Dining out on Martha’s Vineyard can be an adventure. Especially in the spring.

A few years ago my girlfriend was visiting from South Yarmouth. Now, people from Cape Cod, unless they work here or visit frequently, are just as susceptible to those glossy advertisements as folks from – oh, say – Boise, Idaho. Letting Karen choose a restaurant for lunch was probably unwise. After all, I was the native. I should have steered her to a year-round place favored by Islanders. Even in August, when most places have a full complement of experienced wait staff, I avoid the places listed in guide books. Unfortunately, my friend had her heart set on one of the most famous of all.

The Black Dog Tavern opened many years ago as a place for locals and working men to get a cup of coffee (regular, no lattés or mochaccinos in those days) and a hearty breakfast or lunch. It first opened its doors in January, a time of year that, in this day and age, would guarantee failure. Over the years though, it has evolved from a local hangout to a number one tourist destination, and it was only a few years ago that, for the first time, this venerable institution closed for the winter. And a restaurant that closes in winter loses its staff, which understandably means a lot of new employees come spring.

But therein, you should pardon the literary cliché, lies my tale.

It was sometime in the spring, April or May. I remember the daffodils. No roses yet. Parking was not impossible. No lines snaking out the restaurant doors. We were shown a table almost immediately by a charming, attentive hostess. It took a while to realize there was anything wrong at all.

We looked over the rather eclectic menu and made our choices, chatting all the while. At last, caught up and with little left to say, we started to look for a waitperson. Finally, our order was taken by an apologetic young man who spoke with an accent so thick it transported us to Dublin. Food on the way, we indulged in our favorite pastime, people watching. It was then that we started to become alarmed.

The woman at a table across from us looked quite perturbed. Her companion had a plate of cooling food in front of him, untouched, one assumes, out of politeness. They were both looking about frantically, waving their arms, trying to flag down any employee whose eye they could catch.

As my friend and I paid more attention to what was going on around us, we noticed that what we had taken for comfortable conversation between
diners sounded more like an angry grumble. The window ledge into the kitchen was lined with lunches, and the chef was screaming, “Orders up!”

The wait staff was running around the room with plates of food, stopping at every table asking, “Did you order this?” then sailing off in another direction. Finally, a waitress asked the pouting woman across from us if she had ordered what she was holding. The customer nodded in the affirmative and was served. Her companion commented that it wasn’t what she had ordered, and she snapped, “I want to eat today.”

Suddenly, I understood. I remembered seeing an ad in the paper announcing that the restaurant was opening for the season that very day.

How was our lunch, you ask? Well, we got almost everything we ordered, after a slightly longer than reasonable wait. And of course, we got someone else’s check. The atmosphere was tense – to say the least – and the wait staff was starting to look more and more like they had just run the Chilmark Road Race. I wondered how many would return the next day after hours of verbal harassment from the chef.

On the way out, I vowed that in the future I would stick to restaurants that are open year-round. Opening day at Fenway Park never disappoints. Too bad they don’t have spring training for wait staff.