Revenge of the Restaurant: In Soviet Garden Grove, Restaurant Photographs You!

Dave Lieberman

​Are you one of those people who can't just sit and eat a plate of food without having to line it up, fiddle for three minutes with f/stops, autofocus and light meters, and get that perfect shot? ("If I can just catch the glisten of the pesto on the open-faced chicken sandwich, I'll be Diane and Todd," I imagine you saying.)

Well, if you are that person, Buca di Beppo wants you to know they are also walking around with cameras.

The other night, I went to a family dinner at the aforementioned Italian-American chain (which is frankly a story in itself--here's a free tip, Buca people: a "mixed" salad does not mean an entire iceberg lettuce "mixed" with a tiny handful of purple cabbage, one peperoncino and three olives), and about two-thirds of the way through dinner, one of the employees brought over a proof of a picture they'd apparently taken earlier and tried to hawk a $10 5" x 7" photo.

No, thanks. I don't buy the photo at the bottom of the thrill ride, I don't buy the photo of me astride a horse at the county fair, and I certainly don't need poor-quality photographic evidence of a dinner at Buca di Beppo. If I did, I'd take out my iPhone and do without the coupon on the photographic ad.