Saturday morning in ‘texas. And since it’s the day before Mother’s Day here in SA – I have in the past made the mistake of thinking that all Mother’s day, the world over, fall on the same day, it doesn’t! – we have been for breakfast with both the mother of my children and the mother of this child.
My other half and I spend quite some time in ensuring that our kids grow up well mannered and the theory is that this will translate, along with the fact they have grown up so far with the parents owning restaurants, to knowing how to behave in a restaurant. We don’t expect a six year old to get it completely. We’re not ogres, we understand that it’s in a child’s nature not to sit still at this age, but c’mon…surely he can, just for a little bit! On the odd occasion that we do go to a restaurant as a family, we always leave feeling like we have just a completed a survival course. Frustration levels are high and patience levels are low. I’m not sure anyone else really cares or even notices, but we do.
Now and again we notice the smile grimace of other diners, the ‘sorry for you’ look from older people whose kids are grown already, the pasted on smile from the waitress, who just knows the mission it will be to clean up after.
As I’ve already said, we’ve owned and run restaurants and the like for many years. Later on in the ’This is me’ bit I will get into the detail. I think it’s important to note, that we have probably had more good times than bad times when owning restaurants…. but lets talk a bit about restaurants and more importantly the people that frequent them. I could moan that this is all about ‘texas but to be fair, countless books have written about this, the world over, and if you’ve worked in this industry you may identify with some of this.
Normal people would be forgiven for thinking that working in restaurants is fairly straight forward. I mean, really, how difficult can it be? Well, the difficulty is not so much in the logistics behind the preparation of the food and the service to the table its all the other shit that goes with it. I continue to fail to understand why some people take their money and actually go out and want to spend it. I have witnessed and dealt with more times than I care to remember miserable people who have made the effort, dressed up, climbed into their cars, driven the journey to the restaurant… to moan and bitch from start to finish about everything in sight! Do you not understand that common etiquette suggests that they wind their neck in, deal with the facts and speak to the right person who can actually make a difference to their experience. Being a bully to the waitress or waiter, belittling them, swearing at them and shouting and swearing at the manager is not going to win you any friends and definitely not going to improve your food quality. I have dealt with an educated man, an attorney, behaving like a dick – and this is the best bit, calling the police (!) because at 9pm on a Sunday night we had all but run out of fresh cream. I hope he reads this blog, and that he chokes on his chips! I have been called out at 1.30am on a Monday night because three grown, middle aged men thought it would be funny to scare and intimidate the manageress and refuse to leave the premises.
Granted, maybe they had reason to gripe. Maybe, on occasion, the service, ambience, décor and food that I have provided has not been completely up to spec, but being the reasonably balanced person that I claim to be, I can only assume that when everyone else in the restaurant is quite happy and satisfied with the above then it stands to reason that the majority of the whiners experience will be ok. That they think that because they can cook a steak at home, they can now run a restaurant. It defies logic but it happens all the time. I wonder if these same people know as much about your line of work as they do about running hospitality businesses. In restaurants your quality is measured against their cooking skills on a braai, and in night clubs, at 1am, everyone is better (and stronger) than the doorman and definitely better at playing music than the DJ (my all time favourite request? “if you play this song everyone will dance” oh really, do you not think some people might be buying a drink, some people may think your choice of music sucks, some people may be in the toilet – hopefully not doing lines - and…I may have played that song already?)
And yes, sir (said through gritted teeth), you can buy a beer cheaper at your local bottle store but why don’t you try and sit in the aisle there and drink it. And yes, your steak is cheaper at the butchery, but its not cooked and served on plate! And no sir, we don’t have a play area for your snotty kids and no they can’t sit with you in the smoking area and no, we don’t serve deep fried onion rings and a baked potato with our steak, you must be confusing us with the ‘official restaurant’.
Oh, and the reason we charge a corkage fee when you bring your own bottle of wine is because you expect to use our glasses, our ice, our bottle opener, our dishwasher, our waiting staff, our ice bucket, our napkin. Is that clear? Miserable gits!
It must be said though that the restaurant this morning, owned by Sue was thoroughly enjoyable and the food was good. It’s just a pity that going there means that I have to see people (who work from the same premises) that I have little time for. Oh well, I suppose you can’t have it all.
Happy Mothers Day. Until Tomorrow.
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