I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

I got a very interesting email tonight at work.

I’ll get to that in a moment. 

Adam and I dine out a fair amount in town.  I wouldn’t say a lot because we most often save dining out for when we are out of town.  And.  Our schedules don’t give us a lot of time together and we like to enjoy the home we are paying for, so we usually stay home and Adam cooks.  

That being said, we do eat out occasionally.  

When we do eat out, we go about reservations the normal route and book them online.  

Occasionally, we will reach out to the manager, if it’s truly someone we actually know and have a relationship with.  This rarely happens.  In fact, we both go out of our way to NOT do that.    

The point I’m making is NEITHER of us would ever dream of calling up a local restaurant and saying Hi, I’m Jeff, I’m the manager of Applebee’s and I’d like a reservation on Saturday night.  

We would never, ever, ever, ever do this.  

EVER.

Now back to the email.

Someone emailed me tonight for a reservation on Saturday for a party of 12.  At 7:00.  Then dropped the detail, that they are a manager for a local restaurant, making it seem that somehow this would be some magical reason to make this work.

If you email me, you get the same response as everyone.  EVEN Chef’s friends follow my guidelines for a party over 8.  I set the price.  I set the time.  They adhere to the rules.  In fact this past Friday night, we hosted a party of 26 for friend of Chef’s and I set the price and I set the time.    

I’d be happy to help you.  NOT because you are in the business, but because I want to help everyone.  

I’m amazed at how many people think I just say no to say no.  

But what about this table?  Or that table?  Or this area?  Or that area?

My whole job is based around making decisions that increase the revenue of the business.  I’m never going to say no to someone when saying yes brings us increased business.

So tomorrow, I’ll cut and paste the same email I send to everyone, offering times that work for us.  And a pre-fixe menu that we require of everyone.  

And I truly hope they book.  I really do.