LeBron James, dreaming of delicious bites of already-cut steak (Getty Images)
We realize that this is a bit of a cheap shot, lobbed from afar, but as continued hints and passed-along reports of LeBron James' terrible tipping habits keep getting shipped to us, we feel it our duty to pass along Peter Pattakos' interview with a Cleveland-area steakhouse server, who revealed the knowledge that he or she was James' favorite server mainly because he or she "didn't put up with his crap."
And that, apparently, James likes all the comforts of home to follow him when he goes out to eat. "Home" meaning, of course, what his dinner table looked like around 1990 or so. Minus the apple martinis. Read:
"(S)he also told us that LeBron liked to drink apple martinis, which comes as no surprise because apple martinis are delicious, and if you had a job where you could take a four-hour nap every day to sleep off the sugar hangover, you would drink them, too. Relatedly, LeBron would ask his servers to have his steak (well done) already cut up for him, which corroborates a report by a (former?) server at Johnny's who once told [fellow reporter Vince] Grzegorek that LeBron would order his spaghetti cut up as well, and also of course enhances the credibility of our source."
(Hee hee.)
Even as a two-fisted Jameson drinker, I can get behind the idea of an apple martini. They're delicious, they put a cherry in there, and they look all green and fetching. I've only had one in my life, but if you're buying, I'll drink seven just as long as you provide the aspirin.
Then there's the well done steak, cut up for him. Cut up for him! The ideal is that you'll usually let the steak rest for a few minutes while it still cooks off the grill to that perfect point between rare and medium rare, and that you (as a sentient human being with an ability to pull off that whole "knife and fork" thing) would cut it yourself.
Especially if you're in an establishment where you're known to tip poorly. Especially because servers have to tip out all manner of staff (including the bartender that makes your apple martinis, the bus boys, the food runners, the dishwashers, sometimes the line cooks), and each of those people (usually working past closing, to accommodate a local star walking in 90 minutes after a game that usually ends around 10:00 at night) would have more than enough reason to, say, "alter" the way your steak was prepared between the grill and your table.
(Just sayin', LeBron. Again, I've no sources in the Cleveland area.)
If the self-styled "King" has a food-taster, we don't envy him. Even if the food is coming to the table untouched.
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