Had supper at what is becoming a favorite of mine, a little hole in the wall diner call Bob’s Sandwiches.

Alert fans with good memories will recognize this as the place I described as “ethnic food” for the patrons of the otherwise all Chinese and Filipino (shut up, it’s spelled that way now) mini-mall that I pass through every school day when go from Skytrain to home.

Most of the other businesses there intimidate me too much for me to approach. Half of them are restaurants with little to no English on their signage. There’s a traditional Chinese Medicine herb shop that makes me feel like I buy a Mogwai there. There are a couple of Filipino bakeries. ^[1] Apparently Filipino style bakeries are quite popular in some corners.

And/or have insanely high margins.

The only other business there that I have been in in the past is a convenience store. I try not to go there because their prices are insane. But sometimes I forget to get my stuff downtown, and it’s the last place I pass before I get home. So I pay.

But mostly, it’s Bob’s. Not only do I love the old time diner feel to the place, it’s amazingly inexpensive. I got a hot dog, fries, and a can of pop for just $5! When’s the last time you paid that little for a meal? Hell, you can’t even get a meal for that little at McDonald’s any more.

And you can get a burger n’ fries and a drink for the same price^[2]. $6 if you want bacon n’ cheese on it. $6 for club a club sandwich et al.

And the food is decent. Not wonderful, but decent. I’m not surprised that the place is packed at lunch. Meals that cheap bring the people, especially those like me who are sentimental and nostalgic for the diners of their youth…. as well as the prices.

It really feels like a place that hasn’t changed in 50 years.

So now I have a place to go when I want to eat out but I am low on dough!

I had a great bit of tiny vindication recently. Let me tell you all about it.

There’s a place I pass on the way to school called the Bulldog Cafe’, or possible Seeds because it says that on the windows. Not sure what exactly their business is, because when I look in, it sure doesn’t look like any cafe I’ve ever been to. Looks more like a hookah bar. Possibly because it’s next door to a pot dispensary. I dunno.

But I digress.

They have chairs out front, and before I really got the whole walking from Skytrain to school thing down, there were a few times when I had to stop and sit there, even though the place is less than a block from school. I never gave it much thought. Lots of places downtown have chairs out front for weary potential patrons. It costs them next to nothing in upkeep, and it probably brings in business.

But one day when I sat there, this Bob Zmuda looking motherfucker comes out and hassles me about the chairs being for paying customers only.

And he says it in that bitchy “my words are polite but my tone and body language are hostile’ way I associate with bullying welfare office workers. Except for them, it’s suddenly raising the volume of their voice to loudspeaker levels while saying “I DON’T HAVE TO TAKE THAT LANGUAGE FROM YOU, SIR! PLEASE STEP BACK FROM THE COUNTER AND CEASE YOUR AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR!”.

Man I wanted to give that bitch of piece of my mind. And I wasn’t the one getting picked on. It was this frightened looking wimpy little guy who looked like he couldn’t be aggressive towards anyone. To be honest, I kind of wish I had done it anyhow. But a wise man does not enter into fights he might not win.

At least, not when the check that keeps him alive is on the line.

Anyhow, so this guy was a dick to me. Being me, I resisted for a bit, just to prove my point that he was being a dick and I didn’t have to do what he said, and then got up and left because I had to get to school anyhow.

Fast forward to last week. As I was passing the place, I noticed a sign out front that said “under new management”. Good, I thought. That asshole is gone.

So imagine my joy this week when I saw that there was a new, much larger sign, in a much, much larger font,and it read “Now under SUPER COOL and VERY FRIENDLY new management!”.

Ahhh, sweet sweet vindication. What that sign said to me was “Yes, Michael, that guy WAS an asshole, so much so that we need to reassure people that we are TOTALLY NOT LIKE THAT!”.

That makes me so damned happy. It’s like when Zellers had signs and ads talking about their “new, clean, wide, brightly lit aisles” and “easy to find, helpful staff” now. That was them tacitly admitting that the two biggest complaints people have had about the big Z (cramped dirtyaisles and mythical staff) were valid and they had now addressed them.

I attribute that to big box places like Wal-Mart moving into the same areas as Zellers and crushing them via competition through such underhanded, cheating tactics as “having much lower prices”, “making sure the staff actually does their job”, and worst of all, “not actively punishing people for shopping there”.

Those Americans, with their big ideas.

Then again, I have resented Zellers ever since they replaced my beloved Towers Department Store in my hometown mall.

It wasn’t exactly Rodeo Drive, but it was eons ahead of Zellers’ bullshit.

It says something about a chain when K-mart seems like the classier, more upscale choice.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.