Hi all:

I called Michael back today.

Only once.

He was a perfectly pleasant.

Normal.

He made a reservation for two at the bar for tonight. At 6:00.

He arrived at 5:55. Once again. Completely normal. Asked if by chance there might be a table instead of the bar. I was able to accommodate him.

He was seated.

Didn’t see him again.

He was a little old to think it was a first date. So maybe it was his anniversary and he had forgotten to make a reservation.

Nevertheless, I lived to report back!

Two things happened tonight that I want to comment on.

First.

A man called around 5:45 and left an angry message, which he ended by saying, “It would be nice if a fucking human being answered instead of a machine”.

I was angry when I heard the message. In fact I picked up the phone and hit dial. It went to voice mail. I’m not sure what I was going to say.

After I hung up, I thought to myself. Isn’t his comment true of most of the things in our life. I wish it wasn’t quicker to do self-checkout. I used to like the interaction with the lady at Hannaford. I wish that I didn’t have to maneuver through six pages of prompts before speaking to someone at my doctor’s office. I wish that a guy still pumped my gas. I wish the redemption center with the guys who took the cans out of my car were still open. I wish a 16-year-old boy would take my groceries to the car for me. I wish McDonald’s didn’t force you to use kiosks in some of their outlets. Yes, human interaction is nice. At least for me.

For my boyfriend, not so much. He loves scanning and bagging his own groceries. He loves using the kiosk at McDonald’s. I don’t think he knows what a redemption center is, so that doesn’t bother him either.

For me the message alluded to the fact that we (and I really mean me) are not doing our jobs. The man clearly thinks I’m in the office just ignoring his calls. I am not. We are not. I answer the phone whenever I can. Sometimes to the detriment of the people in front of me. It’s really beneficial to the business to answer the phone. So don’t be bitchy when I can’t.

We have tried for three months now, to hire an admin. Someone to do light office work, but mostly answer the phones from 2 until 7. That person does not currently exist in our world. So. I answer the phone. Sometimes on your first try. Sometimes on your 32nd try. But probably not your 68th time.

Which brings me to part two of tonight’s post.

Stop fucking calling!!!

Tonight, at 4:50 as we unlocked the door, the phone began to ring. As it is wont to do. This is not uncommon. I began to seat the guests who came through the door. And the phone continues to ring. As it rings I unconsciously, hit the white button on the upper left part of the phone that silences it. I do this throughout the night. Occasionally, I WILL look at the phone and thus I see who is calling. I do try and notice if it’s an upcoming reservations, in case someone needs to change something. This was not the case tonight.

And the phone rings. At some point I see it’s Michael (lets call his last name Finch). And then I notice it’s him again. And again. This too is not unusual. Everyone calls two or three times hoping to finally get someone. However. The phone continues to ring. It continues to be Michael. This goes on until around 7:45 when I get a break and finally answer. He says he’s trying to book a table for the weekend. I start to look up the date, when a family walks in. I tell him I need to put him on a brief hold and I do. I seat the party. When I come back. He’s gone.

And the phone continues to ring. And it continues to be Michael. And I realize that he’s left six messages at this point and continues to call. I also know his request is not urgent so I decide to see what happens.

The phone continues to ring.

And ring.

And ring.

And ring.

And ring.

And ring.

We close at 8:30.

The phone continues to ring.

I go into the office to do work.

The phone continues to ring.

At one point I decide to count how many times Michael has called. I can’t do this however, as his continuing phone calls interrupt my time on Caller ID.

The phone continues to ring.

I go into the dining room.

It rings.

I go talk to Joe on the line. It rings. I ask him if he hears it, as I’m about to tell him what’s going on. He instead tells me that I’m losing my mind and wants to know if I’m going to become Jack Torrance and start saying “All work and NO play makes Jeff a dull boy!”

He can’t hear the phone but it’s still ringing.

Around 10:00 it finally stopped. Our Caller ID only records the last 50 calls. All but two were from Michael. This was from 7:46 to 10:00. He started around 5:00 so I’m guessing around 100 calls.

This felt a lot like an obsessed boyfriend. (I would not know about this!).

I sort of kind of maybe feel like at some point I should have answered. But after the first 50 calls I wanted to see how it all played out. Seriously, who spends five hours of the evening, just hitting redial on their phone?

Oh.

I forgot to mention. At some point, he switched numbers he was calling from because the Caller ID recorded M. Finch at one point instead of Michael Finch.

To be honest, it was kind of creepy.

Tune in Wednesday, when I report back on my returning his six messages.

Word on the street is that my post from last night was less than stellar. The lack of comments and likes proved the point. Two weeks in and the critics are harsh.

Truth be told I knew it was lame. It was late. The only thing annoying that happened was the late table. It was a good night. Will people read posts about the nice people I deal with on a daily basis?

Let’s see.

At 7:45 a woman comes through the front door and says please, please, please tell me you can take six people.

I ask when.

Trust me. Tonight is never assumed. Sometimes they mean next Thursday.

She says tonight!

I say let me take a look!

Two points to be made here.

First: Who the fuck waits till 7:45 on Saturday night of Labor Day weekend to figure out their dining plan?

Two: If the host says let me take a look it means there’s a chance. If they don’t look it means they already know there’s not a chance in hell of getting you seated.

I look. What I assume to be true appears to in fact be true.

I ask her to wait there while I confirm my suspicion.

I walk to the dining room and discover table G2 is in fact empty. Just waiting to be wiped and reset. There is no second turn on the table.

I go back to the door, tell her yes to give us five minutes and we’ll have it ready.

She then explains that I’ve saved her life as she has her two kids, her husband and her very elderly parents with her. She’s very happy.

I say great and then also tell her she can come in the secret back door after they park as it will be closer to the table.

She leaves. I grab menus. Find their server, explain to her that they’ll be coming through the back door and go back to my post.

End of story.

But wait.

There’s more.

At the end of the evening when more than 50% of our guests are gone I grab a soda water (400 days still no Diet Coke) and sit at the chef’s table. I’m available for questions and comps and voids from the staff. Often the chef joins me and we debrief from the night. Or we shoot the shit about our lives. Tonight was no different.

I’m sitting there, when a woman walks up to me and says thanks again for saving my life. It takes a full 30 seconds of looking at her to remember who she is. At the same time the server says, we were almost neighbors twenty years ago in NYC.

I LOVE NYC PEOPLE!

(As I say this I can hear Adam Beckworth grunt as he hates it when I do this when we’re out).

It’s fun to share stories, tell how I got to Maine etc. Tonight was no different. I say where did you live in NYC? I lived there years ago. And we begin to chat. Which leads me to saying I used to live in Fort Green, near BAM. And she gets excited and says her theater company used to be right there. This leads to further conversation about her company, that I was a lighting designer and, and then we stumble onto grad school. I mention that I went to UCSD. She gets excited and mentions a few people she knows from there.

This goes on and she explains she’d love to talk more but they have to go.

As she starts to leave her husband appears to also thank me. She says to him don’t talk to him (me) or you’ll be here forever. She explains why and ten minutes later her husband is still there.

She tells about the UCSD connection and he mentions that a friend of his teaches there. Woman named Lisa. I get super excited because I love, love, love Lisa. We talk another five or six or 40 minutes.

This continues and finally the wife looks at me and says, you look my age. I bet your on Facebook. She says she’s going to go home and look me up.

We all shake hands and they leave.

And it was a great meeting. I helped someone out. They appreciated it. I might have made a new friend.

Only one person was rude to me tonight. I was going to write about him. But I decided I didn’t want to give him any more energy. At least tonight. He is on my list at work though to write about later.

Sondheim: When going to hide, know how to get there. And how to get back!

Fun fact! My restaurant is in the middle of nowhere. I remember three years ago (our birthday was yesterday) when I read about the restaurant thinking this is a bad idea, especially in its location.

Turns out it was a great idea.

The point is, we are 3 miles from the center of town. We are seriously in the middle of nowhere. We are in the middle of nowhere in a town that is essentially the middle of nowhere.

People come to visit from all over the world. Most of them from metropolitan areas. You know what metropolitan areas have? Cabs. Taxis. Ubers. Lyfts. Subways. Buses.

You know what restaurants in the middle of nowhere that are in the middle of nowhere towns have? None of the above.

At least once a week someone gets to our restaurant and then realizes they have no ride home. This has happened two or three times since I’ve worked there. A couple of times employees have driven people to their hotels. A couple of times the manager of the hotel has had to come get them which happens when all of the hotels are luxury resorts.

So tonight we finish service around 9:00.

Around 9:30 I plant myself at the chef’s table as I usually do, to wait for the evening to wrap up. As the evening progresses, servers give me their cash outs, I check in with people and say thank you to guests as the leave.

Unintentionally, I eves drop on the other chefs table and realize they don’t have transportation to wherever they are going. It’s approaching 10:00 and they are frantically trying to determine when their ride will be here.

They approach the bar and order another round of drinks. Then more frantic searching.

I’m listening to all of this.

I hear them say that their Uber will be here in 40 minutes. It’s now 10:25. All the tables are gone. All but two servers are gone.

They finish their drinks and get up.

Yay. Movement.

They move to the lobby and make themselves at home. It’s pushing 11:00 now. I can’t leave till they leave.

To cut the story short it’s around 11:30 before they leave.

They are lucky their ride showed up. Many, many, many times the Uber/cab never shows. Tonight would have sucked because no one and I mean no one would have helped.

They are lucky things turned out the way they did.

Finally they are on their way. To who knows where. We are all happy because all of us were questioning who was going to get them home.

So.

Have a plan. Always, always, always have a plan to get home.

Today was about the telephone.

I got to work and there were 37 messages on line 1.

PS. We use an old school phone with a digital answering machine attached.

There were five messages on line 2.

I start my day by making coffee. There is no way to hit play till my cup is filled. While the coffee is brewing I count the deposits from the day before. Make sure I haven’t missed an important email. Pour coffee into my Hershey mug that the size of a soup bowl.

I turn the page on my notebook.

I hit play.

I write down the messages as they play. Name and number from caller ID. Short hand for why they are calling.

John Smith. 207 555 6302.

2 pp @ 6pm on 9/15.

Outside only.

Sam Jones 603 555 4532

8—-6 Saturday @ 7:30. (Moving from 8 to 6 people)

It goes on. And on. And on.

The first messages are from the previous evening. Starting around 4:30 until around 9:30.

I’m about six messages in when there is a call from Joe, who says I’ve already called once tonight, (it’s true I’ve got his messages written down) and it would be great if someone could call me back on the day I call.

Hmmm.

The very next message is from Kate who says she’s called multiple times and no one ever calls her back.

It’s true she called around 5:15. It’s now 7:30.

Hmmmm

I finish taking down the messages.

Then I refill my cup.

And I start calling people back. I’m annoyed because I’ve been accused of not calling people back. I literally spend three hours of my day on the phone. I have every message saved in my notebook. Kate has never left a message before. I’ve gone back and checked.

I get to Joe on the list and I take a deep breath. He was annoyed on the machine. Who knows how he will be on the phone.

I dial.

He answers.

And he’s the sweetest person I’ve talked to all day.

It’s easy to be nice to him. I make his reservation and we are good. I end by assuring him if he leaves a message I will always call back at least by the next day.

I call Kate next. She’s less sweet. I breathe and kill her with kindness. She too is in my hand when I hang up, her reservation having been made.

I finish my list.

There are now 8 more messages to respond to.

This continues till I move from my office to the host stand because I have a meeting with a friend who’s come to give me some advice on events. It’s now 4:06.

The shift starts, and around 6:00 there are two groups waiting to be seated when several people walk in. I assess that it’s three two tops all wanting to sit at the bar. None of them with reservations.

I greet the first party. The woman comes in strong. She lets me know she’s called twice today and no one has answered. I ask her if she left a message and initially she says yes. I ask what time snd she says around 3:30. I explain that that’s impossible because I checked the messages and returned them all.

She back peddles.

Okay she didn’t leave a message. Because the message picks up and no one ever calls her back anyway.

I push back about being here for three months and I’ve called everyone back.

She then says she did leave a message.

I ask what time. She can’t decide.

Then her husband gets involved, voiced raised, about the whole system sucking.

I should point out at this point, while we are conversing I’m still trying to find everyone a spot. It’s not like I’m just being difficult.

I start to say that if they give me just a second I can get them seated, when the husband explodes. Yelling at me about how they are locals, and can never come back.

I ask why they can never come back and he says because we never fucking answer our phone.

The wife looks at me and says “… you were about to say something…”.

I shrug because the husband is gone. Flipping me off as he leaves.

She leaves and I promptly pick up menus snd seat both of the other parties waiting for the bar. It was really just a matter of giving me two seconds to move things around to find them a spot.

I could have sat them all if they had been less aggressive and a little more patient.

Seriously. When you approach the host stand if they don’t say no immediately there is a good chance they have a solution. Give them a chance to help you.

Also, leave a fucking message. No one can help you if you don’t give them a chance.

Don’t criticize the restaurant while you are waiting to be seated. You chose us. No one forced you to dine here.

Over the weekend a couple came in at 7:15 for a 7:30 reservation. Their table was ready, but I couldn’t seat them quite yet. That’s another story. It’s kind of important to the story to note that the gentleman was around 6’2”, extremely good looking and he carried himself as though he’d known this to be true his whole life.

So he’s wandering around the lobby, chatting, asking questions, regular chit chat.

Then he starts asking specific questions about the menu. He mentions that our menu isn’t on our website and this is bad for business. I explain that the owner embraced the idea that if you build it they will come and after three years he still believed that.

At which point, Mr 6’2” says he’s a marketing and sales manager and clearly the owners marketing strategies aren’t working.

I listen. Nod. Listen. Nod. Start thinking about what I’m going to have for dinner. Nod. Make a mental note to order new pants. Nod. Say uh huh. Nod. Think about how my last root canal was less painful. Finally realize it’s 7:30, interrupt him, and say their table is ready.

For a good ten minutes he went on and on about how not having the menu on our website wasn’t working.

Fun fact. It’s Saturday night. We are fully booked.

We were fully booked the night before that. And the night before that. And the night before that.

We’ve been fully booked since the beginning of August.

I wanted to ask him how what metrics he’d use to prove success or failure considering you can’t get a reservation in my restaurant unless you know someone. The marketing seems to be working but what do I know? I didn’t major in marketing. Perhaps one of my friends with that expertise could weigh in.

Before you ask, I was confused as to why the menu wasn’t posted.

Explanation: First you don’t have to update 10 sites every time you change it. Second, it creates intrigue. And promotes interaction with the restaurant when you have to reach out for information. And, the menu is out on the internets if you do a google search for it. Lots of people have posted it on social media.

And yes. It is working. It’s been a banner year and shows no signs of slowing down.

Unless being fully booked is somehow bad for business.

PS. Mr 6’2” extremely handsome sales and marketing guy only tipped 14%. Maybe he’s just bad with numbers.

I’ve enjoyed the response to my recent posts. They started as a way to respond to being verbally abused. They have grown from there.

I enjoy writing them and enjoying having the somewhat safe space to do so.

However, I should really point out that 99.999999 of our guests are supremely wonderful. They are gracious. Appreciative. Genuinely grateful to be eating at our restaurant.

Of course everything I’ve written is true, but it really is all about how you respond. My staff will tell you, at least my current staff, that I’m pretty good at diffusing the situation. I can turn most bad experiences around. As long as you aren’t an ass and don’t get personal.

For example, the gentleman with the three year old was pissssed when I sat him at the high top. He was pissssssed when I moved him to a low table. But on the way out he thanked me for accommodating their family.

It was my pleasure to do so, but it WAS not my mistake.

So enjoy my posts. But know the assholes do not outnumber the good. Not even close.

This post was sponsored by my aunt who was genuinely concerned I was having a rough time at work.

I love my new job. More than I have in four years. It truly is an amazing place to be.

Dining out tip:

There is no need to tell me who you are when calling for a reservation.

Whether in person, or in a message there is no need to say the following things:

1. Hi. This is Tim Jones. I’m a local.

2. Hi. This Sally Smith and I’m your neighbor from across the street.

3. Hi. This is Ethan Roberts and I own the local real estate office.

4. Hi. This is Jason Johnson and I was in on Saturday with 12 of my friends. We had a great time and spent tons on money. Can you help me out?

5. Hi. This is Laura Henderson and I am a friend of the owners. He said to call and you’d make me a reservation.

6. Hi. This is Bill Morgan and I own Costco and I need the best table for my family.

7. Hi. This is Kathy Booth and it’s my family’s last day in town and we must must must eat at your restaurant tonight.

8. Hi. This is Steven Lucas and it’s my 24th wedding anniversary and we can only eat at your restaurant to celebrate.

9. Hi. This Julia Jackson and I’m a local. Well, I own a home there and spend two months each year at the beach. I know the Johnsons , the Smiths, the Joneses, the McDonalds, and they all insist this is the restaurant I must eat at this weekend.

10. Hi. This is John. I’m a friend of the owner Taylor. We live next door to her. (Taylor, the owner is a man).

Here’s the deal. I want to say yes to everyone. It’s best for the business, the owner, me and you if the chairs are filled for dinner. So you letting me know who you are doesn’t change anything. If I have a seat to put you in, I’ll say yes.

Pushing the idea that because you are local will get you special treatment is far from true.

First, the real locals already know how to get a reservation. I gave them my personal cell number three weeks ago.

The real locals also never say they are locals because we know them.

It’s the summer crew who are in town at their summer home for six weeks that say this. They aren’t locals. To be a real local your great, great, great, great, great, great grandparents sailed here on the Mayflower and settled in town in 1692.

So when you call say, Hi, I was curious if you had any available reservations for Wednesday night, around 7:00. That’s all. If there is availability I will let you know. If I say no, ask about other times. Other days.

If I say yes, give me your information.

Also, if I say no, don’t demand I find a place for you.

The main dining room in my restaurant has 59 seats. I can’t magically produce a four top because you are desperate. Or own the local real estate office. Or because it’s your anniversary. Or because you insist. We are full. That’s that. I do have two seats at the bar. Will that work?

When the conversation is over. Say thank you, whether you got seats or not.

And remember, being nice goes so much further than anything else. Not that it will magically produce a table, but I will look harder, move things around, offer a table on a different day etc. I want to help you celebrate your anniversary.

PS. If there is silence when you ask the question it’s because the person who answered the phone is looking for a solution. Give them a minute. They might have something after all.

I learned a new life lesson during the stress of the evening.

It’s called Embracing the Baby.

Tonight we couldn’t print checks for our guests. We couldn’t print credit card signature forms.

A server, we’ll call Bob, because that’s his name was struggling with the stress.

However, he had a family at table 12 with a restless baby who needed to go. He couldn’t print their check. He couldn’t get a signed credit card slip.

Finally he walked up to the table, showed them a paper with the total and said, Can you sign this, add a tip if you like and you can go.

And they did.

And he explained, that once he embraced the baby, his whole night changed. More serene. Just get through the chaos. The worst was behind him.

Let’s all embrace the baby.

As a theater person, you learn very early on that there is a certain play whose title you don’t speak aloud.

Tonight I did a thing.

Around 4:15 tonight I walked into the bar and the bartender was drying her hands aggressively.

I asked her if she was rehearsing a particular scene from said play. I might have said the name of the play out loud. Then I asked if she knew the play? The story? The superstition? She did not.

I then explain it to her and jokingly say, now that I’ve said this the whole night is going to explode.

The evening starts and all is well until 5:45. When the bar printer goes down. Then the server printers go down. By 6:30 the entire system was fucked! Kitchen printers not working. Credit cards processing but not printing signature copies. Can’t print guest checks.

The system was still not working at the end of the night. Our IT guy (I use the term loosely) will be in tomorrow to try and figure out the issue.

How does one cancel the curse when it’s not a theatre?

I told my team about this tonight and now they all think it’s my fault.