I try to minimize the number of regrets I have in life. I look at mistakes as learning opportunities from which I can grow. But I do have one true regret — a culinary adventure I did not embark on. If I could go back in time and do things differently, I would. Because By The Bucket: Hot Spaghetti To Go! closed its Salt Lake City doors last year. And now I’ll never get the chance to eat a wet bucket of pasta and sauce again.
I respect people who dare to ask, “What if we served our meals in the worst possible way?” There are foods for which a bucket is an appropriate vessel. Foods like fried chicken and popcorn — food that is typically dry to the touch. Foods that make less sense served from a bucket are wet foods. Soup. Oatmeal. Pasta and sauce. Only a madman would serve the latter in a paper bucket. So surely, the quality of food at By The Bucket had to have been so high that customers would overlook the nonsensical nature of its container, I thought. After all, flour has been sold in the worst possible packaging for the last century and we all still buy it because it’s so essential. The spaghetti, too, must be beyond container reproach, I assumed.
So imagine my surprise when I perused the Yelp ratings and learned that, by and large, the consensus is that the spaghetti from By The Bucket was actually worse than the idea of serving it in a bucket.
“Wow, this was a wild experience. It’s nothing better than boiling your own spaghetti noodles with Kroger brand sauce on it,” one user wrote.
“Italian grandmas are rolling over in their graves right now,” another penned.
Many Yelpers lamented the gummy noodles and bland sauce. “I just don’t understand how you can make pasta so bad,” one regretful diner said. Another mentioned that the meatballs reminded them of canned cat food. Still another explained that they peeked into the kitchen and saw no actual cooking equipment, just warming equipment — the implication being that the food is sent to the location premade, then warmed upon order.
And my favorite review read, “Funny idea, horribly executed.”
It’s my favorite because spaghetti in a bucket is such a funny idea. And somehow, the funny idea being horribly executed makes it even funnier. And it makes my regret over never having tried it sting even more. Because I love being part of a joke. Which, given the reviews, I have to assume By The Bucket was. Some elaborate prank pulled by a bored restaurateur. Perhaps a social experiment to see if they could get people to pay for spaghetti in a bucket.
As it turns out, they couldn’t get enough people to pay for spaghetti in a bucket in large enough quantities to keep the joke/business running. So it’s no surprise that By The Bucket didn’t last. Though it is worth noting that By The Bucket has locations in other states, and at least a few locations have better reviews than the Salt Lake City one. So maybe the bucketed spaghetti varies in quality from state to state and we just happened to get the worst of the buckets. Now all we have to remember it by is the lighted sign that was at one point available for the low, low price of $1,000.
And that’s sad.
But as the old saying goes, when one buckets of spaghetti place closes, a delicious donut spot opens.
According to signage on the now-vacant By The Bucket space, a Sidecar Doughnuts & Coffee will open later this year. The California-based brand offers cake and raised donuts made from scratch, and the Sugarhouse location will be their first outside of California.
I have tried the donuts from Sidecar and am thrilled to report that they number among the best donuts I’ve ever had. The butter and salt flavor specifically made me feel as though I might levitate. But they’re all good. I can’t wait to get my hands on the huckleberry and vanilla bean glazed varieties. I’ll probably be in line the day Sidecar opens.
But it will be a bittersweet experience. I know that with every warming, soul-lifting bit of sweet fried dough, there will be a twinge of regret that there’s no place left in Salt Lake City that serves bucketfuls of spaghetti. And that will be a lesson I’ll keep with me the rest of my life.
The next time a restaurant opens that seems too funny to be true, I won’t wait until I’m too late to try it.