There were a couple of nice surprises with my takeout at American Social, the still-new sports bar and restaurant on Sand Lake Road.

The first surprise was a 20 percent discount for picking the order up at curbside and not having it delivered through a third party app service. As you may – and should – know, most of the gig delivery operations take 30 percent of the restaurant’s billing. So it’s nice that AmSo shares some of that savings with the customers.

They’re four of the saddest words one can hear when ordering takeout from Prato: We’re out of meatballs.

Those delicious orbs are my go-to item to order when dining in and I really wanted some to go. But the young woman who answered the phone blurted them out before I could say anything, leaving me slightly crestfallen.

So I had to adjust on the fly. Luckily, my other must-have item, the Widowmaker pizza (perhaps we can come up with a new name for this one) was available. I also got an order of the Mustard Spaghettini Cacio e Pepe.

And because it was a Friday evening, and I was distraught about the meatball shortage, I thought I would splurge on an Old Fashioned cocktail. I thought $22 for a cocktail was a bit much but, like I said, it was a Friday.