After more fumbling by the wait staff, the orders are placed. The great thing about the variety of a coffee-shop menu is that you can get steak while your companion gets cereal. I order two Budweisers, a practice I've found valuable at understaffed coffee shops. My salad and rolls arrive before Jacqueline's Raisin Bran. The salad, not surprisingly, is simply iceberg lettuce with two cherry tomatoes.
Nobody comes around with a giant pepper grinder.
I asked for rare, and by golly it is rare. I get the baked potato, partly on the advice of world-famous gourmand Anthony Curtis but also because the waiter doesn't give me a choice. The baked potato is fine. Potatoes are potatoes. We'll call it a push.