Two Asians and a White Girl Get Free Pizza

No, we did not color coordinate

Ming was back in Chicago for a weekend. So obviously our plans included eating and drinking. Friday night started off a bit of a mess but it can only go up from there, right?

The plan was dinner at Lou Malnati's in River North at 8pm. Since they don't take reservations and we had a party of 8, we figured there'd be a bit of a wait. We were originally told an hour and 15 minutes to an hour and a half so we pre-ordered pizza so it would be ready when we were seated. An hour and a half later, we get a phone call...but no, it was just to let us know we were the "next large group" and about 27 minutes until our table was ready. About the 2 hour mark (maybe longer, I wasn't keeping track), we finally get an [automated] call that our table was ready only to walk inside and find out they still didn't have a table for us. Keep in mind that some people hadn't eaten since lunch so we were all pretty fed up with the situation. The manager offered to seat us at two different tables but at that point we had enough and asked to take our order to-go. To his credit, the manager offered to buy one of our pizzas to make up for it and wound up actually comping the entire meal.

Now I've been replaced :(

Then it was the question of where to eat. A few options were suggested, including the Accenture offices, which would have been hilarious but who knows if we would have gotten past security since we were very clearly not there to work. In the end, we settled on Ming's hotel as they gave us permission to use their dining area. After a couple of minutes while everyone focused on chewing, we started to rally. Free food, drinks and a party playlist does wonders for your mood.

The rest of the night was fairly uneventful. Waited in like for IO at the Godfrey Hotel but decided to go to Epic instead and spend the rest of the night on the Epic rooftop and lounge. Not the greatest view but not bad and the weather was perfect. Good night overall and leading to an interesting Saturday morning...but that's another blog post.

Jess