Brown Bag Deli

Look guys I’m going to be honest with you. It’s a secret that I’ve been keeping concealed for this entire blog. But you see... I’m a female. That’s right. A girl. A lady. A woman. And I think we all know what that means, right? It means I can make my own dang sandwiches! This is what makes me disapprove of places like Brown Bag Deli! I don’t need some man to do something I can do perfectly well on my own, and have in fact been training for since I was in utero!  -984!

It’s just. Have you guys been here?? UGH it’s the worst!! So first things first you walk in and there’s an ACTUAL, LITERAL BROWN BAG on a clipboard. I hate when somebody tells me what they’re going to do, and then goes and does exactly that! I hate when things set standards for themselves and then one hundred percent live up to them! -92! So you fill out what you want on the brown bag and then you have two choices: you can A. turn the bag in to the front counter and hand them a specified amount of currency, and they will turn it into a sandwich with a carefully calibrated amount of magic, or you can B. sit at a table as the restaurant slowly fills up with patrons who are actually ready to eat their sandwiches and turn your paper bag into a monster with fangs that talks in a voice that is similar to your voice but still different enough that you can tell it’s a monster talking and not you. Usually I choose the latter. By usually I mean once, and then I went ahead with the first plan later anyway.

It’s just. There’s no dearth of dare I call them restaurants who will take a paper bag that has been filled out with your specifications and then turn them into sandwiches with the aid of witchcraft and moneys. OK I’ll stop with the subtleties I’m referring of course to Which Wich, the most amazing sandwich place in the universe! Can we please have a moment to compare and contrast? Which Wich has thousands of sandwich combinations to choose from. Brown Bag Deli has about fifteen. Which Wich sells really good Oreo shakes. Brown Bag Deli stopped selling Strawberry Fanta. Which Wich would sometimes trade sandwiches for pizzas when I worked at Pink’s. Brown Bag Deli always charges me full price, no matter how much I cry and show off my cleavage. Brown Bag Deli is located on Westheimer, has biodegradable cups, and probably voted for Obama in the last election. Which Wich is located on Richmond, has cardboard cups that you can destroy the environment with, and had a write in vote for Steven Colbert in the last election. Is there any contest here guys? Final tally: Which Wich, +932341, Brown Bag Deli, -1595. The only nice thing I can say about them is that they have the cheddar Sunchips, but you know what? SO DOES WHICH WICH! Take that, BBD!

Plus it’s even worse than all that. I’ve actually been to TWO Brown Bag Delis. There’s that one on Westheimer I was discussing with you. If you go there, you have three choices for parking. You can park in the single non-handicapped spot in front of the store. Or you can park in the side parking, which apparently has no lines to differentiate spots (or at least any that the SUVs who somehow always manage to take up six parking spots at once can see) and is located in a ditch that is always filled with water, or you can park in the behind the store parking, which doesn’t overlook BBD at all but instead the auto shop next to it and run the risk of having your car accidentally worked on while you dine. Actually that last one’s not so bad, but I’m still giving this whole situation a -9. Then there’s the Brown Bag Deli downtown, and I think we all know what a nightmare it is to park downtown! First you have to find a spot that has a working meter. Then you have to somehow manage to parallel park even though you didn’t go to driving school and only learned how to parallel park last summer when you were going to Moon Tower Inn with two of your coworkers. Then you have to eat in less than two hours OR move your car halfway through your meal, because APPARENTLY for some arbitrary reason you can’t park on the street in downtown Houston for more than two hours in a row! Because THAT makes sense! -13! I’ve never tried to park at Which Wich, but I imagine that they are a veritable WONDERLAND of parking. I bet they have their own four story garage to service their patrons!

It seems mean to say so many terrible things in a row, so I will begrudgingly admit the one nifty thing they do at Brown Bag Deli. Back to the store on Westheimer. It’s not a very large store, hence the four parking spots they’ve provided their patrons. But against one wall, they’ve put a mirror, so that it looks like the store is twice the size that it really is! It’s actually pretty nifty, because sometimes I’ll admit I can feel a little bit claustrophobic and it’s true guys, I do spend a total of 87% of my time checking myself and if you sit in one of the booths next to the mirrors, you can eat your sandwich while staring into your own eyes. I do love to multi task and so that is I’ll admit a huge plus for me. And by a huge plus I actually only mean a +3 heh heh heh take that Brown Bag Deli.

All I’m saying is if you want to pay someone to make a sandwich for you email me at arbitrarycriticism@live.com and I’ll do it for you and there’s actually a lot of parking at my apartment complex and I’ll even still have Strawberry Fanta on tap for you.