I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

Guess what?

No one come in with two reservations demanding to sit together. Hurray!

Today, I added messages on Resy saying, do not make two reservations for a larger party as we will NOT seat you together. We will honor your reservations, but not together. It’s on the Resy home page and the large party page. Let’s hope it help.

Meanwhile.

Chef decided yesterday that we’d close early tonight. We called our 8:00’s moved them earlier and our last reservation tonight was at 7:30. We were all hoping to get out early.

Around 6:30, I’m standing at the host stand and the door to the restaurant opens. A woman walks in, she wobbles as she enters and then approaches the host stand.

I’m thinking to myself, she might be drunk, but lets give her the benefit of the doubt.

She starts, Hi. We had reservations at 8:00 but you asked us to come in early. We are here early. We are hoping to be sat soon. Because you asked us to come in early. And here we are.

She is slurring her words.

However, at this point I’m wondering if she is drunk or if she has a disability. I don’t want to offend her or say something I’ll regret.

They get seated.

A few minutes later the woman appears to go to the restroom. Accompanied by whom I assume is her husband. She is wobbling. He waits for her.

Fast forward 18 minutes. I know it’s 18 minutes because I look at the I-pad. They were seated 18 minutes ago.

Seems they don’t have drinks yet. And according to her, the server came to the table, gave them the specials and has not come back and they don’t have drinks yet. We asked them to come in early, but they haven’t been waited on yet and why would we ask them to come in early if they weren’t going to get waiting on. We would have never changed our reservation if we’d known this was the service we were going to get. She is very angry and all of this is being shouted at me.

She is also very slurry. VERY slurry.

At this point I decide it’s because she’s intoxicated.

She is still going.

What’s funny is that if you were a theater director and someone made the choice to be drunk like her, you’d say don’t do that. It’s not real. You sound like you are playing a characture of a drunk person.

She seriously sounded like she had marbles in her mouth.

I don’t apologize. I just listen, nod my head and hope she’ll stop soon.

Why don’t I apologize?

Because she came at me angry. Giving me no chance to explain what happened.

Here’s why her service is suffering?

I had an employee who gave his notice last week tell me last night he wasn’t coming in for his last shift.

It was okay. We were over staffed.

Then, I had a current employee text me at 11:30 last night telling me she wasn’t coming in today and she wasn’t coming back. She only worked Mondays, and has for the past two summers. But we’ll be good.

We are still okay but it’s going to be a fun night.

Then.

At 4:05 a server comes up to me and tells me she was sick at work last night and now that she is here she needs to go home.

Seriously. You couldn’t fucking call me at 1:00 and tell me so I had a chance to find someone, anyone to cover your shift?

We should have had 7 servers in our dining room tonight. We had 4. And. She told me too late to actually close the books and slow the evening down.

We were in it now. It was going to be what it was going to be.

So when the lady was sat, the server had 6 other tables she was working. She was doing the best she could do.

I was helping as much as I could but one middle aged manager does not three servers make.

The woman goes back to her table.

I find her server. She is fine. She is finally caught up.

I pull her aside and tell her NOT to serve the lady any booze.

She approaches the table and asks to take the order.

And things go south fast.

I miss some of it, but the next thing I know the four of them are marching toward the host stand.

I am fast for a middle aged over weight man. I beat them there.

And just I get there, she rounds the corner and starts. She is shouting at this point.

Once again, reminding me that she came in early for us, and now we are refusing to serve her. She continues. and continues and continues.

Her husband is trying to pull her away. He’s clearly embarrassed.

She is getting louder.

I finally cut her off and say, we didn’t refuse to serve you. WE REFUSED TO SERVE YOU ALCOHOL BECAUSE YOU ARE CLEARLY DRUNK. YOU ARE SLURRING YOUR WORDS. YOU CAN HARDLY STAND UP.

He keeps trying to pull her away. Now she is cursing at me.

Her husband finally gets her out the door, but the other adult man (they had what I’d guess to be a 13 year old with them who is witnessing all of this) and he starts.

He is full on angry. Shouting. Cursing. Monday’s must be the day Jeff is told to go fuck himself 12 times by a customer. He reminds me of how bad I am at my job. He reminds me of how horrible the restaurant is. He continues to tell me to fuck off.

He finally leaves.

I go to the dining room to discover a guest is consoling the server. Seems he had gotten in her face and was shouting at her. Cursing at her.

I send her to my office. I spend the next ten minutes checking in with her tables. Table 37 is outraged at their behavior. Table 35 had told the man to stop and come to the servers defense. They are fine. Actually all of her tables are so kind. And she actually made a lot of money because of they all tipped her well.

I find her. Give her a big hug. Ask if she needs anything. She says she’s fine.

The evening continues.

About an hour later, the woman leaves us a 0 on our survey, saying we refused to server them, after asking them to come in early.

This is seriously, the worst fucking summer I’ve ever had since I started being a GM.

It’s seriously so outrageous that all I can do now is laugh.

PS. The table from last night left us a bad review saying I was rude, aggressive, and disrespectful.

No mention of their behavior.