I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

Do you ever want to climb into bed and just say fuck it?

Or even better, tell everyone to fuck off AND THEN climb in to bed and say fuck it.

I’ve been a GM four months shy of 10 years.

10 fucking years. Seriously. Some of my people from day one are friends here. You were there.

And being complained about on line, never stops bothering me.

The first review to ever mention me was about two weeks after we opened my first restaurant.

It was a four top that hated everything.

They hater their table. The fact that we didn’t have steak knives. The insisted that they hadn’t ordered the second round of drinks that they’d consumed. They said the check was wrong. They went on and on. And in their review, they said I was incompetent and was hiding in the office.

They failed to mention how they’d made a scene at the restaurant witnessed by the entire restaurant. Or the fact that they’d been caught making fun of the weight of their server.

Two of what would become regulars wrote responses to the review telling the real side of the story. I’m still friends with both parties.

Fun fact: I WAS hiding in the office. I’d never been personally attacked like that before. I don’t hide in the office anymore.

Before you start, yes, I know you should just let these reviews roll off my shoulders.

But sometimes they make it personal.

Like today.

Here’s today’s review.

Do not make reservations at this restaurant. If you must go, go as a walk-in and sit at the bar. The restaurant uses the Resy app and charges $25 PER PERSON for CANCELLED reservations. I accidentally made a reservation one day for 5 people and later cancelled it. (I was trying to make a reservation for 6 people two weeks later, but got interrupted and stuffed my phone back in my purse.) I repeat – I cancelled it later that day, but received a $125 charge in the evening. I even drove over to the restaurant, as I am a local and frequent customer. The front-of-house manager just smirked and refused to listen to my explanation. He said I took a table away from other patrons, but the restaurant was half empty. So, cancellations are only allowed 24 hours in advance – which is impossible to do if you’ve made a day-of reservation. Luckily for me, my bank covered it. Again, if you make a reservation for later that day, and cancel it, you will be charged $25 per person. I don’t even understand how this is legal.

As far as the food, it is expensive and usually good, but inconsistent. If you do get a piece of tough meat, you will be told it was done to the proper temperature, and there is nothing they can do about it. Service is pretty dreadful, but as you can see, the culture comes from the top. Why this maître d’ hasn’t been fired is beyond me, as every negative review mentions this smug and rude man. However, he’s been with the chef/owner for years, so the chef/owner must approve of his churlish manner. Our local restaurants are limited, but even so, I’ll never return to this unappreciative, presumptuous business.

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Fuck me!!!

First this review is from August. I take up a lot of space in stranger’s minds and I don’t know how I feel about this.

Chef and I both agree that responding is never the right answer. No matter how you try, you can never come off gracious, even if you admit full fault, and who wants to do that.

So, we ignore them.

At least publicly.

So, let’s break this one down.

Yes. We take reservations. On Resy. But we do not charge @25 per person for cancelled reservations.

We do charge $25 per person for cancelled reservations if you cancel them after the time of your reservations. But I’ll come back to this.

As for walking in to the bar, if you dined with us more often, you’d know that on most days, you cannot walk into our bar and get a seat. You must make a reservation, where we will take your credit card and we will charge you if you cancel after the time of your reservation or in some cases just no show.

Who the fuck accidently makes a reservation? It defaults to 2 people, so even if you just sat on your phone, you didn’t accidently make the reservation fpr 5 people.

When you try to make a reservation you see this message:

Cancelling this reservation may trigger a fee of $25.00 per guest.

This message pops up again when you enter your credit card.

So, you see the message twice.

And did you accidentally enter your credit card twice?

AND.

When you tried to enter 6 people, Resy will tell you to contact the restaurant for parties 6 or more. So, you were trying to bypass that as well.

You weren’t trying to make a reservation for two weeks later it was for the next day. I know because technology doesn’t lie.

I’m sorry that you got interrupted, but you didn’t cancel. You didn’t cancel at all. You showed up with 6 people after making a reservation for 5 people for the next day.

And fun fact. You can cancel day of. Until 5:00. Most of the time even after that, if you let us know why and do it before the time of your reservation.

Fun fact: We are very, very, very forgiving with this policy. I charged maybe 15 reservations all summer. And even refunded a few people, to the point that Chef was angry that I was refunding people.

And this my friends is my favorite part of today’s post by me:

She wrote the following:

I even drove over to the restaurant, as I am a local and frequent customer.

She followed up by writing:

As far as the food, it is expensive and usually good, but inconsistent. If you do get a piece of tough meat, you will be told it was done to the proper temperature, and there is nothing they can do about it. Service is pretty dreadful, but as you can see, the culture comes from the top.

So, seriously lady: Why are you a frequent customer of a restaurant that is expensive, inconsistent, with dreadful service.

I’ll wait why you answer.

You can’t answer.

Truth is that’s not true. I just looked up your reservation. I remember you now. I remember speaking with you.

You have two reservations in your history. Both made for the same day. Accidently, I assume.

One of those reservations was cancelled about 2 hours after you made it. The other was cancelled 22 minutes after 5:00, by our host. Your reservation was made for 5:00.

Let me tell the good audience what really happened.

First, we were not empty that day. The patio was closed as it rained. It was the middle of August. We were packed. You didn’t call. You showed up at 5:22 and let us know you’d come with 6 people not 5. You told us that since you couldn’t make a reservation for 6 you’d made one for 5 and hoped for the best. You let us know you that you’d made a back up reservation, just in case we couldn’t accommodate you. Unfortunately, the restaurant was full and we couldn’t accommodate you. So, on your way out you let me know that since the other restaurant was more accommodating than us, you’d be sticking with that reservation.

So, you were going to piss someone off that night. You, just hoped it wasn’t us.

And if you hadn’t been so cavaliere about the second reservation I probably wouldn’t have charged you.

But here we are. 3 months to day of your reservation later, and you are telling me all the ways I’m bad at my job.

So, let’s address the rest of your post:

The culture comes from the top. Why this maître d’ hasn’t been fired is beyond me, as every negative review mentions this smug and rude man. However, he’s been with the chef/owner for years, so the chef/owner must approve of his churlish manner. Our local restaurants are limited, but even so, I’ll never return to this unappreciative, presumptuous business.

The culture does come from the top. Just ask my team. I don’t yell. I don’t chastise. I don’t berate them. But I do protect them, so when someone cancels on them 22 minutes after they are supposed to be at the restaurant I charge them $25 per person.

I’m not a fucking maître d. I’m the fucking GM. I own the front of house. And my nights are filled with people telling me at the door how fucking awesome we are.

FUCKING AWESOME.

My dreadful servers are the best of the best. My worst server, would be a rockstar at any other restaurant. Seriously. They fucking rock.

Yes, a lot of negative reviews mention the smug, rude man. They do. I own that.

And just like you, their stories are bent to meet their need to be seen as the good guys.

And it all comes down to the fact that I have yet to learn how to tell an entitled adult no without them acting like a toddler.

Anyone, want to help here. Adults don’t like to be told no. Angry adults like it less.

I have been with Chef for 18 months. Not very long at all.

But here’s a list of things I’ve done since then:

I’ve increased sales over 50% since I started streamlining our seating. I’ve improved moral, so the only people quitting these days are to start their cannabis business. Continued to hire quality people. And create a fun, loving, place to work.

The restaurants in our area aren’t limited at all. In a 30 mile radius, some of the finest food in America is served daily. But if you don’t want to go to the best of the best, I’d suggest the Olive Garden out by the mall, I’m sure you can get a reservation there.

I’ll finish by saying.

If we looked at all the 1* reviews we’ve had since we opened divided by the number of people we’ve served in the last three months our negative review rate is: .00052.

I think I can live with.