Early last spring, senior Ian Thompson and his rock band Forrest Trump sat down in their regular booth at The Hills City Grille after a performance. Like many others, he had been there many times previously and the group was automatically ready to order their favorite menu item: chicken tenders. However, they were continually interrupted by a middle-aged, chatty and slightly intoxicated man they call “The Infamous Ambulance Driver.”
“The night we first met him, [he] told us all about his life and profession,” Thompson recounted. “He was extremely talkative and very friendly. The next two times I ate there, I also ran into him.”
Outside of The Hills, however, their friendship fizzled.
“Once I spotted him parked in his ambulance outside a football game and he had no idea who I was since he was drunk every time I’d talked to him,” Thompson said.
Thompson and his friends keep a good sense of humor and are friendly whenever they see the driver around town.
Being forgotten by the bar regular is a small incident compared to the debacle senior Amishi Taneja and her family endured when the hostess gave them the wrong table.
“My mom, sister and I had a reservation for brunch, but we were given someone else’s table,” Taneja said. “When the other group walked in after us, they were not happy. A woman marched up to our table and yelled at my mom, ‘This is my table!’”
An apologetic Hills employee offered them a brownie skillet on the house to smooth over the tensions, and both the Tanejas and the displeased customer finished their respective meals in peace.
Sharing food did not fare as well for senior Quinn Kelly and his friends when they attempted to eat two large orders of pizza sticks one night over the summer.
“We only ended up eating a plate and a half because it was already midnight so no one was very hungry,” Kelly said. “But the weight imbalance caused the entire rest of the plate to flip, splattering sauce all over us and the floor—it was a huge mess. So, we threw our cash down on the table and left as quickly as we could.”
Kelly looks at The Hills fondly though. This mistake is one addition to his repertoire of good memories from The Hills. One of his memories includes the time he saw two large dogs eating with their owners.
“You never know what’s going to happen or who you’re going to see at The Hills,” Kelly said. “It’s like a wild card, but that’s what makes it so much fun.”