I always thought the primary reason that I go to restaurants is for the food.
Why would I care about anything else? If I don’t like the food that’s being offered at a restaurant, I would never bother to go there. I never really think about the atmosphere, or whether or not it’s climate-controlled in the building. At least, I never used to think about that until recently. Last Friday, I walked into my favorite Mexican restaurant, and I was startled by something I would normally never notice. I was so used to opening those double doors and feeling the whoosh of air-conditioned air wash over me. Instead, I was greeted with heat! It was hotter inside than it was outside. The air was warm and stuffy. Me and my wife looked at each other and shrugged. We were both starving by this time, so we decided to follow through and get a table. Five minutes in, as we were waiting for our drinks, my wife was fanning herself with one of the menus and I felt a bead of sweat trickle-down my brow. When the waiter came with our drinks, I finally asked what had happened to the HVAC system. He said it had been on the fritz since lunchtime, and no repairs would be able to be made until the next day. Needless to say, we enjoyed our refreshing sodas a little more than we would have otherwise. Normally, me and my wife like to order a sizzling plate of fajitas, but we were actually trying to figure out what would be more refreshing at this point. We ended up staying and eating dinner, but we never took for granted air conditioning in a restaurant ever again!