One of my favorite DC blogs is Unsuck DC Metro. I check it every day, mainly for the sheer entertainment value of reading people vent about our beloved Metro, also known by its alias, “Delays in Both Directions.”

Okay, that was a cheap shot. Truthfully, despite the general loathing of Metro by DC residents, I personally can’t complain too much about it. It’s gotten me where I need to go (for the most part), and my commute’s a breeze (for the most part).

Don’t get me wrong, Metro has problems galore. But then, I spent years experiencing both the T in Boston and the NYC subway; when you’ve killed time at Park Street watching rats, or found yourself trapped in an unintentional hot yoga class in the bowels of a filthy NYC station, where a creepy guy is muttering to himself and possibly sitting in a puddle of his own urine, the bar gets set lower.

However, I cannot defend Metro escalators… yikes. We can clone sheep and send space probes to Mars, but keeping a series of moving stairs from breaking down every other day is beyond the realm of possibility? It’s mind-boggling.

That got me thinking, what if restaurants functioned like Metro escalators? What would that be like? I’ll venture to say awful. Probably something like this:

* On any given day, two range burners are out. On weekends when the restaurant’s at full capacity? All four. Instead of hot soup, customers are served gazpacho.

* The restaurant shuts down when it rains because the designer had the brilliant idea to put half the kitchen outside.

* Rather than fully repair a leaky refrigerator, maintenance employees use gum to plug the hole. Surprisingly, the fridge leaks again.

* The meat slicer makes a horrific squealing/rumbling sound. Clearly unsafe to use, but what the hell, it’s only your hand.

* Sure, the oven’s been broken for days, and it’s so abandoned that tumbleweeds drift by, but at least the repair company has placed a pleasant sign on it that reads, “Working to better serve you.”

* There’s a good chance the blender will speed up or come to a halt on a whim. You just can’t know.

* The restaurant’s Twitter feed spreads the cheery news that they’re out of everything and nothing in the kitchen works.

* An inspection reveals a critically dangerous gas leak. Management decides to hold off on fixing the problem until the restaurant blows up.

* The website boasts that it has “the most chefs of any restaurant in North America.” It fails to mention that only half of them can cook.

* An announcement is made that a deep fryer will be shut down for a year for repairs.

* You got horrid food poisoning last fall, and an inspection of the kitchen proves it will undoubtedly happen again, but you go back because it’s the only restaurant in town.

* Finally, despite the lack of working equipment and properly prepared food, the restaurant keeps raising prices anyway.