A 'Totally' Awesome Tale

(photo courtesy of UrbanDaddy)


Happy Friday, everyone!

Thanks to a "baked" tale that was too good not to be shared with everyone, I'm starting what I hope will be a fun, new fixture to Mona's Apple.

Today is Fashionista's "Friday From the Field." In her request for me to edit her words, she pointed out that I'm the writer in this relationship and she's just the numbers girl. But really, I think she did just fine.

Fashionista writes:

All day yesterday I was reading up on Totally Baked, trying to decide on which potato I was going to pick. I saw the store last weekend and I knew I had to try it soon. I mean, baked potatoes are so freaking good.

Of course, my boss Richard decided to work late last night so I didn’t get out of here until after 6 p.m. I made it to Totally Baked around 6:30 and the sign said "Closed," but I saw people inside giving workers their orders so I just thought someone put the sign up too early.

As soon as I walked in, the owner (I'm guessing he was the owner because I saw him doing an interview right before I walked in) came up to me and said they closed 30 minutes ago, but he’d be happy to serve me with anything they had left.

(Who does that!?)

The menu is divided into two groups: hot and cold. The hot side includes all the meat toppings and the cold side has the salad toppings. If you order from the hot side you get a small baked potato, and if you order from the cold side you get a big one. I'm still trying to figure out why they did this, maybe because the meat is so filling you don’t need a big potato? Well, they were out of the small potatoes so I got a massive one. I ordered the marinated steak potato (obvi, Mona knows) with scallions and blue cheese. It was really good.

I watched the people in front of me go up to pay, but they had already closed out the cash register. Hmm.

Wait for it.

Wait for it.

So the owner announced everyone got to eat for free! We all erupted with cheers and to top that off, he then offered us sweet potato gelato. So nice. It was heavenly and it alone is worth the trip to Totally Baked.

I realize they just opened, and the owner probably did this all for good word of mouth, but it worked and I'm sold. Too bad its really just a lunch joint so I'll only be able to hit it up on Saturdays.

P.S. For the record, the workers were extremely nice, despite the fact that we extended their work day by an extra hour. It looked like they were actually having fun. When the owner announced everyone was eating on him the workers started cheering and saying, "Oh yeah, it’s a party in here!” It was a refreshing switch from your typical fast-food experience where the workers are bitter and hating life. Again, maybe this had to do with it being opening week and after a while the novelty could wear off.

Thank you, Fashionista! You are the bomb-diggity.

I cannot wait to get down to "Totally Baked" myself. And I hope it does well enough to expand into my neighborhood.

8 W. 18th St., near Fifth Ave.
646-336-6118