*** OFFICIAL *** LOL @ Portland Thread

[lol wow]

like legit if you thought mortons was good after 2004 you were from arkansas not palos verdes how did your idiot parents raise you todge

[lol wow]

never mind figured it out looking over at the abyss that was their marriage over a wet aged medium well filet at mortons acknowledging the dying of the light

[monsterj]

Not to hijack the thread, but the decline of Morton's Steakhouse really saddened me.

In the early 90s I was on a flight, travelling alone with a plane full of strangers. I passed the time by looking through the lol inflight magazine, and saw an ad for Morton's. It was advertising the Chicago location, which was the original. It didn't mention an LA location, which either didn't exist yet or just wasn't part of that ad. It looked so good in the pictures, and I wanted to try it, but I had no occasion to be in Chicago or the other cities advertised.

Fast forward to 1997, and I finally got to try Morton's. It was the best steak I ever had. My then-girlfriend, who was dining with me that night, agreed about the steak. The sides were also all prepared perfectly, and each one of them tasty. The service was highly attentive and highly accurate. It was the steakhouse I had always dreamed of.

For the rest of the '90s and early 2000s, I kept going to Morton's, both in Beverly Hills and Las Vegas. It was still excellent, though I started to notice a few cracks. The meals were no longer as flawless as they were in the '90s. Perhaps the most upsetting part was that the impeccable service, while still maintaining the air of phony friendliness, was now getting slower and more mistake-prone. I tried to convince myself that these were just outlier visits, and that Morton's was still great.

However, in Phoenix in 2005, I finally realized the Morton's I once knew was no longer.

I was dining with a large party, I think about 10 people. The entire meal was a comedy of errors -- even with a pitcher of ice water accidentally being poured on someone (fortunately not me). Every steak was either undercooked or overcooked. They kept bringing the wrong sides, forgetting custom instructions, and having to ask the table who ordered what. Even after the manager got involved and promised things would get better, they didn't. At the end of the meal, I was sure that the manager would be highly embarrassed about this complete service disaster, and either offer to comp the entire thing, or at least offer 50% off. Instead, he approached and said, "Sorry for all the trouble. I know this hasn't been our best night. How about free desserts for the table?"

My heart sank. Not only was the meal frustrating and stressful for everyone, and a dude had ice water all over his pants, but it also took much longer because they couldn't get anyone's steaks right. We had a 4-figure bill and dude is talking about free dessert. Brutal.

When I objected and asked if they could comp some of the meal, I got surprising (albeit polite) pushback. Finally the manager admitted that "comping this kind of dollar amount is above what I'm authorized", and said we would have to speak to the district manager the next day. I told him that most of us were leaving town the next day, and it would be hard to settle amongst ourselves with an after-the-fact refund. (Also, restaurants hate giving this after you've already paid, but I didn't mention that part.) I told him that, as manager of a prime steakhouse, he has to have more authorization than he's claiming, or at least be able to reach someone who does.

We sat around for 20 minutes while I watched him make frantic phone calls. Finally he got someone and got the ok to give us half off our meal, but not before first trying to offer 25% with the justification of, "I know it took awhile, but we eventually got everything right." We refused, and finally got the 50%. Everyone swore they were done with Morton's forever.

Just shameful. The 1997 Morton's would have taken the overpaid servers and incompetent chefs out back and beaten them beyond recognition for the meal we had at the 2005 Phoenix Morton's.

I thought maybe it was just Phoenix. I tried Morton's Beverly Hills one more time a few years later. Not nearly as bad as the Phoenix meal, but it was still rife with mistakes, and the steaks just weren't that great. I gave up.

It turned out that Morton's suffered from what I call the "uncanny valley of medium size operations". This plagues a lot of small businesses as they grow. When Morton's had relatively few locations, they were able to strictly manage them and assert higher standards. However, as they kept adding locations, it became too difficult to keep tight quality control, yet at the same time they weren't big enough to put in a real upper management structure. Morton's ended up taking on all the problems of a big chain restaurant while also lacking the quality control structure of those big chains. Today they're owned by Landry's, so it's not as bad as it was in the mid-late 2000s, but of course is no longer special like it was in the late 20th century.

RIP 1990s Morton's

I used to eat at Mortons weekly in Chicago. Best happy hour in the city. 9 bucks for 3 filet mignon sliders. Yessir

[OK2]

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[Sloppy Joe]

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Black lesbians attacking elderly Asians is objectively funny btw.

[OK2]

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Black lesbians attacking elderly Asians is objectively funny btw.

100% Agree

[gauchojake]

I was in Portland recently for work. Wife wanted to come with the kids because she had never been. I tried to tell her to skip it, but she wouldn't listen. She decided to take the kids downtown via the train. LoL

They got accosted on the train by some bum talking about how the whites enslaved his people. They had to deke him into thinking they were getting off the train and then hop back on to ditch him. Then they got chased across a street by some other bum and had to dip into a restaurant to evade him. There's literally private security so that businesses can stay open because the cops either won't do anything or don't exist.

We live in LA where homelessness is rampant but this was another level.

[gut]

I was in Portland recently for work. Wife wanted to come with the kids because she had never been. I tried to tell her to skip it, but she wouldn't listen. She decided to take the kids downtown via the train. LoL

They got accosted on the train by some bum talking about how the whites enslaved his people. They had to deke him into thinking they were getting off the train and then hop back on to ditch him. Then they got chased across a street by some other bum and had to dip into a restaurant to evade him. There's literally private security so that businesses can stay open because the cops either won't do anything or don't exist.

We live in LA where homelessness is rampant but this was another level.

I'll take the train occasionally to the airport, but avoid it like the plague day-to-day. A common misconception (which i suppose is true in some other cities) is that the Train is "better" than a bus. Complete opposite here. I take the bus regularly and its 99% just normal people on there. Train, since pandemic at least, has no supervision and bums literally will just camp out on one.

[Sloppy Joe]

I was in Portland recently for work. Wife wanted to come with the kids because she had never been. I tried to tell her to skip it, but she wouldn't listen. She decided to take the kids downtown via the train. LoL

They got accosted on the train by some bum talking about how the whites enslaved his people. They had to deke him into thinking they were getting off the train and then hop back on to ditch him. Then they got chased across a street by some other bum and had to dip into a restaurant to evade him. There's literally private security so that businesses can stay open because the cops either won't do anything or don't exist.

We live in LA where homelessness is rampant but this was another level.

I'll take the train occasionally to the airport, but avoid it like the plague day-to-day. A common misconception (which i suppose is true in some other cities) is that the Train is "better" than a bus. Complete opposite here. I take the bus regularly and its 99% just normal people on there. Train, since pandemic at least, has no supervision and bums literally will just camp out on one.

Portland is an abject disaster but was in Seattle last night for a concert and think it's actually worse. The stench of piss outside on city streets in major tourist areas was nauseating.

Walked to the fish market and there was dozens of homeless openly shooting up and sprawled all over the road in front of a Ross and McDonald's. Alleys looked like film sets out of zombie films filled with junkies nodding off. I've seen some open drug use in Portland but Seattle was an absolute free for all.

Would never dream of taking my child there in those conditions. End times.