After moving to Arizona I was introduced to table-side food service in a poker room. I used to play in L.A. after my move and the SoCal poker rooms have so much variety that I'd pay a few dollars to take a tour of the kitchens that must have enormous refrigerators.

What I notice is that very often when an order arrives there's someone, or multiple players, asking some version of 'that looks good! What is that? I think I might order that' and sometimes the player will get up to take a closer look. I also notice that there are few things that get poker players more excited than a food comp.

So, is this some strange phenomenon particular to poker players or standard and no big deal?

when I play at the sands in PA they have a full restaurant menu from one of their restaurants and people can order anything from a rib eye, meatloaf dinner, burgers, wings, salads and even soups (There are regulars who come in and order the same soup every session).

It always amazes me on LATB when some of the regular player start ordering less than a half our into the show and start gobbling up food in front of everyone watching on the live streams. When I make my debut on there I can assure you I will be well fed prior to the session

I was playing at Commerce when someone somewhere ordered watermelon. The waiter was carrying an entire quarter of a big watermelon and w/i 10 minutes 'everyone' was ordering watermelon including me. Watermelons take up a lot of room. Just imagine how big the refrigeration units have to be.

You store your watermelons in a fridge?

You eat warm watermelon?

Yes.

lol at putting watermelons in a fridge unless you're one of the tinybros that can't finish a single watermelon in one sitting

If the watermelon (or other melons) are unopened, they should be stored on the kitchen counter top near bananas and apples but once they're opened you should store the leftovers in the fridge so it stays fresh.

Who in the damn hell eats warm watermelon?

Anyway, this thread's a dud. I should've made a watermelon thread in OOT.

Brits. smh

I am a lot of weird things, but certainly not British. There’s just no reason to handle a watermelon any other way than Walmart does. Whole fruit out of the fridge, open fruit in the fridge.

A little more on topic: I think lots of players feel like they can optimize their time by multitasking which means eating an playing at the same time.

Even in an absurdly large poker room like Commerce, if they have 200 tables running, that’s still less people eating at the same time than in a very large restaurant. The kitchen operates more like a cafeteria than a fine dining restaurant but it looks like people are OK with that.

The only reason you would want to handle the watermelon differently from how Walmart does is because you want the watermelon to be cold and delicious, not warm and disgusting.

But, if you don't care about how your watermelon tastes, then you can eat it however you so desire.

Standard and no big deal.

Not standard but no big deal.

Standard but lol. People love getting things for free even when it's not. Like if you raise rake by 50% and give people a 25% comp they'll walk away with a smile. Or if people tip a hotel clerk $20 to upgrade them to a room that would have only cost $10 more up front, they spend the whole night pleasuring themselves to the idea of getting something for free.

Near to 50 year ago, picking and loading Watermelons in the hot East Texas summer sun....

I can tell you that mid-day..... nuttin better than cutting open a 40 lb stripe right from the vine....

Truth..... no ****te....

IDK about this. Nobody examines my food at a restaurant. And I used to laugh inside at SoCal players who'd constantly exclaim that the food sucks - it's much better at poker room 'X' - 'you have to try the halibut at Hustler', blah, blah, it's as if food discussions are a part of the game.

I once got a $10 food comp at The Bike as part of a tourney entry fee but I didn't need it bec I was playing a free-food game so I dropped in onto a 3-6 LHE table and you'd think that I'd declared a $100 splash pot by the player's reaction.

nuttin?

Ordered Pizza once at Commerce. Had a guy asking me about it, even gave me some chips for a slice. Nothing like the vietnamese coffee at Commerce, miss that stuff. I feel like ordering food gave me a break from the game. I would eat and kinda just watch for a few minutes.

You don't often share a table with people at restaurants.

Like if you sit at the bar and order food you'll get as many people asking about your food. At least IME.

So if you go to a restaurant with a couple of friends, everyone has their head down as soon as food arrives and you make sure nobody eyeballs your plate?

I place my order right in front of them, not when they all go in a group to the toilet, jfc.

People put pictures/video of their food on Instagram/Facebook/etc. A huge number of people are clearly overweight, love food, and eat several times a day. It isn’t just poker players.

When I get to be king (and that is definitely happening soon) I am outlawing food at the table until the world as a whole can be something other than disgusting pigs. I've seen these animals wait until it's their turn, spin around to put their smelly assed **** back on their side table, wipe their mouth with their hand, look at their cards and bet chips with the same hand they just wiped their mouth with only to repeat the process on each street.

Same people I see in the men's room not washing their hands when they use the facilities because they don't want to miss a hand.

Disgusting. I've never gone so far as to fold a winning hand because I did't want the chip with the piece of pizza cheese attached, but for crying out loud, have some decency (I leave that chip as a dealer tip, sorry not sorry).

Until we move to electronic cards and currency this **** has to stop.

Any place that does a significant amount of food service will have a walk-in cooler. If watermelon is something that is going to be in demand, they should have one or more bins in room temp strorage, several melons in the walk-in to chill, and cut melons in the regular fridges.

This is now a watermelon thread. I think it tastes better cold.

Poker players are cheap (see tipping thread) ... so anything free will attract their attention.

It is a strange dynamic that we try to be nice to each other (share/sample food) while trying to extract max value a moment later.

I think watermelon has more flavor when it's not 'iced' up, but you do need to store it chilled once you cut into it.

We are a strange bunch, humans ... We want our coffee hot, I mean iced, but cant' stand it warm. GL