence that seemed to pervade the air. The food was good, and the person who took me there (an avid organic food buff) assured me the labels were real and not just pasted on by Pepsi in the parking lot behind the kitchen. I was a fan of the food, and the tables, and the little jukeboxes on every table, along with the plethora of newspapers that one could read as one waited for their order. The long bar with the stools summoned up images of a bartender mopping up the table and listening to your troubles after a hard day at the office.
That was then. Last year began the decline in my expectations of service at the Templeton. Brusquely greeted by the waitress, we were ushered to our table. The food took a while to arrive, but that was excusable. After all, we had wandered in during the lunch hour. All that was missing was the cheerful atmosphere and smiles that had hitherto greeted us on every occasion. We ate, paid our bill and left. Time eased the memory of that borderline-rude lunch and in a few months, we decided to go there again. Minderbinder was enamoured with the place and we decided to give it another shot.
The service this time was abysmal. The quality of service had plummeted like the Hindenberg in its dying throes. We sat at the long bar and ordered our food. It took over fifty minutes for our food to arrive. Yes, you read that correctly, 50! You must be thinking, "Well Yossarian, you're a chump for having stuck around. I would have left aeons ago". The only problem was, we were with a party of seven and the venue we had to visit was right across the street, so we were loath to move. The food finally arrived, in the time it would take entire civilizations to rise and fall on Epsilon IV. Even the quality of food had suffered. Sometimes one is so hungry that when the food arrives, it is consumed ravenously, with nary a thought for taste or texture, with the ingestor seeking only to quench the fires within one's belly and disregarding all gustatory feedback.
Uunfortunately, this was not the case here.We could taste the food and it wasn't great. Not even close to what it had been in the halcyon days of The Templeton's former glory. We gulped it down and asked for the bill. Now began the second episode of waiting, thankfully dwarfed by the first. Finally, we stood up and asked the waitress for our bill, and she snapped at us. She actually told us rudely that she'd told us we could pay at the till, when she'd said no such thing. Oh well, what are seven witnesses against one, especially when the one is such an august personage as a food carrier at the Templeton on Granville. Suitably chastened, we marched along the length of the bar and paid our prandial dues and left.
Thus ended our final sojourn into the dismal cave known as the Templeton, jealously guarded by the harridan with the receipts. As much as we hate writing negative reviews, we feel it our duty to warn the world against the shoddy service, brusque bearing and vastly-inferior victuals now served at The Templeton.
