I was at a restaurant the other day when, reading through the options for side dishes, I saw an item called ‘My Girlfriend Is Not Hungry’.
Finally! A suitable option for me to pretend I’m eating with another person and not just sitting on my own crying into the soup du jour again. Plus I would get extra fries, so it’s a win-win.
I was, of course, in Mama D’s Diner in North Little Rock, Arkansas, where the understanding staff have added the side dish option as a way to appease peckish people whose partners say they’re not hungry, when really all they want to do is scoff all your fries and not worry about a thing.
Mama D’s ‘My Girlfriend Is Not Hungry’ item offers the option to add extra fries, chicken wings or cheese sticks to any meal, bulking out a main dish so there’s enough for two. Of course, it’s not limited to girlfriends, I’m sure husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, mates, dogs and imaginary friends will enjoy the added appetisers too.
The relationship-saving menu hack was brought to my attention by Nick Chisler, whose post on social media about the diner went viral recently. Since posting the photo of the menu, Nick’s post has so far been shared more than 20,000 times.
Naturally, the post received comments from plenty of couples who could relate, with people commenting: ‘100% need that in every menu’, ‘need that on the dessert menu’, ‘this would be me!’ and ‘every restaurant needs this’.
As well as the ‘My Girlfriend is Not Hungry’ option, Mama D’s Diner also serves up BLTs, club sandwiches, burgers, and a Big Sexy Burger, which doesn’t really need any explanation.
I wonder if they do scones…
During a pause in my meal, I took the opportunity to read up about North Little Rock, the place I was definitely in and not just writing about for creative purposes.
North Little Rock is situated in Pulaski County, pretty much in the centre of Arkansas, and was named after Casimir Pulaski – a Polish volunteer who is said to have saved George Washington’s life during the American Revolutionary War. More than 200 years later, Sufjan Stevens wrote a great song named after Casimir Pulaski.
Anyway, back to North Little Rock. The city dates back to Burial Mound People, early inhabitants of North America who, from around 3500 BC to 1100 AD were pretty obsessed with building mounds for religious, ceremonial and burial purposes.
Hundreds of years later, it’s now home to Mama D’s Diner, with a novelty menu option for hungry partners. Yummers.
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.