Hrothgar's Golden Hall
All college students have at some point been asked the dreaded question: “What do you want to do after you graduate?” For those of us who can confidently say “I’ve wanted to be pediatric endocrinologist ever since I was three and a half and I’m planning on starting medical school after I finish my double major in organic chemistry and pediatric neurosurgery,” the question might not be so daunting. Unfortunantly, not all of us have our futures planned out with such precision.
After much deliberation, however, I have finally found the answer this very question: I’m going to start a restaurant. A really, really cool restaurant. I’ve decided I’m going to call it “Hrothgar’s Golden Hall.”
We already have rock n’ roll themed restaurants that blare rock music over the speakers so loudly that you can’t even think and that distract you with so many tvs playing music videos that you don’t notice if your food tastes bad. We already have outer space themed restauarants that require you to take a ride on a “flying saucer” before being seated and dress their servers up in funny costumes. But we don’t have any Anglo-Saxon themed restaurants. That’s why my idea is so brilliant, see.
The most important facet of a restaurant isn’t actually the food–it’s the atmosphere. And Hrothgar’s Golden Hall will have the most unique atmosphere of any restaurant known to man. The dining area will be charmingly decorated with giant-forged swords and monster limbs. Blind poets will perform stirring war songs on Thursday afternoons. Servers will be required to grow bushy red or blond beards* and will not scowl at you if you make a mess or throw bones on the floor.
It’s genius! But before I can officially open, I have to perfect my recipe for non-alchoholic mead. And convince people that it’s sanitary to have a cook with a bushy red beard….
*Female servers will be allowed to wear fake beards.
Photo courtesy of: Ruth Harris / CC BY-SA 2.0
From the Hobbit's Hole 