Over the July 4th weekend, Andrea and I decided we’d head downtown for an evening out. We’ve lived in the area for four years now and frequently heard good things about Luigis, an Italian restaurant conveniently located within a block of most of the strip clubs. It was pretty early, maybe 5:30 or 6:00, so we knew we’d be able to park right in front of the restaurant. Try THAT in a big city!
Driving down Broad Street towards Luigis, we noticed something odd for a saturday evening: it didn’t look like anything was open. We got to Luigis and it didn’t look open, either. The sign in the door informed us they were closed for the holiday weekend. Come to think of it, I vaguely remember places being closed last 4th of July weekend as well.
We headed back up Broad Street and found a grand total of THREE places open in downtown Augusta: Bees Knees, White Elephant Cafe, and Mellow Mushroom. The rest of the restaurants need a lesson in the SERVICE BUSINESS. Consistency counts. If I can’t count on you being open when I try to eat at your establishment, I am not very likely to go back. I would love to go downtown for the small town character and to watch people stroll by, but if you’re not open, there are no people to watch because HARDLY ANYONE LIVES DOWNTOWN. No one lives downtown because there is no place you can get coffee on a Sunday morning, or beer on a Sunday afternoon. They really need to get it together or Augusta is going to continue its slide into irrelevance and obscurity.
But how was parking?
We ended up at White Elephant Cafe that evening, parked about 10 meters from the door.