Melt Sandwich Shoppe

It snowed last night. I've always loved seeing how the snow outlines the trees. I like the blanket of quiet the snow brings with it--so peaceful. I took a long walk this afternoon, wandering around Bucktown, meandering my way past beautiful single family homes and townhouses. It's a lovely neighborhood with lots of people walking around.

I stopped for lunch at Melt Sandwich Shoppe on Damen and all but ran home to write about it. What an awful experience. The decor is interesting--schoolhouse themed--and I appreciate the extent to which the theme is carried out. They have chalkboard walls, menus printed on looseleaf, cafeteria tables and chairs. But that's where my enjoyment ended. The person taking lunch orders was obviously impersonating a surly lunch lady, and she played the part very well. There were signs everywhere yelling at the customers: CASH ONLY! NO RESTROOMS! USE INSIDE VOICES! I should have turned away when faced with that wave of condescending chatter, but I had just read an article about forgiveness so I decided to carry on. I asked to use the restroom (I hadn't yet seen the sign). The lunchlady's smartass comment was that they "don't have one because it isn't in the code." Maybe they should read the Yelp reviews--everyone else out there has complained about this as well. I paid $11(!!) for a sandwich and a soda and took my seat at one of the cafeteria tables.

The food was absolutely tasteless--gooey cheese which looked delicious but tasted like nothing. Absolutely nothing, which made the reason they had about twenty different types of hot sauce available make a little more sense. I had an avocado on my sandwich, or so I was told. I couldn't find any evidence of an extra dollar's worth of avocado--tiny green flecks the size of diced onion mixed in with the cheese gave me hope that there was some avocado somewhere to be found, but I couldn't taste it through the grease.

I finished my food and quickly left--the music was about four levels too loud and after such a thoroughly unpleasant experience, I had no incentive to linger. My advice: don't even bother. If you want a grilled cheese fix, go to Cheesie's Pub and Grub in Wrigleyville and stop by Cesar's for a killer margarita afterward. That's an excellent combination.