The Tribune

By ALICIA WALLACE

A FEW weeks ago, I spent a few days in Chicago—a city known for its beautiful summers, walkability, and excellent dining options. From the famous deep dish pizza to burgers and peculiarly dressed hotdogs to completely vegan takeaways and fine dining restaurants, the most challenging part of a foodie trip is deciding what to eat and what to leave for another time.

A friend, who lives about an hour outside of the city of Chicago, strongly recommended that I have lunch or dinner at Lula Cafe. Lula Cafe’s website offers an interesting description. “With self taught chefs and a willingness to cook against categorization, the menu at Lula has grown into a kind of humble maturity, risky but grounded, a boheme bistro of the unclassifiable kind.” The menu includes several vegetarian options including watermelon & sweet peppers, coal roasted eggplant, heirloom tomato salad, and baked French feta.

The restaurant is both small and popular, so there’s often a wait. When I found it on the map, I noted that it’s next door to City Lit Books, and I am always looking for new bookstores to visit. For that reason, I opted for an early dinner. I made the reservation, got in the area early, and browsed City Lit Books (where I saw The Lula Cafe Cookbook for sale) until it was time to be seated.

At the door, I was greeted by very friendly staff, who quickly showed me to my table. Dining solo, I expected them to offer me a seat at the bar or in a cramped corner, but I was pleasantly surprised when I was welcomed to a table for two in the middle of one of the dining areas. It was difficult to decide on a selection for my dinner, but the server was helpful and suggested I choose one small plate and one large plate or two small plates, especially if I wanted dessert. (There’s no point to dinner without dessert, is there?)

The food was fantastic, the service was prompt and friendly without being invasive, and the busyness of the restaurant did not turn into a rush to turnover tables. It was a great experience.

My next dinner adventure was at Demera, an Ethiopian restaurant in the Uptown areas of Chicago. The restaurant’s website says, “For many of the guests experiencing Demera Ethiopian Restaurant for the first time or as repeat customers, what impresses and fascinates them the most is not only the exciting flavors, excellent service, and exotic traditions of Ethiopia but also the experience of communal “family-style” hand-eaten meals shared among family and friends.”

Demera has a vegan menu, in addition to its wide variety of meat options. It includes ingudai tips (sautéed mushrooms with garlic, onions and ginger), shiro (mixed legumes prepared with ginger root, rue, bishops weed and garlic), and kayseer tips (sautéed garden beets and carrots seasoned with cinnamon). I opted for the bayaynetu for one, which is a sample of all vegan options along with injera.

The service was impeccable, the food came quickly, and the server was quick to respond to minor issues. She made a suggestion for dessert and a nonalcoholic beverage, but I did not like them. There was nothing particularly wrong with either, but they were not to my liking. I made no mention of it, but she noticed it and insisted that they be taken off of the bill. “If you don’t like, you should not pay for it,” she said.

I recall these pleasant experiences as I navigate a difficult one, among many challenging experiences, in this country. A person I know very well told me about a horrendous experience they had a popular restaurant in Palmdale. They had gone through a particularly difficult morning and decided to take a break between tasks, stopping for a meal at a place they patronized many times. This is a place that is always busy, and rather frequently gets things wrong with orders of four or more items. I know this because I have collected orders from people in workshops and other day-long projects, called them in, picked them up, and had to return to correct parts of the order.

This person ordered a burger. The burger came cold. It’s a terrible idea to eat a cold burger, both because it is disgusting and it can have health consequences. They let the server know, quietly and politely, that the burger was cold. The server took the plate, but they watched as the server went to the window, gesticulating angrily, saying nothing was wrong with the burger, as if he had taken a bite of it himself. The customer, upset by this and trying to move on, went back to the cashier, placing a new order for a different meal. It was served with something extra. Salt. Loads and loads of salt. This was not what we might call “highly seasoned” or a case of salt being concentrated in one area.

It was deliberately, maliciously salted. This was a vindictive act by a person working in the food and beverage industry. The person, upset and unwilling to deal with it in the moment, did not approach the staff again.

I have patronized the business myself and would have liked to continue, if only the bakery section, since I have found the lunches lacking since the business expanded—a common occurrence. As such, I took the time to visit and speak with the owner. He insisted that his staff could not have done this. In fact, he said “I would put my hand in fire for the people that cook the pasta.” He said there are cameras, so no one would do such a thing.

I showed him the receipt with the date and timestamp and suggested he look at the footage. It became clear that he was uninterested in pursuing this issue because he did not want to admit that it happened. I told him that the staff person—who I described and could actually identify myself because I have seen his bad attitude before—needed to be addressed immediately.

I do not generally push for people to be fired, but in the case of mishandling food and taking malicious action against customers by tampering with their food, it should be guaranteed. If a disgruntled employee does something so disgusting and identifiable as adding an absurd amount of salt to a customer’s food, in a country with high rates of hypertension and other noncommunicable diseases, what might they do that is not detectable? What recourse is there for customers when they experience this kind of disservice, both despicable and dangerous?

Far too many people are full of anger and seek to express it in ways that do not dissolve it, but attempt to transfer it to other people. They frequently act with impunity. There’s no fear of consequences. They know there’s no recourse. Whether it’s because they are the owner, the owner’s son, or the only person who can perform particular tasks, they use their positions recklessly, with no regard for what they destroy.

Many Bahamian businesses are crumbling and many more will crumble, because of the failure of management and business owners to address issues with care. The options may be few, but we do have options on this small island. More and more, people will move back to cooking for themselves because most of the restaurants and takeaways are inconsistent and couldn’t care less about the customer experience.

Every now and then, business owners need to visit other businesses like their own and take notes. What works well? What doesn’t work so well? What’s being done here that I haven’t considered? How would my customers respond to this? What can I learn from this way of operating? Step outside, see another way, and take the opportunity to evolve and innovate.

Right now, Bahamians may support based on name and reputation, but one bad experience is all it takes for someone to decided they never need to eat a gyro from that place on the corner ever again.

Recommendations

1.    Shakespeare in Paradise. A highlight of every year, this theater festival takes place at The Dundas Center for the Performing Arts on Mackey Street from September to October. This year, the Shakespeare production is The Merry Wives of Windsor, running at just one hour and injected with dancehall music and humor, much to the delight of elder millennials. There are tickets available for the show on Friday, October 2 at 8pm. Short Tales is an evening of 10 short plays by both seasoned and completely new writers with a broad range of themes. Tickets are available for the show on Thursday, October 1 and Saturday, October 3, both at 8pm. The other productions during the festival include Sizwe Banzi is Dead (with tickets available for Tuesday, October 6, Thursday, October 8, and Saturday, October 10) and First Comes Mourning (with tickets available for Friday, October 9, Saturday, October 10, and Sunday, October 11). Go to tickettailor.com/events/shakespeareinparadise to purchase tickets.

2.    Kin by Tayari Jones. Join Feminist Book Club, hosted by Equality Bahamas and Poinciana Paper Press, is reading Kin, the latest book by the author of the bestselling novel An American Marriage. People said, “Jones’s dazzling novel traces the complex range of the Black experience—rich and poor, queer and straight, blessed and cursed—in the Jim Crow South.” Kin was a 2026 Kirkus Prize for Fiction finalist. The publisher says, “A novel about mothers and daughters, friendship and sisterhood, and the complexities of being a woman in the American South, Kin is an exuberant, emotionally rich, unforgettable work from one of the brightest and most irresistible voices in contemporary fiction.” Get your copy of the book and join the meeting on Wednesday, October 28 at 6pm to discuss it. Register to receive Feminist Book Club updates and meeting information at tiny.cc/fbc2026.

3.    Rhythm & Rhyme. The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas describes its event as “an evening of rhythm, movement, and powerful storytelling inspired by the works of Patricia Glinton-Meicholas.” Spend the evening outdoors, in Fiona’s Theater at the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas, enjoying the artistic expression of Terran Brice, Kevanté A.C. Cash, Shara Goldsmith, Princess Pratt, Tanicia Pratt, and Ubuntu on Thursday, October 8, 7 to 9pm.