Pirate’s Den, Parker, AZ

Last spring we took our house guests, Ron and Holly, on a tour of the Parker Strip.  The Strip is a scenic, mountainous stretch of the Colorado River immediately south of Parker Dam.  It’s home to several RV campgrounds, both public and private, a few riverside taverns and a mixed bag of older and newer housing developments.  Most of the private businesses are old and shabby but the new Pirate’s Den RV Resort/Grill/Tavern – which we discovered on that excursion – is quite impressive and nicely done.  We went there for dinner last night with good friends Terry and Lisa to celebrate my 70^th.

This huge pirate stands at the entrance to the restaurant.

I was hugely disappointed.  First, the place was crawling with flies; I killed a dozen or so but they just kept on coming.  Second, they had a wine list but no brew list.  Bad sign: Terry and I both love microbrews and they didn’t have a single one.  Third, my filet mignon came well done instead of medium rare as ordered.  Normally, I don’t bitch and whine much when restaurant food or service is below par but at $30 a plate, I expect more than flies, swill and burnt offerings.  So, I pulled out the stops, bitched loud and long.  The waitress no doubt declared me Asshole Customer of the Month. 

 

I felt obligated to fondle the larger than life plastic pirate boobs.

It wasn’t all bad.  The rest of the gang had generous portions of barbecued ribs and declared them delicious.  The waitress was attentive, kept her cool, apologized for the shortcomings and offered me the choice of either replacing the steak with one done right or switching to the ribs.  I declined both, didn’t want to wait on another steak and I was definitely in a steak kinda mood so didn’t want ribs.  Instead, I told her to knock some $ off the bill, which she did.

Another shapely pirate, very unresponsive.

Upon leaving I told the waitress that the biggest disappointment was the lack of microbrews and that if they wanted to attract ‘cool people like us’ they darn well better get some.  In retrospect that was probably counterproductive cuz she was probably thinking the hell with getting microbrews in here; they’d just attract more SOBs like you!