Qdoba

This Qdoba at 1150 N.Water Street, Milwaukee, in the heart of Water Street bar hell may technically be the closest taco joint to Stately Wayne Manor so I felt an obligation to check it out and soon, even though I consider it a fast food chain and generally stay far away from fast food chains—though eventually I'm going to have to drag myself to a Taco Hell. As usual, entering these places I feel alienated, like I don't know the procedure, where do you order, what do you do, and the sign boards are so caught up in trying to be graphic design-y cool and kind of insiderish, even, it's not comforting in the least... it's assumed that you're young, and you've been coming here since high school and know the drill.

But fortunately for me, a guy working here was really helpful and actually very nice, helped me figure out how to order tacos, which I did, and it all went smoothly. I got a couple (new thing?) brisket tacos, with habanero sauce, so from one of those or both you're getting some smoke flavor, and as we all know (for whatever reason) nothing is as delicious as smoke. So it was a couple decent, tasty tacos, I was happy. The corn tortilla was not the best but I was just happy they had corn tortillas at all, as most gringos get flour tortillas. Plus, I got a Fanta soda, orange, which, because it's “Mexican” soda, made with sugar instead of corn syrup, I guess... but it cost $2.30! What is that? But I guess we're in a time in history now where a bottled beer at a bar cost $7 (which is INSANE to me) so maybe $2.30 for a nostalgic soda at a fast food place is reasonable?

Sitting at the usual, hard, cold, oversized, not fit for human fast food booth I looked around and was kind of appalled with the décor, the graphics, the signage, and the music (popular, top 40ish crap)—even the view out the window was of hideous Water Street and the human puke-trough of a bar strip. But the worst thing was this plastic sign thing on the table—you know those, so they can switch in and out the latest ads for themselves—and it was for the brisket meat I was eating, and suggesting a “pairing” with sweet iced tea... in itself not a bad idea... what the fuck, “pairing?” Does McDonald's now suggest PAIRING a cheeseburger with milkshake? Well, I guess if you're expecting your everyday world to keep getting more surreal, this does not disappoint.

The last thing I was thinking was how much money they must spend on paying design people for every last horrible detail of places like this, from the sound to the colors, to the ugly mismatched fonts and uncomfortable seating, to the “ideas” of how to make a fast food place try to justify your overpriced fast food dollars. But the most important thing here (even more than the food, though the food needs to be okay and not make you ill) is the people working, almost more so than a place with proper table waitstaff, the counter workers are really pretty much everything in a place like this. I used to not think so much about it, but that IS the experience, it's the human interaction. And you know they're not being paid well. Places like this should really concentrate on this aspect of the experience, not the horrible graphic design which looks basically the same everywhere. They should be emphasizing the costumer experience part that is based on the interaction with employees, and they should be paying everyone much, much more, accordingly.