Adam and I had a great day. In the past two days we’ve walked about 500 miles. My shoes are great, but my NYC feet retired 10 years ago.

We spent the day pivoting. Our matinee was canceled while we ate lunch. We walked to a theatre to see if we could move Wednesday tickets to today. We bought Music Man tickets with the plan to cancel the tickets to a show we only sorta wanted tickets for. Before we could get to the theater the first show cancelled.

We did see two lovely shows today. One of the leads in both shoes was an understudy. Both of them were great.

When we finally knew what we were doing we made dinner reservations at Joe Allen’s. It’s a staple in Times Square. Decent menu, not too expensive, and it’s close to the theaters.

When we got out of our first show we realized we had about 45 minutes to be at dinner which was a 4 minute walk. We noticed on our way to the theater that a Times Square staple had moved to a new location. We thought we would pop in for a quick drink and snack before dinner.

I’d like to take this time to point out that with out exception EVERYONE has been super nice. Like someone spiked the tea nice. Definitely not typical NYC restaurant behavior. We are known for being surly.

We entered the restaurant. We were greeted by a gentleman in a suit. (Remind me to talk about that later). He checked our ID and vaccination status. Then seated us at the bar.

The bartender was friendly. Got our drink orders. Then turned around to make them. 4 or 5 minutes later he turned back around and gave them to us. Adam asked if he would put in an appetizer for us. He went to the POS rang it in. And went back to work.

I’m going to digress.

Bartending is an art form. And there are multiple types of bartenders.

You’ve got the ones I always call beer tenders who can put out 30 drafts in 15 seconds. You’ve got mixologists who measure and pour and garnishes your drink with tweezers. You’ve got a sports bar bartender who is slinging gin and tonics and popcorn all night. You’ve got the Hard Rock bartender who’s got to be fast, friendly, and have the ability to do it for 10 hours. You’ve got a night club bartender who opens cans and bottles all night and looks good without a shirt. You’ve got a wine bar bartender who knows all the ins and outs of wine and can talk about it for 90 minutes without boring you. You’ve got a bartender on the pier in Old orchard Beach who serves everything in plastic, serves 500 people themselves and can tell people to fuck off when they’ve had to much to drink. You’ve also got bartenders that provide 5 star dinner service at upscale restaurants, while keeping their guests coursed, entertained, and happy.

I could go on.

The thing is, when you’re interviewing for a bartender, you have to read between the lines and figure out what kind of bartender you are talking to. They are NOT interchangeable. Not at all. It’s also easy to be fooled. You learn to ask the right questions. Like do you know what’s in a Manhattan. You think I joke. Interviewed lots of experienced bartenders who didn’t know it had whiskey in it.

On top of this.

You have service bar.

Service bar is its own beast. You are a machine. Churning out drink after drink after drink after drink. It starts at 5:00 and doesn’t end till close. I’ve had the pleasure of working with lots and lots of bartenders. Some of them tremendous.

But to this day I’ve only worked with a handful who understood the art of it. Who didn’t panic when the tickets hit the floor. Who didn’t get lost as the tickets piled up while a server is shouting at you that they forgot to ask for the martini dry. They keep their bars clean. They usually do this while still helping out with guests. And it’s all done with a smile.

My favorite who I had the pleasure of working as a peer was a guy named Eric. He’d do tricks and show off while making 15/20 tickets at a time. I probably tipped him thousands of dollars in the five years we worked together.

I’ve also had three bartenders I’ve hired who killed. Tara, Lexi, and Steph. All three in Kennebunkport. All three special in their own way. All three beyond excellent.

Back to our story.

Our bartender today was not one of the good ones.

He was sloppy. His tickets were wet, torn and unreadable.

He had no process to what he was making. The order. The ticket. Etc.

Believe it or not to be fast you have to learn to combine steps, look at all your tickets, know whether to make the hard drinks first, or pour the beer first.

This guy didn’t understand that. He was all over the place. Messy bar. Supplies all over the place.

I was nervous for him and the servers.

Adam texted with his friends while I watched.

It never got better.

I also waited.

The clock was ticking closer and closer to our reservation time.

We still had not gotten our appetizer.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Adam finally realized it’s getting to the point of not having time to eat it should it appear.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

At 4:50 we asked for the check.

Adam had his credit card out.

But we wanted to see the check before we paid.

He finally presented it to us.

There was no app on the check. He never rang it in. Which before you get upset. There is not a single server in the whole wide world whose has not forgotten to ring in an item. We’ve all done it.

But.

I really think it was because he was in the weeds with service drinks.

But.

It wasn’t even 4:30 when we ordered. They weren’t busy. There were a handful of tables in the restaurant and six guests at the bar. Two of which were finished and paid.

If he had been more organized, better put together, it wouldn’t have happened.

But it doesn’t end there. He gives us the check. We drop the credit card on top of it.

We wait. And wait. And wait.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

It’s now 5:00 and he hasn’t picked it up.

He finally grabs it.

Swipes it.

Checks his phone.

Then goes back to making service drinks.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

It was 5:10 when he finally gave us the slip to sign.

We signed. We tipped.

And we ran to our 5:00 dinner reservation.

PS. It was also shift change. So there was a lot of banter.

And.

His replacement had a hickey the size of Nebraska on his neck. (This is an upscale restaurant, not fancy like Applebees).

PSS. Nice restaurants, especially nice restaurants, with fancy buildouts. Don’t skimp on the lighting. It look like the jewelry counter at Macy’s with the lights over the tables.

I did something tonight I’ve never done before.

I dined out on Christmas. I’ve always been one of those stay home with your family people. But we were very grateful that places were open for our drive down and for dinner tonight.

We stopped at McDonalds at a service area for lunch. The place was packed. The line for the drive through had to be 20 cars deep.

That being said, almost everyone was masked. People were spaced out. Everyone was being patient as it was about 20 minutes from order to food.

It was not the experience I might have expected from hungry tired people.

We got into the city, found our vacation home for the week, freshened up, and headed out.

I have to say the first fifteen minutes were funny as neither me nor Adam had any sense of direction. Which when you live here a sense of direction is implanted in you when you sign your lease.

We walked from the village down to our restaurant, wandering along, shocked at all the changes.

I suggested we have a drink on the way and we found a cute Mexican restaurant that was open. A margarita would not have been my first choice but when in Rome.

It was delicious. Hit the spot. And Adam and I both thanked the server for working on Xmas.

We then headed to the restaurant.

One of mine and Adams favorite restaurants is Balthazar. It where we had our first fancy meal out. Where I are steak tartar for the first time. We’ve celebrated there many times over the year.

I actually suggested Balthazar because I knew it would cheer up Adam who has been stressed out about this trip for three weeks. Are we going? Should we go? Will the shows be canceled? What should we see? Where should we stay. He did all the heavy lifting for the trip.

I knew the restaurant would be a good alternative after our shows for today were canceled. And I was right. He was super excited for dinner and even happier while we dined.

So we arrive at the restaurant.

We were greeted quickly. They sat us almost 15 minutes early. And we were off to the races.

The experience was great. Our neighbors on both side of us in the dining room were great. And the best part, after we got our drinks the server asked if we wanted to order or relax a bit with our drinks.

WHAT???? I’d kill my servers if they did this.

So we asked for a couple of minutes which was closer to ten which was perfect.

The rest of the meal, service, experience were exactly what we needed.

We both decided it was the perfect Christmas meal.

We thanked our server profusely. Tipped him extra.

Thanked him again.

And took our leave, where we wandered back up town from SOHO.

Day one of vacation is in the books. It was a perfectly ordinary. Perfectly average day.

It was perfectly perfect.

Slept late.

I didn’t run the errands I was supposed to run.

I didn’t do the chores I needed to do.

I did drop off my dry cleaning so my shirts would be clean for our trip on Friday.

That was it.

Adam got home around 7:00. There was a fire in the fireplace. He made us a cocktail and prepared dinner. He then promptly fell asleep on the couch.

I’m now watching a Hallmark Christmas movie.

As I said. A perfectly average, perfectly ordinary day.

Perfect.

At 12:15 tonight I got into my car and headed home. It was a long day. I got to work just before 1:00 today. There was a lot to do before we shut down.

The evening was great. We started soft but had a ton of walkins and last minute reservations.

Made for a good night for all of us.

We had lots of fun people in.

One of my favorite servers from days gone by. Mr Sommelier himself. Travis Gomez.

Chef extraordinare and everyone’s favorite host Taylor Stanton and Dylan Stanton. I hadn’t seen them in forever.

The week before I interviewed for my current job I interviewed for a food and beverage director job. I was offered a second interview but had already accepted my job before they contacted me. The woman I interviewed with was in tonight. It was great to see her.

Lots of local somewhat regular folk were in tonight.

At the end of the night I discovered that the kitchen had made me dinner. Medium rare bone-in ribeye with creamed spinach. I might have broken the rules and had a glass of wine with dinner.

As the night wound down my amazing staff all pitched in to do lots of extra work to facilitate the shut down. A lot of them will read this so know that I appreciate all of you!!!

Especially the two bartenders who stayed till after midnight doing end of year inventory and a thorough cleaning of the bar. Tara Hartman. Lexie Muller

Chef left tonight after thanking the entire staff. He said a special thanks to me calling me Jeffie as he did so. I think he likes me.

And I ended my night by having a cocktail with my friend Joe Dumais. He’s the guy who suggested me for my current job. He was thanked immensely as we toasted the end of the year.

All in all. A great night. Here’s to working for someone who appreciates the need for time off.

Be well. I’ll try to post over the next week but no pressure. It is vacation after all.

Work life balance.

I’ve been a GM since 2013. And for the past 8 years there has been little work life balance.

You are the restaurant. Calls at 4:00 in the morning because a pipe burst. Calls on your day off because the restaurant is on fire. Calls at 2:00 because someone is locked out of the hotel.

These calls actually happened.

How about calls because Suzy is sick. Or table 26 broke a tooth. Or Sam called Joan a bitch while he was taking out the garbage. How about your host is hung over so you have to go in to work on your day off. Or the owner invited VIP’s in and expects you to oversee the table of four. Or a phone call at 7:00 am from the owner to let you know a server posted an instagram post that they decided was inappropriate.

These are all true stories. My phone could never be off. We were closed two days a year and ultimately I was the go to. Call Jeff. He’ll know what to do.

My phone rang during plays. Dinner. Vacation.

However.

The most glorious thing about my new job is that when I’m not there the restaurant is closed. For the past six months the owner has not called me on my day off. I can turn my phone off. I can sleep late. I can relax. It’s perfectly wonderful.

And this time tomorrow I will be on a 16 day vacation. I hope to hear from my boss as he will traveling and I want photos, details, the fun stuff. But unless the restaurant catches fire it should all be fun contacts. I won’t work for 16 glorious days.

We were busy tonight. Busiest Friday night in weeks. Busier than during Prelude. Lots of big parties. Not a lot of two tops. Lots of threes and fours. I ran around tonight like I did in August. Seating. Busing. Helping where I could.

Around 8:30 I was approached by a server. She asked me to visit table 22. They were upset about their steak. The gentleman had told her he could have saved money and just cooked one at home that would have been better.

I approach them and say, hello how are you?

The man says he’s unhappy with his steak because it’s tough.

His wife says he’s just being an asshole.

But I kind of misunderstood and was confused as to who she was calling an asshole.

We sorted that out.

Bottom line is he thinks his steak is tough. I offer to get him a new one. I offer him dessert. I ask what will make him happy.

They assure me they are fine. I say, that it’s my job to make things better. I say all the things.

This opens the wife up to let me know what she thinks about the whole experience.

So she shared that she doesn’t like the music. It’s too upbeat. A little discoey. Not background music like it should be. She’s not wrong.

Our music is a statement. It’s sets a mood. It is NOT background music. I love the energy it creates. I don’t say this.

We chat. I ask them if they’ll come back. They are wishy washy.

I leave.

At this point I could have just comped the offending steak. Or bought them dessert. But I want them to come back. I want them to know that their experience is not the norm.

So I went back to the table and gave them a gift card. 50 bucks to use next time they come back. They insisted I didn’t need to do this. I assured them if they had been jerks I wouldn’t have. But I want them to come back and have a different experience.

They are very gracious.

But it opens up the wife to tell about the music again.

Then she complains about the table. They are seated at a high top.

Time for true confession.

They had reserved a regular table. She’d actually called today and tried to move her reservation earlier. We couldn’t do it because of how busy we were. They were booked at a semi round booth. Romantic.

Unfortunately, the table prior to them ordered a 3” thick porterhouse. It took an hour to cook. They were still eating when my upset guests arrived 15 minutes early for their reservation. They were still eating when they were sat 10 minutes late. I made the executive decision to seat them at a high top. The table prior to them finished about 45 minutes after they were seated at the wrong table.

I explain all of this to them. I apologize and explain what happened. They were appreciative to know why we seated them at the wrong table. The man comments about not rushing someone out who spent $150 dollars on steak. I don’t correct him that the steak was almost $250. I say you’re right. But we don’t rush anyone out. If you want to drink wine till midnight so be it. I might turn up the bad music but I won’t rush you out.

When it was all said and done they left happy. They tipped well. They’ll be back.

It felt great to turn someone’s night around.

PS. I have to wonder if their experience would have been different if they’d been sat at table 12 to begin with.

We have lots and lots and lots of regulars.

They all have their requests and needs.

Four of our regulars were in tonight. They had been seated about 10 minutes when their server appeared. Without even asking what she wanted I went to our wine storage, pulled a bottle out and handed it to her.

The back story.

We have a good wine list. With a price range from moderate to expensive. Our printed list is included on our drink menu. Because the list is shared with other items space is tight. On the list some things were abbreviated, and in a couple of places they were more than abbreviated.

In one particular case, the name and description were abbreviated and part of the name is missing. This happens to be the wine these regulars order. They order it by asking for the name not listed on the menu. This confuses the server.

But my favorite part, is that they think they are ordering a wine that’s reserved for them. That’s not on the menu. When they order it, they tell the server to have me get it as I know where it’s kept.

I always swear the server to secrecy. Just let them know that of course I knew where it was.

They leave happy. The server looks like a hero. They think I’m better at my job than I am.

It’s a win win for everyone.

Two comments!

Tonight I was standing at the host stand around 6:30 between turns looking at reservations for the week. Suddenly I hear someone talking about Jets and I’m excited because I’m sure they’re discussing the new West Side Story. Alas, they were talking sports balls. Boo.

Tonight a regular’s mother came in with his father. They are very sweet. An odd couple. She is very pretty, in her late 60’s, chatty, outgoing, fun to chat with. The husband is a sour puss. Barely grunts when he comes in.

She stops at the host stand to chat when she’s in. She often jokes about how grumpy he is. Both she and her son are happy because he doesn’t drink so he’s always their DD.

Anyway.

We are chatting about holiday plans. She’s off to Chicago. Then Puerto Vallarta. Then back to Chicago. We are closed for 16 days over the holidays so I’m sleeping late, then Adam and I are going to NYC then sleeping late some more. We are sharing excitement about our trips.

She says in the spring she’s going to Venice for a wedding. She’s excited because the son of her friend is getting married. The son’s fiancé is from a wealthy family and the fiancé’s father just gave her 2 MORE million dollars for the wedding. That was not a typo. 2. Million. More. Dollars. Seriously.

That is all.

We sell gift cards.

As does every other restaurant in America.

We sell traditional plastic cards that are processed through our Point of Sale.

We do not sell cards over the phone then mail them out. Our POS has an online gift card feature. You can buy the card then have the information emailed to your friend. Or you can print it out and physically give it to them.

On Thursday night a woman called and she was very angry. She had printed her gift card and it the printer had printed it “sloppy.” I have no idea what she meant, but she called to let me know this was my fault.

She wanted me to fix the file over the phone so it wouldn’t print sloppy.

I had no idea what the problem was. The print is plain but not sloppy. There are no graphics. Essentially our name, the amount, the GC number.

She kept demanding I fix it.

Then she demanded I send her a new one.

I kept trying to explain that neither choice was in my power.

Finally she got completely angry and said if I didn’t fix the problem she’d never come to our restaurant again.

I apologized and again said I couldn’t fix it.

She finally ended the call.

For the life of me I can’t understand people who don’t follow the instructions on our reservation site and call the restaurant for larger party reservations.

Tonight a woman called to see if her two five top reservations can be seated together. Also they are four tops now.

The truth is we could have seated them together.

But.

It would have meant that two servers would have lost four covers each. And a server who was already going to get more than her co workers would get 8 additional covers.

Plus. You caused us to lose reservations today if we give your two tables away because I told people all day we were full.

And all of this!

I repeat.

All of this could have been avoided if they’d just called.

Also.

They made the reservation almost two months ago. There would have been availability but alas they decided not sitting with their family as a whole superseded just calling.

I’ll never understand it.