I went to Chevys for dinner tonight with my mom and brother.  There was a chalkboard in the front advertising a different special for each night.  Wednesday was “Fajita Night”, which is great because we love fajitas.  I’ve gotten the original chicken fajitas every time I’ve been to Chevys since the very first time I ordered them.  Except for that one time that I ordered this combo thing that looked amazing on the menu but turned out to be a colossal disappointment.  After that it’s been nothing but chicken fajitas.

We sat down at a booth and my mom and brother opened their menus and remarked that Chevys has raised their prices, which is true.  I didn’t bother opening mine because I already knew what I was getting.  But they sounded really adamant about how much the prices had gone up so I opened my menu and looked at the price of the chicken fajitas, and saw that they’re now $14.95.  This is definitely a lot higher than they used to be.  I distinctly remember them being $12.95, and I vaguely remember them being less than $10.  While we waited for our waitress we wondered about Fajita Night and what it could possibly mean.  Maybe free fajitas, we thought.

Finally the waitress came and we asked her what fajita night was all about.

“Well if you order fajitas you get a pound and a pint,” she said.

We thought about this for a moment, then asked: “You get what?”

“A pound and a pint”, she repeated.

We thought about this again, then asked “A pound and a pint of what?”

“A pound of chips and a pint of salsa”, she said.

“Oh” we said.


Picture of Chevys Pound and a Pint—a pound of chips and a pint of salsa

We ordered two fajitas, so we went home with too much chips and salsa.


I’ve been running through this conversation in my head ever since dinner, and it gets funnier and funnier.  Our waitress said “a pound and a pint” as if it were the most commonplace restaurant giveaway ever.  Who the hell has ever heard of “a pound and a pint” referring to chips and salsa?  For that matter, who has ever heard of “a pound and a pint”?  Anybody?  What about a restaurant giveaway where you get some free food when you order a particular menu item?  Anybody?

I’m sorry sweetheart, but I don’t work at Chevys.  You could be referring to just about anything with the words “a pound and a pint”.  A pound of flesh and a pint of beer come to mind.  Just because you work at Chevys and you like to say “a pound and a pint” doesn’t mean we know what it means.  And just because you’ve explained it to other people already (perhaps even just five minutes ago!) doesn’t mean that your newest customers are more likely to know what it means.  I love Chevys, but I don’t check their website every day to stay up to date with the latest promotions.  Would she have thought it odd if we’d all nodded our heads and said “Great!  A pound and a pint!  We really love chips and salsa and we’re so excited to take some home with us tonight!”.

I think I know what happened.  She was probably stopped one too many times in the midst of explaining what a pound and a pint is: groups of savvy diners held up their hands and snobbishly assured her “Oh.  We know what a pound and a pint is”.  Not wanting to be cut off again, she decided to assume that everybody knows what a pound and a pint is, and do away entirely with explanations.  Except not really because I’d bet $1,956 that this has never happened to her, and that puts us right back at a very head-scratching square one.