” . . . when considering tips.” That’s the all-caps caveat on the bottom of the hot-pink Summer 2003 menu for Room Service, L.L.C., of Jackson, Mississippi.
The menu is mostly “sammies,” salads, and soups, with a deep variety of ingredients per sandwich (twelve for the Vegemite, including avocado and sprouts) and breads (seven, including croissants and Hawai’ian bread).
It’s down the street from me in Fondren, right under neighborhood dive the Recovery Room and across the street from Que Sera Sera—but I have to admit that until last week I’d never been inside, or even eaten there.
Well, you can’t eat inside—it’s just pick-up and delivery. I always felt a bit guilty since indy-rock All American Josh Little works there and has given me a ride home out of that very parking lot. He played in Jax notables the Eunuchs and Three Trojans, and he pops up three times on the forthcoming Jackson Skyline—once solo and then in powerhouse Storms for St. Louis and hometaped Flying Shoes (with his wife!). So I was hoping to see him and get some good French Onion soup.
I didn’t see Josh, but I did get some good soup, and I started grinning about thirty seconds after walking into the narrow passage that leads to the kitchen and pick-up area. It’s decorated floor to ceiling with Elvis photos and memorabilia, which got me right off the bat, and a host of framed letters. From famous people? I thought. Aw, hell no! A typical letter read:
Dear Room Service,
I have been a customer for years, but I will never again eat your food. Your driver yesterday yelled at me, cussed at me, and then threw my food on the ground. When I called you to complain, you told me to “stop being so (curse) cheap” and hung up on me. I am also calling the Better Business Bureau.
There were about twenty of them—all expertly framed and hung right where everybody could read them. That, my friends, is what Madison Avenue tries so desperately to package and market, and we’ve got it in the basement of a trashy bar in Mississippi: straight-up careless cool.
i used to know someone who’d say “come on inside and let mommy fixchew a sammie.”