Incomplete Parties And The Art Of Pushing Back

Posted: March 19th, 2009 | Author: miconian | Filed under: Work | Tags: restaurant | Comments

Back when I was a host at a snooty restaurant outside of Los Angeles, I had a weekly dilemna that has become a useful metaphor in every job I’ve had since.

On Sundays, the restaurant (heck, let’s call it Solley’s) was packed for brunch, and we did not take reservations. We also didn’t seat incomplete parties.

Suppose you’re coming to bruch with a friend. You get there first. You approach the host (me) and “put your name in.” I write down your name, with the number 2 next to it. Then I refuse to seat you, and turn to the person behind you, asking how many are in their party.

Why am I refusing to seat you? Well, because you are an incomplete party. You are a party of two, and only one of you is present.

But why, you ask reasonably, does the restaurant care whether your party is complete? You yourself have arrived and asked for a table, have you not? You have money to spend, right? So what if your friend has to come in and find you?

It’s not that simple, I say. And then I refuse to explain further. Steam comes out of your ears. You hop up and down. You plot my death as I escort the two people who walked in behind you to the only available two-top in the place. You point emphatically to the window.

“She’s coming!” you cry. That’s her, walking from the car right now! She’ll be here in five seconds! You have to seat us!”

“I’ll definitely seat you as soon as she gets here,” I say, gesturing to some doofus who clearly just wandered in off the street, and might not even pay. I smile at the doofus, and lead him to the table you’d been eyeing. He takes five minutes to sit down. He has the New York Times with him. He spreads it out.

You get so angry that you die of an anneurism, right there on the rug. I step over your twitching body to escort the next complete party to their table.

Here’s why popular restaurants don’t seat incomplete parties. People who are still waiting for their friends to arrive are unlikely to order their meal right away. Even if they do, their friends are going to get started later. Either way, the table is occupied for longer than it might have been if the party had been complete from the beginning. This in turn means that the restaurant (and the wait staff) receive less money per hour than they would have otherwise. Seat a few incomplete parties, and you’ll have waiters and waitresses glaring at you as they deliver glasses of water and appetizers to the diners who are “politely” waiting for their friends.

Here’s why the host never explains to you what I just explained. The waiting customer, almost by definition, doesn’t accept the explanation above. He wants to believe that his personal satisfaction with his dining experience is the single most important factor in the success of the restaurant. Beyond that, he wants, very deeply, to believe in a business framework in which customer satisfaction is always measured in terms of how much time each customer spends being angry. If, every Sunday, fifty customers get angry at the host, then there’s a problem, right? Why won’t the restaurant seat these people immediately, so that they stop being angry?

However, allowing certain customers to be angry is simply part of the restaurant business. Restauranteurs create a certain experience, and if you interfere with, or won’t be complicit in creating, that experience, then there is no room for you. A willingness to pay your tab when you leave does not entitle you to have the experience of your choice. It entitles you to have the experience that is being sold by the people who are experts at creating that experience.

Here’s how this situation relates to business in general. Everybody wants to satisfy their clients. Everybody wants to make as much money as possible. Hence, when a client asks for something, the most obvious course of action is always to give it to them.

But reactively responding to client requests is a slippery slope. Before you know it, you’re just an avatar guided by someone else’s whims. Which is fine, if a) that’s a sustainable business model, and b) being an avatar is what you’re best at. But, unless you drive a taxi, are both of those conditions ever really true? Didn’t you go into the business you’re in because you’re better at it than your client would be if he did it himself? Isn’t this difference in knowledge and skill actually the reason you’re being paid?

image by TimWilson

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