The Perfect Lunch

"Ticked Off" explores the River City in 60-minute irreverent adventures. Each week we’ll tackle a different one-hour block until we’ve completed all 24 hours. If you have an idea of where we should bring our pad, pen and Casio wristwatch, let us know where and when by emailing mikecward@gmail.com. (And, no, we haven’t yet returned calls to Kiefer Sutherland’s legal representation.)

I’ve eaten enough 7-Eleven sandwiches and Kroger sushi to make a colonic technician steal two beers, pop the emergency exit and slide down the inflatable chute.

I’m not proud, I’m just hungry – and occasionally rolling quarters for gas money. (And also occasionally sneaking in some Canadian coins when the market dictates.)

There is nothing that makes a bad day worse than a shameful lunch gobbled down slovenly parked next to a Long John Silver’s dumpster, when you’re under the gun of a one-hour lunch break and the watchful eye of a human resources narc. We’ve all been there, when we take out our workplace stress and unbridled anger on a mega order of fries and a couple of deep-fried cod filets. Then we cry ourselves back to reality, suck it up and regain composure.

While working as a marketing director for a healthcare company for the past two years, I’ve been spoiled by free drug rep lunches like a fat cat in a hot tub litter box. This Friday marks the end of that gig and the beginning of another, so it’s time to get my lunch break commute game back on. But we all could use a little refresher, right? Eating freezer-burnt Lean Cuisines and ramen noodle casserole is no way to spend the most important hour of the day.

For the noon hour of "Ticked Off," I set my sights on achieving the perfect River City lunch break in 60 minutes, ripe with local delicacies within reach of my near West End perch. There would be no sanitized corporate cafeteria, no vending apparatus and no mystery pant stains where grease and sweat become one.

So, I shoved off at noon from day job nook at the shiny Bon Secours Institute near U of R and stabbed westward down Broad Street toward Bill’s Barbeque, the eight-store Richmond-based BBQ joint. My mission: the perfect limeade. Sure, the Bills’ interior may remind one of the depressing scene in "Sideways," when Paul Giamatti’s alcoholic lothario skips his ex-wife’s wedding and drinks a bottle of wine from a fountain cup. But, the grub and drink is damn good.

I arrived at the Willow Lawn location in three minutes, right before the crowd bellied up and just as the workers in "Martin’s grocery green" shirts were finishing prepping the lemons. I resisted the cherry pie, grabbed my $1.99 large limeade (and $18 change), then squeezed the 30-something-oz. Styrofoam bucket into my cup holder. True to form, the sweet Southern nectar had more lemons that a used Kia car lot.

I had already broken a sweat, so I sipped and sipped and sipped as I tore down Libbie toward my next stop. And, I sipped so much I had to take a pit stop at a St. Mary’s Hospital bathroom. Still, a mere 15 minutes after initiating the lunch launch sequence, I pulled into the gourmet groceryformerly known as Joe’s Market (and now known as Libbie Market).

The joint looked the same since it changed hands earlier this year, and the thankfully the seamless sandwich operation remained similarly awesome: Pick up a piece of paper, check as many boxes as you want and wait less than five minutes for deli-wrapped goodness. (Take note, Subway). Three minutes and $6.49 later, the friendly sandwich modern artist handed me a mammoth pepper turkey breast on six-grain bread with lettuce, tomato, cukes, Monterey pepper jack, spicy secret sauce and hardwood smoked bacon. I power-walked to the register, jumped in my car and headed toward Boyer’s Ice Cream & Coffee on Patterson Avenue, where I tasted amazing homemade ice cream just a few nights before.

I wanted to counter the post-lunch lethargy with some caffeine, so I grabbed a frappuccino ($3.95) while a borderline homeless man bugged a WiFi’ing couple in a booth. I shimmied back to my car, which was parallel-parked between two mini-vans, and ogled my lunch: Gigantic limeade, enormous sandwich and delicious frapp. I had nabbed the perfect lunch - an eclectic edible bouquet of local specialties - in just 31 minutes, 6.2 miles and $12.23.

Back at the office, I closed my door, turned on my fan and cranked Pandora tunes with my spread proudly laid before me. (The 95F-plus temperature forced me to come up with a Plan B for my picnic for one at the University of Richmond gazebo, and this was fine.) I had a good 20 minutes to let the fresh fare wash away Outlook meeting requests and transition plans.

And now I throw down the gauntlet – errr, fireproof rotisserie glove – to you, good readers. You may not be able to eat, pray and love in 60 minutes, but you sure as heck can eat pretty good.

Last week: The Richmond Metro Zoo

"Ticked Off" explores the River City in 60-minute irreverent adventures. Each week we’ll tackle a different one-hour block until we’ve completed all 24 hours. If you have an idea of where we should bring our pad, pen and Casio wristwatch, let us know where and when by emailing mikecward@gmail.com. (And, no, we haven’t yet returned calls to Kiefer Sutherland’s legal representation.)