Downtown Duds part III: The Lunchbox

The Lunchbox: no thumbs up

Menu Highlights: None

Price Range: about 10 bucks for a meal and drink

Wouldn't it be cool if someone took the old downtown bus station building (right in the downtown plaza) and converted it into a nice little lunch/dinner spot? Well, let's begin analyzing that query with two additional questions.

First, is a restaurant with only outdoor seating a good idea in a city that boasts 90+ degree temperatures for half the year?

Second, do you consider derelict vagrants trading their government issued meds for cash/crack/coitus to be warm ambiance?

I wouldn't be so harsh on the place if it was actually good. As of my last visit, their menu only features two vegetarian options, tofu tacos and tofu sandwich. I ordered the taco while my lunch associate ordered the sandwich. Both featured tofu prepared in the same exact manner. Baked. Boring. Tofu is hard to spruce up, but many places do it regularly. The Lunchbox chose not to do anything to the tofu other than bake it, giving it a brown outer coating and zero additional flavor. Well, wait just a minute there mister, what about the rest of the taco ingredients? They were mostly cabbage (read flavorless). The protein/amino acid based gruel they served in the Matrix probably had more flavor than these tacos.

Furthermore, as the order was taco based, some chips were called for. Here is where The Lunchbox really lost me. I was given 3, THREE, 1+1+1 chips. Literally 3 chips. My friend was also served 3 chips with his sandwich. I'm not talking a handful, I'm not talking a small bag, I'm talking about 3. Meaning, the "chef" had to actually single fingeredly pick out 3 separate chips and place them on the plate. How much do goddamn chips cost?

Not only was I unimpressed with the vegetarian selections, but I was turned off by other typically vegetarian items being boasted about for being NOT VEG FRIENDLY. Take the french fries cooked in goose fat for example. I'm sure they're quite tasty, but for the love of god! Has any semblance of eating healthy gone out the window?

I rarely ever say anything negative about a place to the workers, but I was ready to go off if any of them happened to come by the table and ask how everything was.

The Lunchbox strikes me as yet another Gainesville establishment run by someone with no business in the kitchen. Maybe they make their goose fat fries for superbowl parties and their friends say "oh, you should totally open a restaurant, you're such a good cook," but you're really not. It really is a shame because we need quick, nice restaurants downtown. I can honestly say, however, that the building was being put to much better use standing vacant all those years.