Ed W.
Yelp
As a preface, I was first taken to an ES at the market in downtown LA by a friend a few years ago, and my initial disgust with the blatant misogynistic bigotry of the place's name was outweighed by the undeniably outstanding flavor of their burgers and the sloppy-good eggs they put on top of them. That name still rankles (if they wanted to be all edgy and stuff they should've swapped two letters and just opted for "EggLust.") But a few days ago - on a Friday - I needed to go to the anthill which downtown Glendale has been transformed into by its "city planners"; I was hungry, there it was, and there was only one other party seated way at the back, so...
No indication of any problems at first, I just walked up and did the order. The guy at the till seemed friendly enough, and I added the 20% tip option despite the fact that it pushed the bill to the neighborhood of an incredible $40 for one person - because as a working man I understand that people working in the hospitality business don't always get the support they deserve.
So I picked up the order and sat down at the counter facing the front windows. That's when things started getting weird. When I unwrapped the burger to dig in, I noticed an unmistakable sound from the kitchen staff behind me. It's that sound I've heard coming from random haters and bullies all my life, their signature sound of giggly, giddy anticipation of doing something rotten to a victim. It was weird but I just shined it on. When I took my first bite two things happened: The kitchen staff started up with raucous laughter - again with that unmistakable tinge of contemptuous malice - and the egg and a bunch of other slippery stuff slid right out onto the plate. Since my body was in the way they didn't see that, just the fact that I'd taken a bite, so that wasn't the reason they were laughing.
I turned around and everybody behind that counter was looking right at me and laughing at me.
Very, very weird.
So my first thought was that maybe the cook blew a wad of phlegm onto the burger when he was putting it together, and that that was the big joke. Or maybe he dropped it on the floor and put it back on the bun. Or maybe they just thought I looked funny or something? Whatever. When you get hit with this kind of unprovoked derision from the kitchen you realize that any of the above is speculation, and that short of packing the food up in a plastic bag and taking it to a lab for analysis there's no way to know for sure. In hindsight I really think somebody should.
Because I was hungry and all of the slimy stuff had slid onto the plate - along with the egg, which unlike the rest was pretty definitively yellow - I just ate the burger patties and the bun, and hit the road. I figured if that's what they actually did, well unless I get sick I should maybe thank the guy for the extra protein? "What does not kill me makes me stronger," don'cha know.
It also got me thinking to motive, so what would it be? Boredom? Garden-variety malice? Maybe they didn't like the color of my skin? (Everybody back there was a different ethnicity than mine, incidentally. I really have no use for any of that "ethnic identity" trivia, for myself or for anybody else, but at the same time I realize that for a lot of people in LA, their racial trivia is a big, big deal.) Whatever.
All I can do is present what I experienced. But the two things I do know with absolute certainty is that 1.) the staff of this EggSlut location are completely unsupervised and out of control, and 2.) this will be the last time I ever go near any EggSlut, anywhere, unless I hear reports of new ownership and a top-to-bottom housecleaning. I have plenty of alternate options that do not include *this*.
It's a tangential thing, but I think every restaurant kitchen in the country should have mandatory video monitoring and that anybody caught actually tainting food should be brought up on felony charges. But that's just me.
I go to a restaurant for nourishment and maybe a few minutes of relaxation. I don't go to a restaurant to be attacked, in any way, by a malicious staff.
Something else I noticed is a placard on the wall that announces, seemingly proudly, that they will not accept cash. (see attached pic.)
So add EggSlut to that small clutch of businesses that have clicked their heels and adopted the Orwellian-fascist model of "digital currency" and therefore total forfeiture of our financial privacy. That's a separate thing, but another kick in the gut from these people.
And all of this is a shame, because EggLust makes some seriously tasty burgers, maybe even as good as 5 Guys or In-n-Out. When you're *just* getting the burger, that is. But never again. "Disgust" doesn't even scratch the surface here.
[Addendum: Based on the identical canned response I'm seeing beneath every negative review I'm pretty sure that ES management will say they've "missed the mark here" yadayada. These people just do not care.]