Creepy Restaurant Guy Goes to Jail

My first date with Dave was on Valentine's Day. It just so happened I did not have any plans that Valentine's Day (not actually so out of the ordinary) and he did not even realize it was Valentine's Day when he asked me out. I had been meaning to e-mail my friend "the Roach" and ask him if he wanted to have a poor me I'm single and alone friends night out, but had not ever gotten around to it. I won't go into all the details of the actual asking me out part and how I was planning to say no, no, no but ended up saying yes because that isn't what this post is about.

This post is about the restaurant we went to that first date night of ours. The date wasn't very well planned. We didn't make reservations or anything, he just showed up at my house and we decided to try Outback. The wait at Outback was 3 hours. No kidding. Forget that. So then we were stuck wondering if we were going to have to eat McDonald's and I was struck with a brilliant idea. There was a greasy spoon Mexican dive down the road that had fabulous Mexican food and never a wait. So I suggested it. And Dave thought I was kidding because he used to go to greasy spoon type places with his dad all the time. I guess his dad always refused to eat a chain restaurants. And he fell in love with me right then and there. Okay, again, not the point of the post. We went to the Mexican restaurant and got seated right away, had a wonderful meal with outstanding conversation over which Dave fell in love with me. Okay, I'm kidding. Sort of. But we did always sort of think of it as the place where our relationship started. So to commemorate our love, every year on Valentine's Day, we would go to that Mexican restaurant for dinner. Did I mention they have the best margaritas in town?

But, as the years ticked by (and we were going there a couple times a year), the place started getting kind of gross (sorry no other way to put it). The building had never been all that nice, but the staff and the food started not to be all that nice either and when those start going, you start noticing what a craphole the building is. There was one corner of the place that was actually on a slant. Again, that would be charming if the place had good food. The two servers that had always been there disappeared and the frozen margaritas started having big lumps of ice in them that would clog my straw. It was sad and we kept trying it hoping they would shape up. We were pretty sure the place had changed hands.

So one night probably over a year ago, was the last time we ate there. And the person waiting on us was this strange man who claimed to be the owner and was complaining that all of his servers had called in and he had to wait the tables even though his son's wife had had a baby earlier that day. The food wasn't that great and we decided it was finally time to say good bye to the site of our first love.

Last week we drove by the place and there was a sign out front stating that you could get 10% off your bill if you pay cash for your food. I remarked that it probably wouldn't be long before they would be out of business.

Fast forward to last night when I was reading the local news and I looked at this little blurb with a mugshot of a man in an orange jumpsuit. He looked oddly familiar. And the light went on. Guess who? Yep, the owner of the Mexican restaurant. Ha. He's being charged with the following crimes. #1 For filing a false report about a local police officer shoplifting #2 For selling liquor after his liquor license had been suspended and failing to post notification that his liquor license had been suspended and #3 (this is the best/worst one) for installing a camera in the office at the restaurant and spying on a female employee while she changed. I knew there was something creepy about that guy.