The Cafe

I decided to project my childhood memories on Lucas again. This time it was the Rainforest Cafe's turn. This was one of the places I clearly remember from my trips to Florida to visit my grandparents. I remembered how the smoke that doubled as mist smelled. I remembered the Gorilla Sandwich I would always order. I remembered having to wait longer than the usual restaurants I would go to, patiently waiting for the microphone to announce it was our "expedition's" turn. I remembered the animatronic gorillas and the elephants going wild when the rains would start. But most of all, I remembered how happy this place made me.

I wanted Lucas to experience all of this, so I gathered my family and insisted that this was something that we had to do on this trip. We drove to the Sawgrass mall and walked straight to the restaurant. Things looked exactly the same as I remembered them. The crocodile and the snake at the entrance and all the tropical fish in the big tanks brought back many memories. I talk to the lady in the entrance and tell her we have a party of 10 with no reservation. She replies that it will probably be a 45 minute wait. We are all really hungry but I convince everyone to wait. We are here for the experience. The group disperses around the mall, but I stay around eagerly waiting for the lady to announce our party. About 45 minutes later they finally call us and we go in.

As soon as we are walking into the restaurant one of the thunder storms starts. Lucas gets terrified and climbs on top of his grandmother. He does not seem to be enjoying this as I hoped he would. We try to show him the elephants and the gorillas but he is not very interested. We sit down to eat, my favorite sandwich is not in the menu, makes sense, the last time I was here was probably 15 years ago, but I order a burger. The food is not great, but it isn't bad either. What you are really paying for is the experience, an experience to which Lucas was indifferent. At least he ate all his food.

I'm not disappointed, Lucas likes what he likes and I like what I like. Sometimes I'm guilty of trying to live the moments that made me happiest when I was a kid through him. I just hope I can let him be as happy as my parents did for me, that is all I really want.