The Sultana's relatively new downrigging weekend has become a major fall event for Chestertown, and falling as it does on Halloween weekend, gives area restaurants a much needed boost. The fleet of "tall" ships that sail into the Chestertown waterfront is quite impressive, including the Pride of Baltimore, the state ships of Delaware, New Jersey and Virginia, as well our own Lady Maryland. The activities that occur over the course of the weekend are plentiful and varied, and draw a very large crowd of fans to the downtown area. I don't know about other businesses, but our schedule books says "No one off October 28 - 31", unless you are Ashley with an almost-three year old to take Trick-or-Treating on Halloween.
One of our neighboring restaurants has a full page ad in the Kent County News this week (which in itself is quite impressive, since usually only real estate companies and furniture stores take out ads of this size) describing their "Downrigging Lunch Menu", to be offered next Saturday. What struck me as most interesting were two of their disclaimers posted at the bottom: first was the statement "If you take our copy of the credit card voucher, a 20% gratuity will be added." and second: "We reserve the right to limit table seating to 75 minutes."
Both of these address problems we all have at times. The question for me is, can they be effectively addressed in this manner? Personally, I have never liked seeing a list of rules and demands which are frequently posted at the bottom of restaurant menus: "The Chef takes great pains to pair menu items in a certain way, therefore no substitutions are allowed" or "We will not be responsible for the texture of meat that is ordered cooked well done". I get sort of nervous when it appears that the place has to chastise their customers in this way, before anything even gets ordered. Sure, it is bad when the patron takes the wrong copy of the credit card slip - the addition of a 20% tip intends to correct the issue of a lack of known tip on the check, since the merchant copy is usually where you would find that information. The problem is the server gets no tip, unless, as this rule indicates, the merchant adds 20% when they don't have anything else to go on. My point is that the bigger problem lies with the lack of merchant copy at all, let alone the tip. It means that the restaurant has no signed copy and that means no proof that the guest was actually at the place should they get a chargeback for the check. We are always hounding the DR staff to be sure to pick up the credit card book before the guest leaves and make sure they have left the correct copy of the bill. If they haven't, we have been know to chase them into the parking lot to get it - ask Bill Kirk if that isn't true. If we don't get the correct copy, we don't worry too much if it is a regular. The only time a problem will arise is if the customer argues that they did not visit our establishment as their credit card statement alleges, and we get a charge back from the credit card company. If we can't prove, via their signature on the merchant copy of the bill, that they were in fact at the table that day, we are SOL, and there is virtually nothing we can do to argue the case. Our staff knows this, and they know that if that happens and they were negligent in getting the correct copy, they will also be SOL. Harsh? Yes. But as I tell the staff, this is a business and payment is a part of it. If they do not collect the revenue from the guest, in the form of cash, check or credit card, someone will have to cover the bill. So far - knock, knock, knock - we have had only one chargeback in the BT history, and we had the signed slip to cover our side of the story. Adding a 20% tip to the missing merchant copy wouldn't solve the larger problem, but it would ease the pain for the server...unless there comes a chargeback on the bill.
Limiting seating time is another controversial topic. Once again, I can understand the reasoning for the request, I just hate having to do it. We have moments when we are busy and people are waiting and we need tables to "turn" and they just aren't. People are relaxing, talking, enjoying the after glow of an evening with good food, wine, fellowship. They are not paying attention to the fact that the bar is packed and hungry others are peering out over the dining room, wondering which table will get up so they can sit down. And they shouldn't have to be. So managers are left with two choices - set a time limit on seating, or, try to use other techniques to get things moving. Let me put it to you this way: if I ever approach your table after you have had your coffee, paid your bill, gotten a refill of coffee, finished it and every other beverage on the table, been to the restroom and back and are still feeling very cozy indeed at Table 6, if I come over and say "How was everything tonight? Is there anything else we can bring you?", you will know that maybe I really, really need the table where you are sitting. If this doesn't work, I will eventually come right out and confess the need for the table and offer to bring more coffee, water, whatever, if the camper, er, customer wouldn't mind moving to the bar to enjoy it. We rarely have this occurrence, but, like our peers in the restaurant world, we only have so many tables and so many shifts where demand is higher than average. The opportunity to turn tables over the course of a service is rare at best. Help us out here. Hopefully you want to come back another time, and we want to remain open so you can.
Rules. Meant to be broken. Of course you have to have them, or chaos would reign. But sometimes a bit of creativity and a lot diplomacy might turn rules into reason. That's what I would prefer to do, even knowing it can fail to produce the desired result. I just don't like rules.
One of our neighboring restaurants has a full page ad in the Kent County News this week (which in itself is quite impressive, since usually only real estate companies and furniture stores take out ads of this size) describing their "Downrigging Lunch Menu", to be offered next Saturday. What struck me as most interesting were two of their disclaimers posted at the bottom: first was the statement "If you take our copy of the credit card voucher, a 20% gratuity will be added." and second: "We reserve the right to limit table seating to 75 minutes."
Both of these address problems we all have at times. The question for me is, can they be effectively addressed in this manner? Personally, I have never liked seeing a list of rules and demands which are frequently posted at the bottom of restaurant menus: "The Chef takes great pains to pair menu items in a certain way, therefore no substitutions are allowed" or "We will not be responsible for the texture of meat that is ordered cooked well done". I get sort of nervous when it appears that the place has to chastise their customers in this way, before anything even gets ordered. Sure, it is bad when the patron takes the wrong copy of the credit card slip - the addition of a 20% tip intends to correct the issue of a lack of known tip on the check, since the merchant copy is usually where you would find that information. The problem is the server gets no tip, unless, as this rule indicates, the merchant adds 20% when they don't have anything else to go on. My point is that the bigger problem lies with the lack of merchant copy at all, let alone the tip. It means that the restaurant has no signed copy and that means no proof that the guest was actually at the place should they get a chargeback for the check. We are always hounding the DR staff to be sure to pick up the credit card book before the guest leaves and make sure they have left the correct copy of the bill. If they haven't, we have been know to chase them into the parking lot to get it - ask Bill Kirk if that isn't true. If we don't get the correct copy, we don't worry too much if it is a regular. The only time a problem will arise is if the customer argues that they did not visit our establishment as their credit card statement alleges, and we get a charge back from the credit card company. If we can't prove, via their signature on the merchant copy of the bill, that they were in fact at the table that day, we are SOL, and there is virtually nothing we can do to argue the case. Our staff knows this, and they know that if that happens and they were negligent in getting the correct copy, they will also be SOL. Harsh? Yes. But as I tell the staff, this is a business and payment is a part of it. If they do not collect the revenue from the guest, in the form of cash, check or credit card, someone will have to cover the bill. So far - knock, knock, knock - we have had only one chargeback in the BT history, and we had the signed slip to cover our side of the story. Adding a 20% tip to the missing merchant copy wouldn't solve the larger problem, but it would ease the pain for the server...unless there comes a chargeback on the bill.
Limiting seating time is another controversial topic. Once again, I can understand the reasoning for the request, I just hate having to do it. We have moments when we are busy and people are waiting and we need tables to "turn" and they just aren't. People are relaxing, talking, enjoying the after glow of an evening with good food, wine, fellowship. They are not paying attention to the fact that the bar is packed and hungry others are peering out over the dining room, wondering which table will get up so they can sit down. And they shouldn't have to be. So managers are left with two choices - set a time limit on seating, or, try to use other techniques to get things moving. Let me put it to you this way: if I ever approach your table after you have had your coffee, paid your bill, gotten a refill of coffee, finished it and every other beverage on the table, been to the restroom and back and are still feeling very cozy indeed at Table 6, if I come over and say "How was everything tonight? Is there anything else we can bring you?", you will know that maybe I really, really need the table where you are sitting. If this doesn't work, I will eventually come right out and confess the need for the table and offer to bring more coffee, water, whatever, if the camper, er, customer wouldn't mind moving to the bar to enjoy it. We rarely have this occurrence, but, like our peers in the restaurant world, we only have so many tables and so many shifts where demand is higher than average. The opportunity to turn tables over the course of a service is rare at best. Help us out here. Hopefully you want to come back another time, and we want to remain open so you can.
Rules. Meant to be broken. Of course you have to have them, or chaos would reign. But sometimes a bit of creativity and a lot diplomacy might turn rules into reason. That's what I would prefer to do, even knowing it can fail to produce the desired result. I just don't like rules.
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