Alan Richman Responds to Mighty Quinn's Team

Alan Richman once again asserts that a Mighty Quinn's employee asked for him to wait until a line had formed before serving him. Richman wrote about this incident in his review of Smorgasburg this week, then Mighty Quinn's owner Hugh Mangum explained: "We have never, ever, ever waited for a line to form." Co-owner Micha Magid also called Richman's claims "categorically false." Now, Richman responds to the restaurateurs, noting: "It is my belief that an experienced reporter who was on site is a more accurate source of information than a pitmaster and his partner who were nowhere to be seen."

Here's the crux of Richman's argument:

As far as I know, there is really only one key witness, other than me. That would be the woman at the counter. At 11:10 a.m., on Sunday, August 11, she told me to start a line. At the time, she and I were alone. She was behind the counter. I was in front of it. Nothing stood between us. In case she has forgotten, I was the not-so-young guy with a pen in hand, writing down everything she said in a notebook. A few minutes later, I was the not-so-young guy standing at the head of the line, pen in hand, writing in his notebook as she cooed, "Soooo close...soooo close."