If you thought garages are meant for cars and engine oils, this one is about a garage that’s too busy managing the crowd to even care about being paid. Read on…
Forget serving others, this Garage needs servicing
So I have a question for you. What do you do when your friends tell you that you’ll be drinking in someone’s garage tonight? Ignore them thinking they are drunk already? Yup. I did exactly that. To my surprise though, they were serious. It’s called Toto’s Garage.
I’ve had enough. I kid you not. This was going to stop now. This is where I was going to draw the line and end this silly ploy of theirs of taking me to cringe-worthy places. But then one of them tells me how Toto’s had a place in history since it has been there forever, and I grudgingly agreed. I still wore my combat boots, though. Damn my friends for knowing me so well.
I reached later than usual because it’s so tiny, that my driver and I missed it twice. My friend standing outside waving and yelling my name, on the third time, sort of caught my eye. We already had a table inside so that wasn’t the problem. The problem arose when we were getting in. We couldn’t. We physically couldn’t enter. Pushing, elbowing, stepping and getting stepped on finally got us in the door and to our table.
You know, how I usually talk (okay fine, crib) about the décor, seating, and the fashion sense of the person who clothed the servers? Yeah, that’s not happening this time. Not because I wasn’t my usual observant self but, because I couldn’t freaking see. No I did not unexpectedly lose my eyesight. You guessed it. The sea of humans pulsating around me made looking around a futile exercise.
Surprisingly, we had quite the decent night; as much as one could expect from a place that actually looks like a freaking garage on the inside. The food and drink was passable, nothing you can’t tell from the bar next door. (Funnily enough, there apparently is another shady joint next door).
Until the check arrived, that is. I should have known. Expecting even a single problem free night from the ‘burbs is clearly too much to ask for. We all chipped in our share of the check and waited for the server to collect it. And then we waited. And waited. And we waited some more, had a smoke and did everything possible to catch the server’s eye short of gouging it out but to no avail.
And then we did something I am not proud of; something I have never done before. We left without paying. There, I said it. We looked at each other and just walked out. And nobody stopped us. Go figure. If only places we really gave a shit about were like this.
Where? 30th Rd, Bandra West, Mumbai
