Around 7:00 I’m standing in my office door when a man enters the lobby.

I ask him how his dinner was.

He’s says it was okay.

I step into the lobby and say just okay?

He says, I don’t mean to complain but it wasn’t very good. Neither of our steaks were cooked well. Mine was over cooked

I interrupt to ask if he sent it back.

He did not.

He continues. His wife’s steak was so full of gristle, that she couldn’t eat it.

He continues saying this is his third time here and it’s never been good. The quality is less than stellar and sometimes barely edible.

He then says, he noticed a lot of people eating burgers at the bar and maybe we should just stick to burgers.

I kind of apologize.

He leaves.

90 seconds later he’s standing in my door wanting to know where we source our meat, because he used to be in the business and says we should definitely be ordering a better quality.

I thank him for his advice.

He leaves.

A few points.

Yes, people at the bar eat burgers. People at the bar also eat 175 dollar Wagyu tomahawk ribeyes so there’s that.

I speak to about 80% of the people who come in our restaurant. 99.999 of them love it.

When I ask how their dinners were:

Do you even need to ask?

We’ve never had a bad meal here.

This was the best steak I’ve ever had.

This place is amazing.

So.

For the same man to have had three bad experiences either means he has the worst luck ever or he’s never going to be happy.

I know what I think.

Tonight around 5:30, a server approached me in the office to let me know a guest was unhappy.

She’d ordered a medium rare filet. And she was insisting it came out medium well.

The server suggested they’d perhaps they’d given her, her husbands filet by mistake. But no. His was great.

The server had taken the steak back to the kitchen and shown the chef the steak.

His head might have exploded.

Why you ask?

The server said the chef wanted to see me.

So I walk through the dining room so I can get a look at the table.

I get to the kitchen, and the chef hands me the plate. It’s the picture of a perfect medium rare filet. Like they’d put this steak in a magazine as to what it should look like.

The chef looks at me and says I’m not cooking her another one. This one is perfect.

I ask what he wants me to do.

He says I don’t care. She can leave for all I care. I shouldn’t have to pay for a steak that was prepared exactly as she ordered it.

I ask him to replate the steak.

And I take it back to the table.

I set it down in front of the woman and say, my server said you asked for your steak to be prepared medium rare. This is a picture perfect medium rare. We are confused as to why you sent it back.

She looks at me.

I look at her.

I should point out that when she first got the steak she cut it into five or six pieces. Don’t do this if there is a chance you might send it

I walk away.

Thirty seconds later the server comes back to the kitchen with the steak and says she’s refusing to eat it.

The chef eventually sends out a black and blue steak which she still complains about.

She did tip well.

But informed the server that she was appalled that I brought the steak back to the table. That I was rude and inappropriate. She then asked for my name and the server said it’s Jeff. He’s our general manager.

I can’t wait to field that call next week.