What happened?! When did an unbearable percentage of the general dining public become such insufferable, entitled, unforgiving pricks? At which point did it become socially acceptable for the hospitality industry to become the sponge which soaks all of the nation’s vomit; its punching-bag?
I’ve been working in my family restaurant for 25 years, since I was an 11-year old boy spending Saturdays in the kitchen basement. From the age of 14 I was promoted to the dining floor – no longer appearing like a kid from a sweatshop, and more like a questionably young teen. From that age, so let’s say the year 2003 onwards, I have been exposed to the general buzz, the hum, the subtleties and intricacies of the service floor. I have had a direct glance at social interactions, at people.
I always had a rule where you can judge an individual by how they treat children, dogs, and the elderly. Essentially, those most vulnerable and in need of care. I think this list now extends to how they treat service workers.
Here are some worrying trends I have noticed in the last couple of years:
1. Customers will book a table for, say 7 people, and turn up as a 4. There’ll be no correspondence prior to notify the restaurant, no warning. They’ll arrive and very casually say “Oh, 3 people dropped out, sorry.” Motherfucker, that’s not good enough. Those 2 extra tables we cojoined, which could accommodate up to 4 more people, they’ve now just gone to waste. Our customers spend an average of £65 per person here, you do the math. That’s £195 immediately down the drain, and a potential £260 had we known in advance and made the table/s available to book online to fill up prime location on a busy Friday night. If you make a commitment with your circle to dine somewhere, make sure it’s with people you trust to not be flaky. If something comes up and some can’t make it, let the restaurant know. It takes a single phone call/email. It’s rude, it’s inconsiderate, it’s financially damaging, and frankly, it’ll be the death of hospitality.
2. Also, carrying on from this point: last minute cancellations. Yes, we have a booking policy where customers are charged for such acts, but the follow-up amount of pleading we endure, the bargaining, the anger it is met with when we enforce our right to compensate for this is becoming unbearable. People make bookings and cancel them at will, and expect no retribution. The world doesn’t work that way. We can’t order your cake, have it made, not eat it, and expect not to pay.
3. Reviews are so unforgiving now, so intolerant, so dramatically extreme where the smallest imperfection immediately is met with a 1* Google post. Over the past year I’ve received scores like this for the following issues: Food arrived later than the table next to them; Some dishes were salty; Table wasn’t ready until 15 minutes after the booking time; A drug addict stormed into the restaurant and caused a disturbance (we are not police/social workers, we are just as affected by such things).
4. There are many allergens to consider nowadays and frankly, some cuisines are not geared to cater to every intolerance. Turkish food by nature is not particularly tailored towards coeliacs, the lactose-sufferer, and alliums (onions, garlic). For the latter, our entire identity, our base flavour is seeped in it. If you go to a restaurant and expect every human’s dietary need to be met, you will be gravely disappointed. The fact that this can lead to vocal dissatisfaction by the guest, and demands that certain dishes be made a certain way, is grossly unfair. Eliminating a simple element of a dish – sure. Changing a dish’s entire make-up to accommodate a person as if they have a private chef at the helm on their super-yacht, no. That shouldn’t happen. Do your research before booking and go elsewhere if it doesn’t work for you.
5. Loudness. People are so loud when they go out for dinner, louder than ever before. With cultures shifting and fewer people going out clubbing, more use the restaurant as their evening destination. This should not substitute for the need to release a lot of noise. You are eating. You are not at the pub shouting over the table next to you as your mate asks if you want another round. You’re not at Glastonbury. You’re not on the underground and need someone to budge so you can get off your stop. Restaurants should be intimate, curated spaces designed to bring people together to bond and love through the channel of food and conversation. Keep it down.
6. Restaurants are always compared to other restaurants, pitted against each other as if they are one and the same. X place charges a certain amount for a certain thing; Y place doesn’t - so? Why does this seem to bother people so much? Each restaurant has its own way of operating, its own business model and pricing formulas, its own needs for profitability, survival and growth. Why do so many people feel it’s ok to constantly bring up other places when airing their frustration about something? It’s the same people who get into relationships and all they do is talk about their ex. Embarrassing.
That’s about as far as I am willing to vent. And you know what, I know the reasons. I know why so many people seem to have lost a lot of common courtesy. We’re all poorer than ever before. We’re all more frustrated with life than ever before. Living standards have dropped. Our voices are constantly ignored. We’re all really angry at the government, our tax money is going to designing weapons which are sold to countries as they inflict genocide and nothing we do or say changes that. Everything now costs more, every food item, every bill. We’re angry, and when we want to snap out of it and arrange a dinner, we want it to be perfect. We want it to correct all of society’s ills and nourish us and make us feel better. We expect the world, we feel we deserve the world, and we will be furious if things do not turn out perfectly. I get it, I’m just as pissed off (did you read this newsletter; could you tell?). But your intolerance, your annoyances are misdirected. We didn’t cause this mess, and we’re not out to con and cheat you. Any true hospitality worker will attest that the greatest pleasure of our work is within our interactions with the customer and their happiness – for chefs it’s the validation of positive feedback from guests regarding the dish they created.
I’m going to end this in a bit of a cringe “Live, Laugh, Love” statement. Not that one in particular, but more, you know, if you can be anything, be kind. Yeah, that sounds lame, and yeah being nice is not deemed “cool” or “edgy”, and it won’t come up in a hipster East London Instagram meme post, but it still matters. It’s still important to look yourself in the mirror at night before you go to bed and be able to say “I was a nice guest in that restaurant tonight and my server was happy and said “Bye” to me as I left and that felt good”. It won’t shake mountains. It won’t make the news. But it’ll make everyone you interact with feel better. It’ll make you feel better. And that’s the first step to heal society – because lord knows no one else has our back.