Another visit to Maxwell's

Last Saturday, my wife was working and I didn't feel like cooking so I fought hard to convince the kids to let me take them to Maxwell's Tavern (and not McDonald's) for dinner. It was a tough haul, but I finally won my youngest over.

We arrived about 5.30ish; I was thinking it was early enough to avoid much of a delay in getting seated. Had it been later, I would never have attempted because I am not one who enjoys waiting to get seated at restaurants.

Unfortunately for me (but fortunately for Maxwell's), this was not the case. While waiting in line to put my name in, a party of three who came in shortly after us just walked up and put their name in. They literally were seated within a minute while my party of three waited. Following his lead (while also silently cursing them), I put in our name hoping to score one of the two empty tables right in front of the door.

Unfortunately for me again, these tables were combined and given to a larger party that came in after me as well. While I somewhat understand this, it didn't please me. We ultimately ended up waiting another 15-20 minutes to get seated.

After finally getting seated, everything (atmosphere and service) was fine for us, but probably not those still waiting. (Some seemed like they were waiting for most of our dinner.) As for our dinner, we were particularly fond of the Wisconsin Cheddar soup; if you like cheese and soup, you can't go wrong.

My small recommendations:

* For the hungry, if you don't like waiting, either go early or late, especially on busy weekends. Or consider take-out.

* For Maxwell's, if there's a way for the hostesses to come out from behind the box to take names of incoming customers as they arrive, that would be a good way to minimize the surliness level of certain customers.