“Strange stories, She would tell me.” — Tuli Kupferberg, the Fugs, 1969, “Children of the Dream.”
The mysteries of eateries have caught my eye of late in these parts. Strange stories indeed, about restaurants Mitten Pizza of Gun Lake and about Jayda Gale Distillery of Wayland. It brings to mind again the song by Marvin Gaye — “What’s Goin’ On?”
The strange case of Mitten Pizza:
I published, as did other area print and broadcast outlets, the sad saga of a misunderstanding between Mitten Pizza and Great Lake Lakes Energy over how much was owed for electrical service. It seems the pizzeria unwittingly had underpaid its bill and was threatened with shutdown of service after a certain date not far away.
A local patron started a GoFundMe page to attempt to help Mitten Pizza pay the amount owed and keep the local restaurant in business. Then came the news that Great Lakes agreed to a payment plan that was workable.
Indeed, Great Lakes originally hadn’t billed Mitten Pizza properly, which gave me confidence an arrangement could be made satisfactory to both sides. That’s what happened ultimately, but I couldn’t shake the sense that a public relations and marketing process played a role in the public subsidizing a business.
To be sure, there was no arm twisting in getting everyday people to chip in a little money amid fears a local restaurant might go belly up, unfairly at that. But I believed Great Lakes, which is publicly owned, would try to do right and come up with a solution to the issue. I’m not convinced the GoFundMe campaign was necessary.
The strange case of Jayda Gale:
It was with great sadness that I reported late in the summer that the Jayda Gale Distillery and Restaurant was closing its doors after less than five years of doing business in downtown Wayland. It was particularly sad because the historic building would become vacant after so many years of being part of the local scene.
The closing happened faster than first advertised. So the eatery has been idle for two months now.
However, there have been rumblings on Facebook that it might reopen.
The Jayda Gale Facebook site has commented, “Hello, Wayland!” and has been teasing readers with a notion it might come back. There was even a survey offered to determine what kind of restaurant it should be, with Mexican winning the unscientific poll and streakhouse finishing second.
In these troubled times when you can’t tell real news from fake news, from manufactured public relations, it is difficult to trust what we see and hear.
“In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” ― George Orwell
