A Customer Tale

The snow in the forecast this week got me thinking back about January night four or five years ago, about a particularly obnoxious table of four people. This table is indelibly etched in my mind and is the kind of table that makes everyone in the restaurant business ask, "Why do we put up with this?"

It was a pitch black, snowy January weeknight when not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. [Cut me some slack. I was going to start out "It was a dark and stormy night...."] Our boredom was broken by the chime of the front door and in walked two couples, late 30s to early 40s, nice looking and seemingly well educated, all very happy. One of the women announced that they were starving and were looking forward to a good dinner. We exchanged pleasantries with the two couples as they were being shown to their table.

Soon after they got to the table, however, the same woman announced to the server "Oh, we're just having appetizers and drinks," which generally means that our prices are higher than the table expected. OK, we do hear that from time to time and we deal with it. We all have budgets and we've all been to restaurants whose prices were higher than we could afford. Those of us who work in this business do not have unlimited means.

Right after this, the griping and snide comments started. In response to the bowl of olives that we bring to each table at the beginning of dinner, "You better eat the pits too so you get your money's worth." When we brought their single order of prosciutto-wrapped scallops, an appetizer for one person consisting of two 2-ounce scallops, "Is that all there is?" and "Where's the rest of it?" When one of them needed to use the restroom, "You better hold it, they probably charge you to use the restroom here."

Because of the snow, the restaurant was deadly quiet and we could hear every one of these comments all the way across the restaurant. Of course, they were trying to make sure that we heard.

When we brought the bill, we also heard, "I can't believe they charge $8 for a Margarita." Yeah, well, believe it. You squeeze four limes for each Margarita and figure the costs for the limes, labor, and really good tequila and see if $8 isn't a bargain.

On their way out, they were so childish as to erase the "0" from the "$10" price on the special board for the scallop appetizer such that it read "$1." Like we weren't watching them do this.

Of course, such upstanding citizens can always be expected to tip really well. They left $5 on a $55 check, a fitting ending to their bravura performance.

And the answer to why we put up with this? Because the vast majority of customers are warm, kind, and charming and appreciate what we do. They're the reason we keep doing this every day despite the antics of a few clowns.

Birdies in the Dining Room

I got a chuckle at lunch last week. An older woman came into the restaurant bitching volubly about the parking job of another customer. The old woman whose parking job was the brunt of the whine very discretely flipped the other woman a bird! Right in the dining room, yet discretely! You go girl!

Cream of Stinging Nettle Soup

Whew, it's been a busy few days leaving me scant time to blog. Lots of special menus, meeeting after meeting, etc. Here's a quick post about a funny from last night.

Making use of the local bounty of stinging nettles, we put a cream of stinging nettle soup on last night's menu as an appetizer. Flavorwise, it's similar to cream of asparagus or spinach.

After a deuce finished their dinner, they approached me on the way out of the restaurant and the woman said, "We have a funny story to tell you." They looked at each other and he said to her, "You go ahead."

"I've got to tell you," she said, "after the soup came to the table, my husband looked at me and asked, 'Where are the jellyfish?'" We all got a good chuckle out of that. I love people that can laugh at themselves!

A Quail and a Duck

A humorous thing happened tonight and happily for us, the customers involved saw the humor and were not upset.

The menu contained a bird duo of grilled quail and smoked duck. It also contained a roasted breast of Moulard duck. Said customer to the server, "We'll have the quail and duck." And it being a night of several tables ordering a single entrée and sharing it, the server put in the order for the bird duo. And when it arrived at the table, the customer wanted to know where the duck entrée was.

Now I should be upset that the server did not clarify the order with the customer before putting it into the kitchen, but I'm just not in the mood for that. Rather, I find myself chuckling about it (and relieved that the customers were good sports).

Mr. Delaware

In standing around telling war stories to the staff last night, none of whom have been with me for the entire tenure of the restaurant, though some are close, I remembered an encounter in the very early days of the restaurant with a diner and his wife from Delaware. I'll never forget this guy because he was mad as, well, a wet blue hen and just dead wrong too.

Dinner went pleasantly enough and the server and I had an amiable enough chat with the couple who were on summer vacation and chose to stop in our town and dine at our restaurant on the last night before making the short drive back home to Delaware in the morning.

The problem started shortly after the presentation of the bill to the customer. He looked at the bill for several minutes and I could see the wheels spinning in his head. At lot of customers want an explanation of their bill, even though it is all spelled out on the check, so the server went over to the table and asked if she could help with the bill.

She went through the bill line by line with him and assured him that the bill was correct. Then he pointed to the penultimate line of the bill, the one just before the final total, the one labeled "ST" for sales tax. When she explained that that amount was sales tax, I could see that he was starting to get a little angry and I started heading to the table to remove the server in case it escalated, which it did.

He had me explain the sales tax rate, which is 10%, half to the Commonwealth of Virginia and half to the City of Winchester in the form of an additional meals tax. He complained that the tax rate was unfair. I agreed with him that I thought that it was a bit excessive, but that I had no choice—as custodian of the Commonwealth, I am required to collect the money and send it off to Richmond. I don't exactly relish being tax collector for the state, but it goes with the territory.

He stated, "I'm from Delaware and we don't have sales tax and I'm not paying this." I tried being nice and agreeing with him that not being used to paying sales tax, our tax must come as a shock, but that I had no choice in collecting it.

What I was really thinking is that this guy is just coming off a week on vacation outside of Delaware and given that he was about 50 years old, chances that this was his first exposure to sales tax were nil. He was just being a jackass.

I persisted in trying to persuade him to comply for another minute or so, but he kept dialing up the volume and getting more and more angry. Finally, I had enough of this customer acting like a five-year old and I had other things to do, so I said to him, "Sir, you have two choices. You can either hand me that credit card and I will charge it for the full amount of your meal including the sales tax or I can call the police and they can take you to a judge and you can have your chance to prove to him that the Commonwealth's sales tax is unfair."

I actually had to call across the dining room to ask the server to bring me the telephone before he handed me his credit card in a big huff.

Judging by the lack of tip that he left, I guess they don't tip in Delaware either.

Mr. Delaware, wherever you are, thanks for the memories and the chuckles every time that I think of you, and, oh yeah...good luck with that crusade to rid the world of sales tax.

Am I Allowed to Chuckle?

Friends, if I chuckle a little bit at you, will you chuckle along with me?

[Aside: every time I poke a bit of fun at something that happened in the dining room, some small-minded person accuses me of all kinds of evil things. I get the most obnoxious hate emails you can imagine, just for pointing out human foibles. If that's your mindset, could you just please click on over to somebody else's blog?]

Again, I ask you, if I chuckle a little bit at you, will you chuckle along with me?

This weekend I got asked several times about the hedgehog that I was sautéeing with black trumpet mushrooms. At first, I thought customers were pulling my leg, but no, most were quite serious.

The menu read:

Wild Hedgehog and Black Trumpet Mushrooms Baked Under Brie
Fresh from our Forager in Oregon, Wild Mushrooms Sautéed with Shallots and Thyme, Baked under Brie Cheese

Seriously, that's hedgehog mushrooms and black trumpet mushrooms. I'm not picking on your lack of knowledge of wild mushrooms, really I'm not, but surely you have to see the humor in the unintended consequences of writing in a language that parses ambiguously!

I've since re-ordered the words as "Wild Black Trumpet and Hedgehog Mushrooms" and although this doesn't resolve the ambiguity of the English, hopefully this will help clarify my intention. LOL.

Red Hat Ladies

Does the mere mention of Red Hat Ladies drive you into a frenzy? If so, you must be a server at a restaurant. War stories of serving these purple- and red-clad women are legion in the restaurant business.

We've hosted our share of luncheons for Red Hat Ladies over the years, the most recent was last week. And like our compatriots everywhere, we've had a few experiences that have been less than positive.

From my conversations with a lot of servers, here's the general knock on Red Hat Ladies:

• There's a group dynamic that takes over at times that causes them to be rude, pushy, and highly demanding of servers.


• Some groups seem to make great sport of running the server: sending the server running for something, then when she gets back to the table, sending her for something else, all afternoon, effectively preventing her from serving other tables.


• The check averages are reputedly very low: no alcohol, just water to drink, appetizers instead of entrées, no desserts, split entrées, and lots and lots of free bread.


• They are reknowned for miserly tips on top of weak checks.


• They want separate checks: the server's nightmare.


• They're never in a hurry to leave until they've just sent the server to process 20 separate checks, which at a minute apiece takes at least 20 minutes.

Surely, we've witnessed all this behavior from Red Hat Ladies at our restaurant in the past, but we've also seen this behavior and worse from other large groups. My guess is that the Red Hat Ladies by virtue of being instantly recognizable are unfairly taking a lot of heat for large groups everywhere.

Last week, our group of ladies was charming; they ordered well; they tipped well; and they were neither rude nor pushy. In fact, many of them came up to me after their lunch and thanked me for a good time. Ladies, thank you for your business. Now if we could just clone you as an example for how large groups should behave in restaurants....

On Love and Marriage

A customer just sent me the following note:

"If I wasn't already married and there had been a preacher in the house, I would've married the beet, walnut and goat cheese salad."

This so reminds me of years ago! One of my daughters, when she was a toddler, would exclaim, “I want to get married with it!” each time she would encounter some food that she really liked. Thanks for the memories!

Customers Who "Get It!"

Tonight was horribly slow as this whole week has been, not only here, but everywhere in town, the annual post Apple Blossom Festival malaise. Because it was so slow, I had ample opportunity to be in the dining room.

On the way out the front door, a customer told me that she loved the morel dish that she ate—morels with asparagus, Surry sausage, and pappardelle—and she remarked, "I loved the dish and the combination of morels and asparagus makes so much sense because it is seasonal."

Thank you. A customer that finally understands why we don't serve strawberries in January, tomatoes in March, and who gets it that morels and asparagus are harvested simultaneously.

Morels with Asparagus, Surry Sausage, and Pappardelle

4 oz pappardelle
1 T clarified butter
2 Surry sausages, bias cut
6 oz fresh morels
1 t fresh thyme leaves
1 shallot, minced
pinch salt and pepper
1/2 c heavy cream
8 asparagus stalks, blanched and bias cut

Cook pappardelle in boiling water until done. Meanwhile, heat the clarified butter in a sauté pan and add the Surry sausages. After this has cooked a minute, add the morels, thyme, and shallot and cook for another couple of minutes, stirring. Add a pinch of salt and pepper and then the heavy cream. Cook until the morels are soft and the cream is reduced. Add the asparagus and the cooked noodles and mix well. Adjust the seasoning. Garnish with fresh thyme. You may omit the sausages or substitute any other smoked pork product you have on hand; country ham works very well. Serves two.

Old Friends

When restaurateurs get together, we often rant about the economy and customers who we feel have ill treated us: it's our therapy. From listening to us, you might conclude that there is little joy in this business. You'd be wrong to conclude that, however.

Last night was one of those magical nights in this business when we were very busy (on a normally slow Thursday night when it was pouring rain and sleet) and yet every table came out to have a good time. The happiness in the dining room was palpable even in the kitchen.

It was also a special night because one of our regular tables returned. This couple live in New York state, but winter in Florida. Each year for the past four years, they have stopped at our restaurant on the way back to New York. And we anticipate their visit each year.

Does four visits in four years make you a regular? You tell me. We know their names; we know them by sight; we know about their business and their children and grandchildren; they have their table; she tells the server, "Ed knows how I want my steak." And each year, she asks for an extra napkin and water goblet and she folds the napkin into a beautiful rose and places it the water goblet.

This year, I was so busy that she brought the rose into the kitchen and gave it to me along with a hug. All four roses are displayed on the shelf in my office like trophies, as reminders of why I am really in this business.

This business, as hard as it is, can be extremely rewarding.