Amuse-Biatch Report from the Trencher: Spike “Asshat” Mendelsohn’s Establishment Beset by Asshattery

The Army of Possums is out there, possums, and not surprisingly, they have teeth. Possum "R." had the misfortune to happen upon the not so aptly named Good Stuff Eatery, the Washington, D.C., eatery recently opened by Spike Mendelsohn. This is R.'s account of the experience:

I work on Capitol Hill and decided to stop by…for a milkshake (I was NOT waiting in line to eat lunch at a joint owned by Spike) and…my experience [can be summed up with the verdict:] incredibly incompetent staff. I ordered what was advertised as a dulce-de-leche shake. I assumed this is what was meant by the "D-lechable leche" on the menu, which sounds a little bit too much like “lecher” and less like “delectable” than I’m sure Spike intended. The poor boy, bless his heart, is no Shakespeare. I ordered the lecher's shake because they didn’t have any malt left, and a malt was what I really wanted; they seemed to be out of EVERYTHING and it ended up tasting much more like butterscotch than dulce de leche.

Also, when we arrived (a colleague was with me) at approximately 3:15, a crudely hand-written sign on the door said they were closed from 3:30-5:30 to get ready for the dinner rush. I went to open the door and a group of employees sitting outside said they were closed. I pointed to the sign and noted that it was 3:15. They said they weren’t serving anything. When I noted that I only wanted a milkshake, they relented and let me in. But then the two very young (maybe even high-school-aged) girls behind the counter repeated the fact that they were closed, before someone appearing to be a manager walked by and said it was O.K. The service didn’t really improve much from there.

A colleague had gone by for a carry-out lunch the previous day – I think it was opening day – and had the patience to wait in line. Spike himself made her salad. All his salads are iceberg-wedge-based – which, besides being utterly unoriginal (it’s very 1999-chichi-Northeastern-steakhouse) also created a problem for takeout orders. My colleague said all her salad’s toppings had migrated to the bottom of the carry-out container by the time she got back to the office and actually ate the thing.

All we can say, possums, is that we’re not surprised by the asshattery. Our thanks to R. for sending in that report. At the risk of sounding a little Doug Llewellyn, we ask you, possums, to oblige us: if you happen to eat somewhere where a cheftestant has had a hand in the food, do like R. and send us a write-up of the experience.