After an afternoon at Top Golf with our daughter and son-in-law, followed by some shopping, since we were already in town, it was time to head home. The original plan was to pick up some barbecue on the southside of 20, but, by not paying attention to Atlanta sports schedules, we found ourselves stuck in non-moving traffic due to an Atlanta United game. I asked my beloved if she wanted to pick up something or eat in. She said she didn’t care – she just didn’t want to wait. So I looked at my list and at Open Table and booked a spot for 6:00 at Bon Ton, which was ten minutes from right now and seven minutes from where we were. Located right off Ponce de Leon, on Myrtle, behind Papi’s and across the street from Mary Mac’s parking was at a premium. They do have their own lot and we were early enough to find someone leaving as we got there.

I found Bon Ton from the November 2022 Atlanta Magazine list of the 75 Best Restaurants in Atlanta, which mentioned it’s “joyful Viet-Cajun food…. A late-night stop for local industry folks, Bon Ton is as much a drinking place as it is an eating place, so don’t skip the hurricanes”. Sounded entertaining, so we gave it a whirl. It was cool for a May afternoon and the open windows let a cool breeze into the place. The decoration is vibrant, but, for our visit, I saw no one who looked Vietnamese or anyone that sounded remotely Cajun, and we didn’t have a Hurricane.

My beloved chose to go with the shrimp basket, served with fries and hush puppies.

and I chose the Nashville Buford Highway Hot Fried sandwich, which was available with either chicken, shrimp, catfish or oysters.

I chose mine in the chicken version. All are available as either half or whole sandwiche,sserved on Leidenheimer rolls (the official roll of all things Nawlins), with lettuce, Szechuan oil, hot sprinkle, lettuce, mayo, dill pickle and XO boil sauce. The Po Boys are NOT served with fries, FWIW, and the oysters are an additional upcharge. My sandwich arrived, but the server didn’t hear my order of fries, so I had to ask for those, again. I took a couple of bites of the sandwich and it had ZERO heat. I flagged our waiter down and asked him about it. He gave me a look, but said he’d have it re-made. When it came back, you could see the chili oil in the bottom of the basket this time and this had some heat. It was actually very good – the spice level was above medium, but not an endurance contest, and it had an after-burn that was not vinegar based. Really tasty.

Overall, the food was good but the prices were on the high side. And they include, automatically, a 20% gratuity (“Our kind and patient waitstaff is now compensated by a 20% service charge. The auto gratuity of 20% on your bill is the most transparent way enabling many independent operators like ourselves to guarantee the fair wage”). I have an opinion on this, like I do about many things, but here was my issue tonight – my server didn’t deserve a 20% tip. I had to flag him down to ask about my fries. And to tell him about the issue with my sandwich. He didn’t “stop by” to see how our food was. And my water glass was empty from 15 minutes in, and sat that way through the entire meal. Then I emptied my wife’s, which was also drained and never refilled. This wasn’t 20% (which used to be considered exceptional) service. It wasn’t even 10% (which used to be “good”) service. It was MEH service that I paid 20% for and the waiter knew he was getting 20% regardless, so he didn’t even seem to try….