Well.

Tonight was an adventure in addition and subtraction.

First. 

I notice around 3:00 that a person has made a reservation for 4 people.  But in her notes she lets us know that they have 2 kids.  Making it 6. 

I love.  Love.  Love.  People who don’t know children are people.  They take up space.  They sit in chairs. 

You needed to make a reservation for 6. 

NOT.

4. 

I change the reservation to 6. 

Meanwhile, at 5:15 a party walks in. 

A woman approaches the host stand and says, “We are the Smith party”. 

The host says, “Yes.  Are you still going to be 5 people?)

The woman replies, “Well actually I tried to make the reservation for 6 but Resy wouldn’t let me.  So I made it for 5 instead.  So we are going to be 6 people”. 

Seriously!!!

I explain that we won’t be able to seat them at 5:15 and might not be able to get them seated until around 5:45.

Part of the reason is that we had to move them to another table and we don’t want to double, or triple seat the server. 

Also, I want to inconvenience them.    Which I know is petty on my part, but what the fuck????

The woman asks why they can’t just be sat at their assigned table, and I have to explain that a table with 5 chairs won’t accommodate a party with 6 people.  It’s basic math.  I also let her know that Resy actually gives you a message that says for more than 5 people call the restaurant.

She wants to know why they have to call…

And the reason is so that I can absolutely control the spread and seating of large parties so the kitchen doesn’t get squashed. 

They wait about 10 minutes and are seated.

Meanwhile. 

I go out to the patio.

I’m out there when a couple walks up and asks if they should check in with us inside or outside. 

I ask their name.

It’s the Jones party. 

She called late in the afternoon to switch her reservation from inside to outside. 

I generally say no to this.

Why? 

Because a lot of people do this.  And it’s not fair to the inside servers who lose reservations all night with people who didn’t want to gamble with the weather,  changing their reservations to outside. 

My standard answer is sorry the patio is fully booked. 

I mark them as arrived, and they head inside.

Only I notice that they are reserved as a party of 5 and there are 7 of them.

I let them walk past and I head to the host stand inside.  I tell the host that the Jones party is reserved as 5 but 7 people are coming in. 

The couple arrives first and says they are the Jones party of 5. 

The host leads them to the table.  But I’m serious.  Its 7 people.  5 grown adults.  And 3 kids that will definitely need chairs. 

The host comes back and says that they are asking for an extra chair. 

I explain that we don’t have extra chairs. 

And we don’t.  Every table is assigned a number of seats.  And we don’t adjust them.  We don’t pull tables together.  We don’t cap tables.  We don’t let people squeeze.  We can comfortably seat parties up to 40 with no problem as long as we know they are going to be that large. 

The host comes back and says they are going to make it work. 

30 minutes later I realize they have commandeered our two high chairs and the 6 year old is sitting in a high chair. 

At 6:00 we have a large party reservation arrive.  They are seated.  With large parties over 9 we use a special 3 course pre-fixe menu.  It’s a ton of food for a not small price.  It’s truly priced so that if you ordered all of the items you are served it would cost the same. 

They are seated.  They are served.  The food comes and goes.  Everything is great.

Once again, I’m standing at the outside host stand when I see the server present the check to the host.  90 seconds later they are walking toward me. 

He approaches and shows me the check. 

He explains that we charged them for 9 adults and 3 children when in fact they only had 8 adults.

UGH!!!!

I explain that I  sent them a contract that they agreed to that was specific about the number of covers we would serve.  It explained that we needed 72 hours’ notice to change the cover count.  It was very specific that no matter how many people who showed we’d be serving food for 12, and they would pay for 12.

He was not happy but said he’d deal with. 

Meanwhile, the party of 6 that I adjust earlier in the day has arrived.  Seems they managed to find a babysitter at the last minute and will only be 4 adult guests.

Kids are people folks. 

Like Soylent Green. 

Like Soylent Green.  (Look it up kids). 

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.