I like yogurt. I like chocolate. I recently found out I don’t like chocolate flavored yogurt. Some things aren’t meant to go together. Even when not obvious, it soon becomes apparent that you are facing a combination that never should have been. Eventually the natural order of things will correct the imbalance and life goes on.

Every now and then, however, an aberrant pairing sneaks through and escapes corrective action. Sometimes they work. For consideration I give you oil and vinegar. Sometimes they don’t. Think pineapple and pizza. (Do not try to argue that point. If you disagree you’re wrong.) (Period.) Sometimes they should never have been put together in the first place, like good food with bad service in a restaurant.

Tuesday a friend of mine mentioned that she and her husband were going out for dinner. Since this was in celebration of their anniversary they had picked a new to them restaurant. I hadn’t heard much about it and since it was a dialysis day, I had 4 hours in front of me with not much to do. So I pulled out my trusty tablet, connected to the free guest WiFi, and did some research. Regardless of the source, I found consistency in the reviews. The food is very good. The service is below average.

What do you do with that kind of information? Going out to dinner is more than just eating. At a fine dining restaurant that goes without saying but what about at a local, family owned eatery. Good food coupled with a good wait staff gets added to the permanent dining rotation. Bad food brought by disinterested servers is equally a no-brainer; there is no reason to ever go back. Pleasant efficient wait people serving bad food is a little challenging. You don’t ever go back and spend money on disappointing food but you should slip the name of a good restaurant to the waitress in hope of a career upgrade.

But the good food/bad service establishment can be problematic. It’s hard to argue with good food. On the other hand, with a little planning and some care and attention, you can make your own good food in your own good kitchen. And as I already noted, going out to dinner is more than just going for the food. Service is called service because you expect to be served. And you want to be served well. You can’t separate the food and the delivery.

If the server and the cooker are related you absolutely take the establishment off your future consideration list. Otherwise the decision is difficult. As much as you want the tasty morsels you can’t subject yourself to bad behavior to get them. Maybe you give them one more chance and see if the owner saw the errors in his or her earlier hiring practices and has upgraded the front of the house staff. On the other hand, if a subsequent visit reveals the same poor presentation, well that’s a combination that just has to go.

Just like chocolate yogurt.