There are few things I will never understand about people.

First are couples who sit at a 4 top and sit across from each other.  You could take the corner.  Hold hands.  Kanoodle. 

But no.

You sit across from each other like you are at a business dinner. 

This happened tonight with a very attractive table. 

If it was a date, it was not going well. 

And.

I don’t understand far-sitters.

People who push out 10 feet from the table.

At table 24 tonight all of them were far sitters.  The table is in the middle of the dining room. 

We larger folks had trouble getting passed. 

They were not large folks.  They just chose to sit 1,985 feet from the table.

The only thing worse is the people who push back and cross their legs, which stick out into the aisle. 

And.

I also don’t understand, people who ask for weird shit on their reservation.

Tonight someone said, to serve a chocolate soufflé for dessert to the table.   

Like seriously. 

We are going to whip up a dessert on command just because you asked. 

It’s as annoying as the guests who yelled at the server because Chef wouldn’t cut the Mexican corn off the cob for the table. 

Last night a table yelled because he wouldn’t carve their steak table side. 

Seriously. 

And I’ll end by saying:

I was out at the patio tonight when a guy walked up to me, fan-girling all over the place about how much he loved, loved, loved the restaurant.  He said, it was actually a problem with him and his wife.  They were traveling with friends and he made the four of them drive three hours out of the way to eat at our restaurant.

WOW.  I was impressed.

So.

I went to the host. And had her move things around so he could have the best possible experience. 

The best table. 

A great server.

They were led to the table and refused to sit there.

They said it was too loud.  I explained why he was being sat there.

They didn’t care.

So I’m sure they had a great experience.

But.

They could have had a stellar, out of this world experience.

But alas.

It was not to be.

I was so annoyed.  I never checked back in with them. 

And last but not least.

We seem to have been discovered as a child friendly restaurant.

On Sunday’s kids eat free.  Hehehe.  (Not really)

The Gallery, where we put large parties, has been a daycare for the past two days. 

Last night we had a 12 top that had 6 adults and 6 kids under 6. 

Tonight we had a 10 top that was 3 adults and 7 kids. 

Under 10. 

Garrett who works in the Gallery every night he is scheduled has started calling it, Garrett’s Day Care. 

It wouldn’t be so bad, but they all share a bunch of stuff. 

Garrett waited on almost 20 guests tonight and his sales were $600.  Around $35 per person. 

On what should have been a great night, he made $75 dollars.

Yes, you win some, you lose some, but it’s frustrating. 

After dinner, the 10 top sent the 7 kids with one of the adults and the 2 remaining made out in the parking lost by the kitchen door.

You can’t make this shit up.

Occasionally the hosts get lost. 

They seat a table and for get to mark it as seated. 

Then they wonder why they haven’t shown up yet. 

Several times since I’ve worked there, the hosts have called a guest to see if they are still coming, only to have the guest say, we are seated and just got our drinks.

It’s embarrassing.

It’s also kind of funny. 

That happened yesterday.

But that’s not what this story is about.

Last night a guest checked in. 

They were an 8:00 reservation and arrived at 7:30.  They were told it would be closer to 8:00 before we could get them seated. 

They said great.  We’ll go to the outside bar and get drinks.

And we never heard from them again. 

There were no unaccounted for tables.

They didn’t answer their phone when we called.

They didn’t respond to the texts we sent them asking where they were.

They didn’t call to complain when I charged the $100 for not showing up to eat. 

They just disappeared into thin air.

For the life of me I have no idea what happened.

Perhaps they were marked arrived by mistake. 

Perhaps they got tired of waiting and went to McDonald’s. 

Perhaps they were seated and don’t realize they’ve been charged yet.

It’s a mystery. 

This has never happened to me before.

I’ll keep you posted. 

Whew!

First.

I’m fucking tired. I’m at 42.5 hours in four days. I have two more to go. I’ll be at 65 hours by the end of the week.

But.

No pity. I signed up for this. I knew this going into the summer.

And the funny thing is, that I’m having so much fun. Every day my staff impresses me. I have the strongest team, I’ve ever had.

Tonight, a fellow restaurant manager, from in town was in sitting at the bar. We were commiserating. She said that all of her inexperienced babies (her word) made up for their lack of polish by desire to do a good job and to aspire to be the best that they can be.

The same is true for me right now. Not all of my team has the finesse I’d like, but their guests love them because they are so lovely. Kind. Friendly. Sweet. And engaging.

As for me, the restaurant continues to kill it. Our busiest night last year was on August 14th. We tied that number tonight. We’ve only been 10 or so behind it, every day this week. Tonight’s revenue broke last year’s record by several thousand dollars. It’s fun to continue to break records, while my staff stands around saying, uh…when is the push going to come.

Meanwhile, not one person has shown up with a party of 12 after having made three 4-top reservations. I changed the wording on the reservation site and said that we would NOT seat you together if you showed up with a party of 6 or more having made smaller reservations. I was also made to feel better when I chatted with a fellow manager so shared that she had gone to our reservation site to see if our system was ambiguous. She assured me the site was very clear on how to make a larger reservation.

Speaking of larger reservations.

For parties of 10 or more we require them to use our family style menu.

Does everyone know what family style means???

For those confused like Mary was, it means we are going to send out platters of food that you and your friends will share.

Mary, had a hard time understanding that.

First she sent me back her adjustments to the menu, requesting things we don’t even offer.

Then she shared that she was trying to save us the embarrassment of having people order things off the regular menu.

Then she decided they would all just order from the regular menu.

Then she decided they’d come when the party was smaller.

Seriously. She was saving us embarrassment of having people order off the regular menu.

Meanwhile, tonight we had a party of 10 in at 8:00 using the family style menu.

At 8:00 on 1 person had arrived. At 8:30 only 3 people had arrived. Finally around 8:45 five people were at the table. By this time, Chef was insisting we start the process. At 8:50 apps for 10 were served to the table.

At 9:00 the server comes and lets me know it’s only going to be 5 people, wanting to know what to do.

I explain it to him.

Then I go the table.

I apologize for intruding, but let them know that when the reservation was booked they were sent a contract. And the contract was for 10 people. I continued by saying we’d be sending out food for 10 people. They were welcome to take leftovers but that we’d started cooking their food as soon as the fist person sat so that they wouldn’t wait a long time between courses. It was truly too late to change the food content.

This meant that they paid a certain, not inexpensive dollar amount for 10 people instead of 5 people.

Luckily, they did not put up a stink and never said a word.

I actually felt bad because it was one of their birthdays and their friends didn’t show. Seriously. Rude.

Meanwhile, at the same time. Table 11 was sending back one of their 2” cowboy cut ribeye steaks because it was too rare. I was standing at the wait station 5 feet away when it happened.

The server explained what was happening as he walked to the kitchen.

What seemed like five minutes later I was speaking with one of the Chef’s table who was praising everyone. Their server. The Chef. Explaining that we were so much better than the steak houses in California where they live.

In the midst of this, their server walks up and pulls me aside. Table 11 has flagged her down wanting to know where their steak is.

So I excuse myself, and check in with the kitchen.

It’s a 2” steak. It’s going to take a moment. But Chef ultimately, pulls it off the grill and puts it on a plate and gives it to me.

I take it to the table.

I set it down and the woman is clearly annoyed.

I say, I hear you were asking about your steak. Here it is.

She immediately launches in to why it took so long.

I explain that it’s a large format steak and it takes 10 to 15 minutes to bring it up another temp?

She says, well it’s clearly been longer than 10 minutes.

And I say, well actually it hasn’t been, I was standing there when the server took it from you it’s been 6 or 7 minutes at most. And as I said it takes 10 to 15 to bring it up to temp.

She then says, well perhaps if it wasn’t served raw this wouldn’t have happened.

I explain that it was NOT raw. It might have been on the rare side, but there was a nice sear on the steak and that chef never minded cooking steaks up a little more.

She is mad at me at this point.

She then wants to know why it wasn’t cooked to the specific temperature to begin with.

Ugh.

Seriously.

I say, Chef does his best and sometimes things get sent out a little early.

I don’t apologize but I walk away.

She is clearly annoyed with me. Two minutes later the server says, that she told him she would deal with this on her way out.

Oh. Yes. I bet you would.

20 minutes later I’m chatting with a guest when I see the woman from table 11 head to the host stand.

I get there just as she enters the restroom but she’s asked to speak with me.

I wait.

She comes out and launches into her complaint.

Hi. I’m from New York, but we have a summer home in Biddeford Pool. We eat at all the best restaurants in New York City and we’d never have been corrected if we’d had to send back a steak in New York.

I explain that I didn’t correct her. I just explained that you can’t bring a 2”steak up a temp in 5 minutes.

Then she says, well perhaps if it had been served correctly in the first place. If the chef is going to own a steak house he might want to learn how to cook a steak.

Oh. No. You. Dihn’t.

Seriously. The man cooked over 200 steaks tonight. He knows how to cook a steak.

She continues explaining that the steak was cooked raw. I correct her and say, no it was rare. NOT raw.

She then says it was inedible and impossible to cut.

I follow up by saying we’d have been happy to cook the steak more. It would have been easy to put more fire on it and bring it up even more.

She once again says it should have been cooked correctly in the first place.

I say, that I’m sorry you were unhappy with your steak but we’d have been glad to cook it more.

She continues to talk at me. NOT loud. But clearly annoyed at me. Continuing to tell me about ALL the restaurants in NYC they eat at that are perfect. Etc.

I just stand and look at her, consciously not engaging.

Finally, she realizes she is not going to get a fight and walks away.

I fully expected the server to ask for the steaks to be taken off the bill.

Instead, they were wrapped up and taken home with them. Would anyone take an inedible piece of food home with them.

They did tip their server well.

But it did put an element of not nice in the end of the evening.

But it was the first time all week. So we can live with it.

It’s late. I have not edited, not proofed any part of this post.

Please be forgiving.

Summer has arrived in Maine.

The sun has been shining constantly. There’s been little rain. Our lawn is a nice shade of tan.

With this temperature change comes the turning on of the air conditioning.

With it comes all the headaches you can imagine.

Everyone in the first turn is cold. You can guess the age of people who eat at 5:00. No one complains during the second turn. It just the 5:00ers.

And I’m amazed at the number of people who lose their shit about making it warmer in the dining room. Last week a woman told her server that she couldn’t feel her fingers and that her lips were turning blue. It was 72 in the dining room.

Two weeks ago a man left a 30% survey score because he was cold.

And if it’s not the air conditioning it’s the level of the music.

Table G1 ask for the music to be turned down 1,457,894 times tonight.

The volume never changes.

Ever.

It’s been the same since I started. Yes, it’s loud. But it’s the level Chef wants. He pays the mortgage he can set the level as he sees fit.

Fun thing about both of these issues.

The air. Nor the music are going to be changed for the sake of one person.

It’s set for the good of the whole.

Socialism at its best.

It’s not even just for guests.

Our air conditioning thermostat fluctuates between 69 and 71. None of these is cold. And it’s for our staff as much as it is for guests.

Who wants to watch your server melt in front of you.

Not to mention that we have an 18 foot wide open fire about 35 feet from bar. It’s warm.

So if you are a person who tends toward the chilly side, bring a sweater. You’ll be much happier than sitting there being miserable because we won’t change the temp.

And it’s totally not cool to demand your comfort supersede anyone else’s.

Was reading through reservations for tomorrow.

One had a guest note saying: “I’m allergic to red meat. Crazy huh?”

Here’s the thing. I don’t know what she can eat. There is a huge chance of cross contamination. Red meat is everywhere. Especially if it’s a true allergy.

I’ll report back after she dines with us.

I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

Every night at work I watch people park. And everyday I think we should be tested yearly to drive. This isn’t as bad as it gets. PS. We have expensive cars in our lot. Bentleys. . Lamborghinis. Maseratis. But no one can park between the lines.

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.

We have a patio.

Said patio is NOT dog friendly.

If we don’t like kids you sure as fuck know we don’t like dogs.

And every night someone shows up with a dog. When we explain that they can’t have their dog on the patio it because an emotional support dog.

Seriously.

By law. We are not require to make accommodations for an emotional support dog.

Only service dogs.

Also I bet your emotional support dog was just Fido until we told you no.

Also you can be fined in the state of Maine for claiming an animale is a service animal when it’s not.

It also makes it hard for the people who seriously need support animals.

Also don’t get mad that you didn’t know we didn’t allow animals.

The phone worked all day. You could have called.

And you should be ashamed of yourself.

Today I got to work at 1:00 as usual.

Turn on the a/c. Get a cup of coffee. Log into the I-pad.

Walk into the office, hit the play button on the machine.

There were 9 messages. Lizzy was one of them.

One of the others was an angry woman who was mad because she was charged $50 for cancelling a reservation.

I call her back, leave my standard message: Hi this is Jeff calling from _________________. You can reach us back at 555.555.5555.

I learned last year not to leave any other message or people will assume they’ve gotten a reservation or their issue has been resolved.

Generic call me back message.

I move on to other messages.

As I said, Chef and I sat down to talk to today.

We’ve been chatting for about 30 minutes when one of our kitchen employees leads a woman out of the kitchen into the dining room.

I thought she was there to make a reservation.

Oh. NO.

Her husband has insisted she come down to the restaurant to confront me about being charged for her cancelled reservation.

Back story.

She made the reservation on line at 8:30 yesterday morning. She made it for 2 people.

She realized at 4:55 she needed it to be for 3 people.

She called the restaurant at 4:55 on Saturday night of the July 4th weekend to change her reservation.

I’m standing there when they field the call.

There is NO WHERE for a table of 3 until 8:30. This is too late for her. They cancel her reservation.

The following exchange takes place.

She also states that NO ONE ever answers the phone. I ask her if she leaves a message, NO BUT…

I assure her that if she left a message she’d have been called back.

She then insists that she made the reservation for 3 but we changed it on her.

I assure her that this didn’t happen.

She then wants to know why she was charged if she cancelled. We are a busy restaurant and we surely filled the reservation.

I explain that she literally cancelled five minutes before service started and that I’d been turning people away all day.

She then says, well we put our name on your notify list all the time and perhaps if you called people back you could have filled it. I explain that we have never and will never use the notify list.

She pushes back again saying that she should be refunded her $50 dollars.

I say great. I’ll refund your $50 and charge you for the reservation for 3 that you have for today that you are once again trying to cancel after the 24 hour deadline.

She insists that she did not make the reservation.

I laugh. Spin the I-pad toward and say (I love to do this) the machine doesn’t lie. You made the reservation at 6:17 last night. My team did not make the reservation because the time stamp says it was you. So either you made it or you should change your password because you’ve been hacked.

She continues to insist that she wouldn’t make it because she’s bringing her son and she’d never have made it for 8:30.

I laugh.

She then says I don’t know why you’d charge someone who lives down the street who just wanted to change their reservation.

I explain that I was at the host stand when she called and she never asked to change her reservation.

She then says it’s because we are always booked?

HUH?

I ask her to explain?

She says you are always booked. I couldn’t change it.

I ask her, if she asked the hosts to change it and she says no. I tried to do it online. You are always booked.

Finally Chef, says we’ll make your reservation.

She’s coming tomorrow at 5:00.

A glitch in the Resy system is that if you cancel a reservation it still sends a text reminding you of the reservation.

So of course the husband calls tonight to yell at the hosts. He then ends by asking if if I’ve refunded the charges.

The host has no idea what he’s talking about.

I’ll refund her.

In 2 weeks.

Anyone want to guess what happened at 8:00 tonight?

Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Why yes. Yes, indeed.

I was on the patio when I hear a request to come to the host stand on the radio. And when I get there I discover:

A party of eight showed up with two 4 top reservations. One inside. One outside…

One reservation at 8:00. One reservation at 8:30.

They are ready to go at it when I get there.

Of course. Before I even take a breath I think to myself. This has happened everyday for six days. Every. FUCKING day.

I step behind the host stand and ask the host what’s going on.

She explains.

The girl. We’ll call her Lizzy.

She starts.

I’ve been calling for days trying to get through but no one answers and no one returns my calls.

I take great offense to this. I spend the first hour of EVERY day returning messages from the night before and morning of. I tell her all of this.

She tells me that she called earlier today and no one called her back.

I laugh.

And say, oh. Your reservation says Elizabeth. But you’re Lizzy. I called you back today. Your voicemail is full.

She looks like I called her some horrible name.

She continues saying, okay. You might have called me today, but I’ve been calling for weeks.

I assure her if she’s left messages, she’s been called back.

She has not left messages. I checked my notebook. I have every message I’ve taken since working there recorded in three ring binders.

She continues.

Well my mom has been calling as well and no one has returned her calls.

I assure her that if she has left a message she has been called back.

She changes her strategy.

She no longer cares, she’s just insisting that they sit together.

I explain this can’t happen because we are full.

Well why not, she says?

Because we are full, I say.

Well can we just wait.

I reply yes you can, but we won’t be able to seat you until around 9:30 and our last reservation is at 8:30.

Then we’ll wait she says.

I explain that I just said, our last reservation is at 8:30 we won’t be seating anyone at 9:30.

A man appears and asks why not.

I’m struggling at this point.

I literally say, BECAUSE I said so.

At this point she goes back to her original tactic, saying as she plops her Louis Vuitton bag on the host stand, my mother lives at Walker’s Point and she’s been trying to get in touch with you for weeks to no avail.

Seriously. You just told me your a Bush and this is somehow supposed to make things better. (Turns out she’s a step Bush).

The man steps up again.

Can we get get drinks on the patio and get seated when the table is available.

UH. NO. We just covered this, no one tonight is getting sat after 8:30.

So can we get seated at separate tables and then move when a table becomes available.

UH. NO. You can’t.

Well why not?

Because at the point your food will be in the system. No one will know where to take it to. And it’s difficult to provide you with exemplary service doing it this way.

SHE looks at her friends and says why don’t we just go someplace else. They agree that this will be a great idea.

I explain that I’d be happy to cancel their reservation but they’d be charged $25 per person for the 2 reservations. So they’d be paying $200 dollars to eat elsewhere.

The man says, they have our credit cards on file?

She says with frustration, yes.

She goes back to the original argument.

I explain that this is not true. You have left one message today wanting to change your reservation. You made your original reservation two weeks ago. You’ve had plenty of time to change it. You WILL get charged.

They decide to stay.

Now they are trying to decide who will sit where.

The man starts again.

I don’t understand why you are being so difficult.

I explain that I’m not being difficult. I literally have two table open. One outside. One inside. I’m not going to move anyone and that they are NOT going to sit together.

He continues to be pissed.

Finally the men are seated.

The women remain at the host stand. I think it’s over and leave.

Then I get called back to the host stand. They’ve finally exited to the patio but they were bullying my host. Demanding she find a solution and then told her was rude when she said, I’m not sure what you want me to do?

She then tells my host that she is in the service industry and she should be embarrassed about how’s she is treating her.

I think to myself, I’m embarrassed for you if you are in the service industry acting like this.

A few minutes later I go outside and discover they haven’t been sat yet, because their table wasn’t ready. One of the, marches over to demand to know why they haven’t been sat yet. The host says, because your table is dirty. When it’s cleaned we’ll get you sat.

They are finally seated.

They decide to be difficult and didn’t order for close to 45 minutes. The men inside had eaten two courses and paid before they even ordered their food.

They also took every opportunity to tell their server how rude the hosts and the manager were.

When I tell Chef about the comment about living at Walker’s Point he says, I hope you said, well I’m sure you have beautiful views but that still won’t get you a table together.

We did decide that tomorrow I’m putting a message on Resy that says if you do make two reservations to skirt the system your request to sit together will not be honored and you will sit at the tables we have reserved for you.

Six fucking days in a row.