Work life balance.

I’ve been a GM since 2013. And for the past 8 years there has been little work life balance.

You are the restaurant. Calls at 4:00 in the morning because a pipe burst. Calls on your day off because the restaurant is on fire. Calls at 2:00 because someone is locked out of the hotel.

These calls actually happened.

How about calls because Suzy is sick. Or table 26 broke a tooth. Or Sam called Joan a bitch while he was taking out the garbage. How about your host is hung over so you have to go in to work on your day off. Or the owner invited VIP’s in and expects you to oversee the table of four. Or a phone call at 7:00 am from the owner to let you know a server posted an instagram post that they decided was inappropriate.

These are all true stories. My phone could never be off. We were closed two days a year and ultimately I was the go to. Call Jeff. He’ll know what to do.

My phone rang during plays. Dinner. Vacation.

However.

The most glorious thing about my new job is that when I’m not there the restaurant is closed. For the past six months the owner has not called me on my day off. I can turn my phone off. I can sleep late. I can relax. It’s perfectly wonderful.

And this time tomorrow I will be on a 16 day vacation. I hope to hear from my boss as he will traveling and I want photos, details, the fun stuff. But unless the restaurant catches fire it should all be fun contacts. I won’t work for 16 glorious days.

We were busy tonight. Busiest Friday night in weeks. Busier than during Prelude. Lots of big parties. Not a lot of two tops. Lots of threes and fours. I ran around tonight like I did in August. Seating. Busing. Helping where I could.

Around 8:30 I was approached by a server. She asked me to visit table 22. They were upset about their steak. The gentleman had told her he could have saved money and just cooked one at home that would have been better.

I approach them and say, hello how are you?

The man says he’s unhappy with his steak because it’s tough.

His wife says he’s just being an asshole.

But I kind of misunderstood and was confused as to who she was calling an asshole.

We sorted that out.

Bottom line is he thinks his steak is tough. I offer to get him a new one. I offer him dessert. I ask what will make him happy.

They assure me they are fine. I say, that it’s my job to make things better. I say all the things.

This opens the wife up to let me know what she thinks about the whole experience.

So she shared that she doesn’t like the music. It’s too upbeat. A little discoey. Not background music like it should be. She’s not wrong.

Our music is a statement. It’s sets a mood. It is NOT background music. I love the energy it creates. I don’t say this.

We chat. I ask them if they’ll come back. They are wishy washy.

I leave.

At this point I could have just comped the offending steak. Or bought them dessert. But I want them to come back. I want them to know that their experience is not the norm.

So I went back to the table and gave them a gift card. 50 bucks to use next time they come back. They insisted I didn’t need to do this. I assured them if they had been jerks I wouldn’t have. But I want them to come back and have a different experience.

They are very gracious.

But it opens up the wife to tell about the music again.

Then she complains about the table. They are seated at a high top.

Time for true confession.

They had reserved a regular table. She’d actually called today and tried to move her reservation earlier. We couldn’t do it because of how busy we were. They were booked at a semi round booth. Romantic.

Unfortunately, the table prior to them ordered a 3” thick porterhouse. It took an hour to cook. They were still eating when my upset guests arrived 15 minutes early for their reservation. They were still eating when they were sat 10 minutes late. I made the executive decision to seat them at a high top. The table prior to them finished about 45 minutes after they were seated at the wrong table.

I explain all of this to them. I apologize and explain what happened. They were appreciative to know why we seated them at the wrong table. The man comments about not rushing someone out who spent $150 dollars on steak. I don’t correct him that the steak was almost $250. I say you’re right. But we don’t rush anyone out. If you want to drink wine till midnight so be it. I might turn up the bad music but I won’t rush you out.

When it was all said and done they left happy. They tipped well. They’ll be back.

It felt great to turn someone’s night around.

PS. I have to wonder if their experience would have been different if they’d been sat at table 12 to begin with.

We have lots and lots and lots of regulars.

They all have their requests and needs.

Four of our regulars were in tonight. They had been seated about 10 minutes when their server appeared. Without even asking what she wanted I went to our wine storage, pulled a bottle out and handed it to her.

The back story.

We have a good wine list. With a price range from moderate to expensive. Our printed list is included on our drink menu. Because the list is shared with other items space is tight. On the list some things were abbreviated, and in a couple of places they were more than abbreviated.

In one particular case, the name and description were abbreviated and part of the name is missing. This happens to be the wine these regulars order. They order it by asking for the name not listed on the menu. This confuses the server.

But my favorite part, is that they think they are ordering a wine that’s reserved for them. That’s not on the menu. When they order it, they tell the server to have me get it as I know where it’s kept.

I always swear the server to secrecy. Just let them know that of course I knew where it was.

They leave happy. The server looks like a hero. They think I’m better at my job than I am.

It’s a win win for everyone.

Two comments!

Tonight I was standing at the host stand around 6:30 between turns looking at reservations for the week. Suddenly I hear someone talking about Jets and I’m excited because I’m sure they’re discussing the new West Side Story. Alas, they were talking sports balls. Boo.

Tonight a regular’s mother came in with his father. They are very sweet. An odd couple. She is very pretty, in her late 60’s, chatty, outgoing, fun to chat with. The husband is a sour puss. Barely grunts when he comes in.

She stops at the host stand to chat when she’s in. She often jokes about how grumpy he is. Both she and her son are happy because he doesn’t drink so he’s always their DD.

Anyway.

We are chatting about holiday plans. She’s off to Chicago. Then Puerto Vallarta. Then back to Chicago. We are closed for 16 days over the holidays so I’m sleeping late, then Adam and I are going to NYC then sleeping late some more. We are sharing excitement about our trips.

She says in the spring she’s going to Venice for a wedding. She’s excited because the son of her friend is getting married. The son’s fiancé is from a wealthy family and the fiancé’s father just gave her 2 MORE million dollars for the wedding. That was not a typo. 2. Million. More. Dollars. Seriously.

That is all.

We sell gift cards.

As does every other restaurant in America.

We sell traditional plastic cards that are processed through our Point of Sale.

We do not sell cards over the phone then mail them out. Our POS has an online gift card feature. You can buy the card then have the information emailed to your friend. Or you can print it out and physically give it to them.

On Thursday night a woman called and she was very angry. She had printed her gift card and it the printer had printed it “sloppy.” I have no idea what she meant, but she called to let me know this was my fault.

She wanted me to fix the file over the phone so it wouldn’t print sloppy.

I had no idea what the problem was. The print is plain but not sloppy. There are no graphics. Essentially our name, the amount, the GC number.

She kept demanding I fix it.

Then she demanded I send her a new one.

I kept trying to explain that neither choice was in my power.

Finally she got completely angry and said if I didn’t fix the problem she’d never come to our restaurant again.

I apologized and again said I couldn’t fix it.

She finally ended the call.

For the life of me I can’t understand people who don’t follow the instructions on our reservation site and call the restaurant for larger party reservations.

Tonight a woman called to see if her two five top reservations can be seated together. Also they are four tops now.

The truth is we could have seated them together.

But.

It would have meant that two servers would have lost four covers each. And a server who was already going to get more than her co workers would get 8 additional covers.

Plus. You caused us to lose reservations today if we give your two tables away because I told people all day we were full.

And all of this!

I repeat.

All of this could have been avoided if they’d just called.

Also.

They made the reservation almost two months ago. There would have been availability but alas they decided not sitting with their family as a whole superseded just calling.

I’ll never understand it.

I always think I know what I’m going to write about by 8:00. Then someone comes along and throws that idea out the window.

Tonight we had a reservation for four people at 8:00.

Two of the four arrived early. They waited in the lobby for a while. They finally decided to be sat.

At 8:15 their friends are still not there.

They finally arrived as the clock inched toward 8:30.

The four of them then took forever to order. They actually ordered after the 6 top that was sat at 8:30.

The meal proceeded as normal.

At 10:00 they ordered dessert. No big deal.

At 10:30 they were finished.

They were also the only people in the restaurant.

They remained the only people in the restaurant until 11:45.

Myself, the chef and the server chatted at a table in the bar until they left.

We never rush people. We want them to enjoy themselves. But where’s the limit?

PS. We don’t do this but I know managers who would turn the heat off in the winter and air off in the summer to move people along. As well as turning off the music so it becomes uncomfortably quiet.

No it’s your fault!

Thanks for all the comments from last night’s post.

I truly appreciated everyone’s input.

It was a rhetorical question.

I know the correct answer. But I wanted an honest discussion.

The correct answer is the item they ordered that they didn’t like, want, or didn’t ask for mods for is removed, comped and the new item is ordered.

No issue is made about this by any of the staff.

As for my friend, Vera, who had her food delivered to the wrong table and then brought to her table after:

I’d ask to have it recooked.

And I’d bring it to the manager’s attention that it happened. Not to get anyone in trouble but so the server can be educated.

We all have worked at jobs where people either don’t know what their doing, don’t care what their doing, or are just too lazy to do the right thing. The server who did this falls on one of these categories. The manager needs to know.

Trust me on this.

Tonight I received a phone call asking what time we closed. I said that our last reservation was at 7:45. They said okay and hung up.

About 20 minutes later I got a phone call that said, if we get to your restaurant right at 7:45 will you be able to seat us. I assured them that yes we could seat them if they were there by 7:45.

At 7:47 a couple walks through the door. I ask them if they are the couple who called. They said yes. I jokingly said it was 90 seconds too late. Then said follow me.

As I’m walking them to their table, they see friends they know at the bar. So they stop to talk.

They were still talking at the bar at 7:58.

They’d arrived on time but didn’t actually sit down until 8:00.

Luckily they ordered a salad and a burger.

But it was still annoying.

Tonight a woman called to see if we had outdoor seating.

I let her know, that yes in the summer we did have outdoor seating.

She replied but you aren’t seating outside tonight?

I didn’t know what to say. So I said nothing.

She repeated the question.

I replied, no we are not seating outside.

She asked in a roundabout way why?

I said it was because it’s cold.

She said OH.

I assured her he we had seats inside.

She said okay.

I said have a good night.

We both hung up.