Lots of people coming in to the restaurant at the end of the night tonight.

We sat 4 tables at 7:45.

All should have been well. No issues. Just a normal night.

Until 8:30 when a server approaches the table that chef and I are seated at. He has in his hand a half eaten pork chop.

He explains that table 12 is insisting we served her chicken instead of pork. She says it looks like chicken. It tastes like chicken.

We all look at the plate.

It’s definitely a pork chop.

The server shows the sous chef in the kitchen. He confirms. It’s a pork chop.

The chef asks what the guest wants to do. The server has given her a menu to choose a new item.

But.

As I’ve said before.

There is no fire.

We might have enough to cook a skirt steak. But definitely nothing bigger.

I go to the table and explain that it is indeed a pork chop. We can only offer her a salad or a skirt steak, giving her my speech about end of night fire.

She declined to order anything else.

I apologized about the confusion, hoping she would change her mind.

But alas.

She did not.

She didn’t seem upset.

But I like when people leave happy. When I can turn things around.

Ugh.