Thursday, February 12, 2009

"B" is for Burgers, Bar Food, Beer, and Boredom: The Yard House, Long Beach


"What are you doing?" I asked my fellow unemployed friend and ranter R on the phone.

"Nothing," he replied.

"Wanna have lunch?"

"Sure!"

If you've ever been unemployed, the drill is probably all too familiar. The first week or so are spent clearing your head of sadness or anger or whatever emotions your former employer's actions hath wrought upon you. The second week is spent getting down to business on updating the resume you hadn't updated since you started the job you just got fired from, applying to every job that's out there regardless of whether or not you are qualified, and writing cheesy cover letters that are borderline brown-nosing. The third week on out, all the job postings start to look the same. Why? Because they
are the same. OK, maybe one or two new ones show up each day, but those resumes and cover letters are surely not flying out at the same speed they did the week prior. More importantly, no one is calling.

And so begins the boredom.

I've already cleaned my house, done all my laundry, compiled all my tax return paperwork, organized my desk. All that was left to do was take advantage of the weekday afternoons that had previously been spent in an office cubicle, which is pretty much how R and I ended up at The Yard House in Long Beach one Thursday afternoon.

Located in a tourist-trappy part of Long Beach near the Queen Mary and the Long Beach Aquarium, it's a surefire bet for mainstream-and-mediocrity as far as food is concerned. Something which on this particular day, however, was totally fine with me. There we were, my ex co-worker and I, relaxing on a lovely Thursday afternoon on the restaurant's outdoor patio overlooking the Long Beach marina, just ranting away--about the job market and the economy, about people back at the office, about getting old, about his dating life--something that any of us at that office only wished we could have done on a weekday afternoon. My BBQ Bacon and Cheese Burger was just fine, as was my friend's Classic Cheese Burger and our sides of fries, cut not-quite-as-thin-as-shoestring style and fried to a nice golden crisp. And with about 250 beers on tap, we just couldn't go wrong.

Cheers to unemployment! (While our severance is still in effect, anyways)

The Yard House
401 Shoreline Village Drive
Long Beach, CA 90802
(562) 628-0455
www.yardhouse.com


2 comments:

Passionate Eater said...

Gosh DG, I missed your sarcasm and wit so much! There are more bloggers that have been unemployed than you know. Keep up the posting and the inspiration, and keep spewing the rants!

Daily Gluttony said...

Thanks PE! It's nice to get back into the food blogging world--i missed it! Ugh, I'm sure there are more than one of us that's unemployed. The economy sucks so bad! Are you still in New Orleans?

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