Seal Rock Sucks

Yesterday three men in their seventies (me, my brother and our cousin) spent a fine morning bicycling in San Francisco and then, exhausted, stopped to have lunch at the Seal Rock Inn, up the hill from the Cliff House. Our plan was to meet there with my daughter and her husband, but we had arrived early. We decided to get a table and buy something to drink.  The hostess of this rather shabby cafe told us that we could not sit down until the rest of our party joined us. There were many tables open, but we were left standing, saving money, tired, for about 20 minutes. Then my daughter and her husband walked in (they live up the block), and we re-entered the Seal Rock (plenty of open tables).  No one appeared to seat us. We stood in the doorway for about five minutes, and finally an old Asian man noticed us and came over and told us to take table six, pointing to it. We started forward and suddenly an even ruder hostess jumped in front of us and told us to stop. I tried to explain that an old man had authorized us to sit at table six, but she told us sharply that we could not sit down. She wasn't ready for us. At that point I realized we were in a cafe that hired mental cases as servers, and I turned and led our people out. Sarah suggested we go to Mel's Diner (once featured in AMERICAN GRAFFITI). Everyone at Mel's was relaxed, friendly and helpful. Much much better.