THE STOCKHOLDER IS ALWAYS RIGHT
A couple of local establishments have recently exhibited
behavior that's probably going to become more and more the
rule rather than the exception.
The first was a local restaurant/pub with the best beer selection
in town, including my beloved Franziskaner Hefe-Weizen.
They've had their ups and downs since they opened about 7
years ago, with one down causing me and my fellow alkies
to boycott the place about 4 years ago, i.e. they changed
management, raised all the prices, and lowered both portion size
and quality (on their food). While I'm sure the stockholders
were giddy, the customers (we weren't the only ones dissatisfied
with the bean-counter "improvements") were less so.
About two years ago, they apparently cleaned up their act
and were okay until a couple of consecutive visits recently.
On the first visit, we ordered the usual opening round of
Franziskaner only to find it - in the words of that lovable drunk
Andy Capp - "flippin' undrinkable." It was flat and off, obviously
having been hanging around well past its prime.
The waitperson - the only person connected with the establishment
that night with any sort of taste and graciousness - immediately
agreed and we went on to something else. A few drinks later
one of us noticed a citrus seed in the bottom of our glass, and while
they do put citrus slices in some of their beers (including
Franziskaner, although our dislike of the foo-foo extra is known
well enough thereabouts that the entire waitstaff knows to exclude
the citrus by now), we did not expect such a "bonus."
Not being overly picky assholes about such things, we ignored
the "isolated incident" and got another round. Well, that one
featured three seeds in one glass. Our waitperson said she'd
call the manager on duty over to see about it. The second I saw
the shit-eating grin and caught an unmistakable whiff of the
bidness school stench about him, I knew dissatisfaction was in
our future. After explaining our problem, he explained that this
sometimes happened with their glass washing process (i.e. wherein
glasses are not as much washed as not washed). That was it.
No apology. No offer to make that round on the house or the
next round free. Nada. Fuck the customer. We left, making
sure to not punish our waitperson, who had been congenial
and agreeable all evening.
For whatever stupid reasons, we returned a week later (out of
greed for Franziskaner or a generally forgiving nature or some
combination thereof) to find the Franziskaner back to its usual
self. I noticed they had a new cider on tap and gave it a try.
It was unlike the usual cloyingly sweet concoctions I'd had
previously, being quite dry and flavorful sans sweeteners.
So we had the occasional round of the cider as well as the
Franzy and a couple of other new things we noticed.
Round about midnight we decided to leave and requested a
check. I predicted the amount - usually being correct on such
things to within $5 on sheer intuition - and was a bit nonplussed
to find it $30 above my prediction. We requested an itemized
list and found a couple of things less than copacetic. First, they
had charged us for a couple of glasses extra apiece that we
didn't have. Second, they had asked whether we wanted the
cider with or without ice and, since we don't do ice when gin
isn't involved, we declined. Only when the bill arrived did we
find out it was $1.50 extra per glass if the ice was omitted.
We called the manager over and asked him if he thought the
situation fair, and the unctuous bastard just shrugged and said
he thought everything was fine. After pressing him on the issue
for a while he agreed to drop the $1.50 non-ice surcharge.
We didn't have to press anything to quickly agree upon
leaving to not darken that doorstep again for a good long time.
One of the previous owners who is now a stockholder is a good
friend of mine. He not only has been running similar establishments
for the nearly 17 years since I've been here, but he's been
running them in an exemplary fashion. I've only complained
3 or 4 times about anything in probably 3000 visits to his
establishments, and each time he not only didn't attempt to
stonewall or grill me about my complaint
but immediately made a more than
generous offer to remedy the situation.
He also knows the ubermanager of several locations of the
offending establishment, so I conveyed my complaints to him.
His "problem" is that he came to the business from the ground up
rather than first get a bidness degree whereupon "the
stockholders are gods; fuck the customer" is written in the appropriate Latin.
The second offender is a sushi restaurant that opened yesterday.
When we showed up last night there were two people at the
sushi bar in an otherwise empty restaurant. The manager seated
us, said he'd get some menus, and left. Five minutes later I
went over to him to ask for the menus and some water - this
being Texas in July and nearly 100 deg. F outside.
Five minutes later he showed up with the menus and some
water. I glanced briefly at the non-sushi part of the menu and
queried him as to the ingredients of one dish with which I was
unfamiliar. He told me and left, returning a few minutes later
to take our orders. I ordered the dish about which I'd questioned
him, to be told at that point that it wouldn't be available until the
next day.
Chalking it up to first day jitters, I instead ordered a combination
suchi platter, and my companion a selection of individual sushi
orders including one of those huge conical thingies whose name
I can't remember.
About 25 minutes later the orders arrived, although
to be fair at least 5 more people had showed up by that time.
Halfway through this period I'd been waiting about 10 minutes
for a water refill and he finally showed up to refill my glass.
The regular sushi was quite good and the wasabi frighteningly
hot, just the way I like it. My companion agreed. Then he
bit into the big conical thing and came up with a piece of bone
an inch long. Another bite yielded a similar piece of bone.
For the unfamiliar, one doesn't expect to bite into any sushi
item and crunch into bone. A goodly part of the culinary
experience involves biting into plump, fresh pieces of fish sans
bones, i.e. the existence of bones, especially those a frigging
inch long, is a major food service faux pas.
When the manager was informed of this at the cash register - since
he didn't visit the table again for another 20 minutes - he
apologized for the bones and charged my companion for the
item. We're usually generous tippers, having known many a
waitperson and heard their horror stories of cheap bastards, but
my companion left nothing and I left a couple of bucks for a
$20 bill - and I usually tip around 20% if they don't manage to
exceed my very flexible threshold of irritation.
One wonders what these idiots are going to do when (or if)
they get more than 9 customers and one of them starts choking
on one of those monstrous bones (that is, if the customers haven't
already left or sent out for pizza while waiting for their bones
to arrive).
Well, one wonders but one doesn't
give a flying rat's ass.
posted by Steven Baum
7/11/2000 10:00:02 AM |
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