Month: October 2021

You break it. You buy it.

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Eating out rule:

If you consume the item you shall pay for said item.

Tonight a guest announced at the end of the meal when the check was presented that they should not have to pay for their bottle of wine as it was warm.

First. You should have thought of his before you finished the bottle. Also it’s fucking 98,000 degrees outside. You’re on a patio. Yes the wine is warm.

I had the distinct pleasure of letting him know that contrary to popular belief that’s not how life works. He immediately threatened me with a bad review on Trip Advisor. I responded with my “‘do what you will I won’t be held hostage by threats of bad reviews.”‘

He finally said fine. He’d pay for the wine but not tip the server. Which is what he did. $402 and they left $403 in cash.

I comped the wine and gave the servers the $45. Not 20% but better than nothing.

I’ll keep you up to date if I get any bad reviews.

Wishing Doesn’t Make It So

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Eating out rules:

We appreciate that you made reservations.

However.

If the patio is booked and you make a reservation for the bar with a request to be moved to the patio, don’t get upset when you have to sit at the bar.

We don’t a really look at requests till day of.

Also making two reservations of 6 does not a 12 top make. It’s two six tops. Seated in different parts of the restaurant and I can’t help you because I didn’t notice there were two reservations with the same last name.

Kids are people! They’re people!

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Eating out rules:

When making a reservation, children are people too.

Don’t make a reservation for two adults then show up with six kids and be upset when I say we can’t accommodate you. You have an 8 top. The small four top in the middle of the restaurant is too small.

PS. Babies count too. Unless you can put them under the table.

Maître d

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The owner of the restaurant got a typed letter in the mail today complaining about her visit.

Part of the complaint was that the maître d was rude to her. Wanting nothing more than to usher her out of the restaurant when she complained to him.

Me. I’m the maitre d.

Also I just wanted her to step away from the kitchen door before someone popped out of the kitchen and knocked her down.

She actually hated everything about her visit. Including the chairs.

Also. I’m a maître d.

Return to Sender

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Tonight a woman sent her steak back insisting that she ordered a ribeye not the steak she was given. She was apologized to and her steak was replaced with a ribeye as quickly as possible.

As it was a recook I ran it to the table. When I got there I started to set the steak in front of her and her husband began to complain that he was finished and SHE turns to me and says this IS going to be comped. Right?

I immediately had flashbacks to 1987 working in Atlanta when guests would tell us to get a comp form as they weren’t paying. So I looked at the woman and said OF COURSE NOT. She looked shocked. And I said okay and walked a way with her steak still in my hand. The server was convinced the whole thing was a scam and that she never preferred a ribeye in the first place.

Meanwhile: if you go to Macy’s and get pants and they don’t fit you take them back. But you don’t get them for free.

Happy Birthday to Me!!!

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I started a new job in late June.  This happened about four days after I started. 

Around 9:30 tonight I was sitting at the chef’s table chatting with the chef when a chocolate soufflé was put in front of me. At the same time a server walked up with their end of night report. She asked what the occasion for the dessert was and the chef said ,”oh it’s his birthday”. She immediately announced that it was my birthday and begins to sing. 2 seconds later everyone in the bar and all the staff is singing happy birthday to me. While the chef laughed and laughed and laughed. I’m still not sure the staff knows it was NOT my birthday. It was delicious by the way!

Let’s start at the very beginning.

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Fun fact: This is the fourth blog that I’ve started. The first lasted almost six years. At the end I had a little over 250 regular readers and it was about my move from San Diego to NYC after finishing grad school. It followed my trials and tribulations of trying to jump start a theater career, landing in a restaurant serving job that took up too much of my time, and eventually meeting and falling in love with my partner Adam.

I loved the process and ritual of writing, and was sad when I moved to Maine, started a new journey and found that I didn’t have the time or the interest anymore to write nightly.

Social media was a big part of why I stopped writing, because suddenly I found myself reading and posting on Facebook and no longer sitting down at my computer to write a blog post. Facebook was fast and furious Writing took time.

And this continued to be true until about three months ago when I started my most recent position at a restaurant in a tourist town and I began to document my experiences as a General Manager and all the stress and extremes that came with the job. These posts were on Facebook and were really traditional blog posts.

So here I am.

These are my stories.

Over the next few weeks I’ll repost my posts from the past few weeks as well as adding to my stories as regularly as I can.

Please enjoy and know that these are my experiences, my reality, and my opinions. There are LOTS of other people out there doing what I do better. I hope they find as much joy in it as I do.