Mitt Romney’s Running Mate Paul Ryan Got His Start Waiting Tables At Tortilla Coast

Oh, Paul Ryan. Now that you’re officially Mitt Romney’s running mate, it’s time to tear through your record and find anything salacious, insane, or otherwise irredeemably un-Vice Presidential. There are plenty of other news sites that will do this, but this article from GQ sparks our attention, in that it reflects a single facet of the balanced-budget-obsessed Randian’s life and psyche: at the beginning of his political career, in his wonkish, ambitious, khaki-and-blue-blazered youth, Ryan waited tables at DC’s Tortilla Coast, a.k.a. “Capitol Hill Chili’s”:

Founded in 1988, the original Tortilla Coast is a longtime favorite among the Hill crowd for it’s swirly frozen margarita pitchers (the kind that make your head feel like they’re reasting on a “drunk pillow,” as a friend calls it) and proximity to the Capitol. It’s a place to pick at fried tortillas and watery salsa and limp lettuce while you gossip about lawmakers’ personal lives.

This author will note from her own personal experience that the uninspired Yelp reviews cited in the GQ piece are completely accurate. She recalls, with much chagrin, painfully endless afternoons with bombastic, tasteless tortillas, those horrible chips that have the consistency of plastic, and dudes in sweaty Brooks Brothers shirts clustered around tables with tequila shots, chanting while they drink.

This anecdote is clearly what you should base your judgement about Paul Ryan upon. Because in our modern political discourse, it’s important to judge a man not on his platform or politics, but on the content of his margarita pitchers from when he was, like, 24.

[GQ]

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