Memorable meal
Lance said it could only have happened in Berkeley. That may be true. It was certainly an extraordinary way to end the day.
We had gone to dinner en famille at a local Italian restaurant, Trattoria La Siciliana, which specialises in large “family” platters of traditional southern Italian fare — spaghetti alla vongole or penne e polpettini, say.
The place is insanely popular and the length of time we had left since our last visit was, I think, enough for us to have banished from our minds just how long the wait inevitably is for a table, and then again for the food to arrive on one’s plate.
There were some grumbles and heavy sighs, but eventually the food arrived, was judged to be worth the wait — just — and we asked for the check. This is when it got interesting.
The waiter told Lance that we did not have to pay for our meal and told us about Tony.
Tony is one of the restaurant’s loyal customers. His father died 11 years ago and, to remember and commemorate him, he decided that every Father’s Day he would pay for the meal of a family with father in tow that dined at La Siciliana. On this Father’s Day, we were the chosen ones.
We could not meet Tony to thank him. He was shy, we were told, and did not want to make a fuss. Naturally we were all quite charmed.
Only in Berkeley? Probably not. But nothing remotely like this has ever happened to me anywhere else.
Thank you Tony.
June 19th, 2006 at 4:04 pm
[...] A day on, hard to believe but true. In memory of his father, someone we don’t know and didn’t meet paid for our dinner at a local restaurant yesterday evening. [...]
June 21st, 2006 at 11:06 pm
What a nice story to read, now that summer is here and your blog rediscovered! Tony picked a wonderful family to bestow his random act of kindness on. I wonder if any families have ever thought of “paying it forward”?