In a previous life, a million years ago, I was a boy. A boy doing stand up comedy.

This is, maybe, the first of a series of short stories about the weirdest places I ever performed.

I didn’t have any drive to be a comic. I didn’t like telling the same jokes 100 times trying to perfect the punchline. I definitely didn’t like open mics, even though at my peak I was running 5 open mics a month in the small Virginia town I was lived in at the time.

If you ever want to fall out of love with stand up comedy, run an open mic night.

Was I good? I dunno. You know me, I’ll never admit to being good at anything. I had a t-shirt one time from the 2015 World Series of Comedy with a list of all the finalists on the back.

My dead name was on the back of that t-shirt.

Whoopee!

Anyway, I guess I’d made enough of a name for myself that traveling comics knew who I was even if I’d never heard of them. Usually some combination of a guy, his comic girlfriend, and a “mentee.”

One of them offered me a regular paying show at a restaurant two towns over. It was a new place and the owner had a space on the second floor that had a small stage and would, in his opinion, be the perfect spot for stand up comedy shows.

The name of the restaurant was Cuchi Guidos.

It was not the perfect venue for comedy.

The only thing Cuchi Guidos was worse at than being a show venue was being a restaurant as evidenced by its 1.1 Yelp rating and scathing reviews (see below).

Cuchi Guidos is now closed.

The building had problems- the main floor was cramped, especially when people lined up for takeout orders back before delivery apps took over the world.

More importantly, there was a circular staircase that ran from the kitchen to the upstairs that would deposit the waitress right in front of the stage.

All night.

While the show was going on.

Also, the owner was from Pennsylphillyhatten and had that attitude that only comes from someone born in that corridor. To match his energy he would have his staff great every customer as they entered the door by yelling:

“Welcome to Cuchi Guidos! Are Ya Hungry?”

So between the waitress, the yelling and the limited pool of comics in central Virginia a the time the shows were….

Not good.

And the weird part is, this isn’t even close to the worst place I ever did stand up.

Stay tuned, maybe, for more exciting stories of stand up!

Cuchi Guidos 1.1* (7 Reviews)

In Seinfeld, the Soup Nazi treated his customers like crap, but it was ok, because the soup was soooo good.

The problem with Cuchi Guidos is not that they have the worst customer service in town (they do -- though Dave’s Taverna is a close second). Rather, their problem is that the food is not nearly good enough to back it up.

I went there for the third and final time this last Saturday -- my fiance said she wanted to have her own bad experience -- and after waiting 15 minutes just for someone to take our drink order, I had to go and get someone’s attention. Just for drinks. After some guy who told us it wasn’t his fault because he was “off the clock” brought us our drinks, we had to wait for a waitress to take our food order.

When the cheesesteaks arrived, I was hoping they would be better than the pizza. But they were bland and flavorless -- something some simple Cavender’s seasoning could easily fix.

So not worth the money or the wait.

Strike three.

I went to Cuchi’s on a Friday night with three friends because of our great excitement to try the food. We got there at about 5 oclock before the dinner rush, but it took us two hours to get our food. This included the appetizer that we ordered. Our waitress was nice, but obviously overwhelmed and the owner and management seemed clueless as to what was going on. Although the food was pretty good, NO FOOD IS WORTH WAITING 2 HOURS FOR!

We were at Cuchi Guidos and it was not even crowded and the service was very slow. There was only one cook and he did not seem to be paying much attention to getting the food cooked. He was constantly in and out of the building and forgot about our pizza. It was overcooked when we did get it. I would not recommend this place.

For the full list of awful reviews check out YELP!

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