Another rant

To all the hosts and hostesses that work at restaurants:

Why is it that whenever I go to a restaurant with my crippled, disabled, short and stout grandma; that the host(ess) always grabs the menus and takes off like a bat out of hell, leaving my crippled grandma in the dust?

The last I see of (for purposes of this entry) the host, is he or she saying "right this way" – and then I see his or her backside disappearing as if she is racing us to the table.

Guess what. You win. You always win. Because by the time you have set the menus out at our table, my grandma has finally gotten up out of her chair and remembered where she put her cane.

And then even I can’t find where you went off to because I was busy helping grandma.

Perhaps you should take note of the group of folks you are seating and notice if anyone has difficulty moving: cast, old age, wheelchair, etc. Those are all good tip-offs that someone may not be ready to sprint through the restaurant.

Last weekend, we went to a fancy (read: expensive) restaurant downtown Minneapolis for my mom’s birthday. It also happens to be a restaurant that has quite a bit of ambiance (read: dimly lit) and character (read: ornately decorated). It was not just a big open room with a bunch of tables. There were many coves, dining areas, etc. There was a sushi bar, and there was even a waterfall and stream. Very cool restaurant.

Needless to say, you couldn’t just look across a sea of patrons and find the hostess standing alone at your table somewhere. She went no more than 5 or 6 steps and had completely disappeared from site.

I was torn between doing the respectful thing of waiting for my grandma (dad was helping her up) and running to catch up with the waitress so I could send smoke signals to the rest of my family so they could locate our table.

And I decided to patiently and respectfully wait for my grandma. When she was finally on her feet and moving at a snails pace, we proceeded through the restaurant on a hunt for our table. We walked past many open and set tables that could accomodate our party size, and that would have been much more conveniently located for my crippled grandma.

And of course I found our host impatiently waiting at the very furthest table from the door in the whole restaurant. I hurried over to her as I wove in and out of other people, tables, trays, etc. and told her that I didn’t think my grandma and her cane would fit through some of the narrow openings between her and the table.

The hostess looked at me with a blank stare. She batted her eyelashes a couple times and continued to stare.

She finally said we could all go back to the entry area and wait another 20 minutes for a more easily accessible table.

Well. No.

That wasn’t an option. We had reservations for 25 minutes prior to us being seated and we were not going to wait 20 more when there were ample empty tables that could accomodate us and my aging grandma NOW. It was 5:00 on a Sunday night in downtown, not 8:00 on a Friday night, for God’s sake.

So then I stared back at her and asked if she could possibly just move the trays that were hindering my grandma’s walking path.

With much dismay, she took a deep breath and said she could.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

They are temporary trays. I am not asking you to rearrange the furniture!

And of course it is also worth noting that there were no other patrons in the reception area waiting to be seated. This was not a 45 minute wait at the Olive Garden. We were the only ones waiting to be seated. What the hell was her rush?

I was glad at least, that my grandma was still far enough behind that she hadn’t seen what a burden she was to this young woman who clearly had better things to do.

We spent in excess of $500 that night on dinner for the 7 of us. This was a restaurant known for it’s class, fine dinning, and service.

My grandma finely caught up, struggled her way through the obstacle course, and we enjoyed our meal.

But for the love of God, why – oh WHY can’t someone who is PAID to show people to their seats, actually stick around long enough to do so?????

Again, this might be another story if the restaurant was super packed and the host had a million other people to attend to. I get that. Trust me. I am a fair and reasonable person. It’s part of the reason why we always go to birthday dinners earlier in the evening. We want to avoid the dinner rush so my grandma can get around better and not have to deal with all the people.

If the host or hostess can’t "tell" that my grandma is a.) old, b.) crippled, or c.) short and stout, the didn’t stay around long enough anyway! They must have immediately taken off for the mad dash without even looking at who they were seating.

So to those of you that have occaission to seat people or guide people someplace, please pay more attention to the people you are serving. It is very tasteless and rude when you disappear and fail to preform the simple duty of seating someone.

You are a HOST. Hosts…HOST PEOPLE. You are PAID to show people to their seats. You are not paid to abandon them and play some sick game of hide and seek.

If you don’t have the patience or the tolerance to wait for people that just had surgery, are old, are pregnant, are in a wheelchair, are blind, etc. then I suggest you find another line of work.

And if you can’t seat us at a close enough table to prevent my grandma from having to walk far because you have to make sure you are fair to the servers as you disperse your clientele, please at least maybe push a chair in that may be blocking the path to the very. last. table. on earth.

You are in the hospitality industry.

Be hospitable.

(And PS, most of you know I don’t get along well with my grandma. And here, I am defending her. Did you ever think you would see such a thing? That’s how much the lost art of hosting pisses me off.)