Math-Challenged Anniversaries And Failing To Yield

A lot of restaurant folks had a good laugh this week. There were advertisements in a couple of local papers trumpeting the 25th anniversary of East Hampton Point, the venerable waterfront dining deck in northern East Hampton, and a $25 steak offering in celebration.

Those of us who were there, either as employees or observers, that manic first summer, remember when Drew Nieporent and his crew from Montrachet and Tribeca Grill brought an army of restaurant talent, in band-collared white button-ups eastward, to open the biggest and most visually stunning dining room the Hamptons have ever seen. (Montauk, and the breathtaking dining room at Gurney’s, were not the Hamptons back then like they are now.)

We remember assistant manager Richie Notar, now of Nobu and Howard Stern fame, affectionately being dubbed “Richie No-Clue.” We remember Drew—the rotund restaurateur who was once on a magazine cover with Ronald McDonald mulling which of the two was the most powerful restaurant frontman in America—getting slugged in the jaw by a customer unhappy with the table at which he was to be seated and Drew’s dismissive response to his protestations. We remember Bennett Breen. We remember why Lynn McNamara was the only one allowed to wear shorts. We remember Gerry Hayden’s vegetable tart and Chad Vanderslice’s mixed berry shortcake. We remember the Slater Waiter and Beavis and Butthead and we remember Squirrel, and its many, many crashes and the many, many customers who stormed out angrily—that was sort of the thing to do in those days—because the food, or their drinks or their bill or all of the above took too long to come.

We also remember that it was ... [clears throat] ... 1993.

Dozens of the people who were there that year, or worked there in the ensuing seasons, celebrated the 20th anniversary in 2013, even though that was technically the restaurant’s 21st summer in business. But however anniversaries are supposed to be counted, it’s either the 23rd or 24th anniversary this year, not the 25th. So, I think you should all go in and order the steak special and demand to be charged $23.

It’s ironic that EHP was on OTM’s mind this week, because it was on those floors that I learned the skills of finer service.

One of those skills—or habits, actually—that was scolded, beaten or drilled into us, has been something I’ve noticed over and over the last couple years is lost on the staff of too many “fine” restaurants. It didn’t even make the infamous list of 100 points of service a New York Times columnist crowed about several years ago.

It is a simple one, with little impact on the actual service an individual waiter gives to one of his or her tables, but an indicator of the proper sort of approach to fine dining that is needed to actually provide that service on the whole.

Managers, take note, and think about whether you’ve pointed this out to your staff, or do it yourself: Any staff member, be they manager, hostess, waiter, runner or busboy; no matter the hurry they are in; no matter how heavy the stack of plates they are carrying is; no matter how angry one of their tables is that lemons were not brought with their ice water; the staff member must always halt and stand to the side if they meet a customer walking toward them in one of the travel lanes between tables. And they should smile and say something along the lines of “Pardon me. Please...” and gesture for the customer to pass with a sweep of the hand or nod of the head. Don’t forget to smile. The fact that you are in the weeds, or in pain or angry at your boyfriend, is of no import or concern to the customer.

It’s funny how being trained in such ways works. To this day, I do this completely instinctively—so much so that I find myself getting out of the way of the restaurant staff when I meet them.

And that’s fine: of course when a customer would see a young busboy struggling with a tower of dirty plates (there are no bus bins in fine dining) they would say “no, please, go right ahead” and step aside and the busboy can oblige them—keep smiling. Kudos to them for being polite when they don’t have to.

But it’s the message it sends, to the staff member as much as to the customer. Each time a server is presented with that moment, and it could easily be a dozen times a night, if they stand aside, pause, engage ever so briefly with the customer and demure to them, they are reminded of all the key elements of what and where they are. As servers, we are servants. Check out some “Downton Abbey” sometime and watch how the service staff act. Of course the waiter-customer relationship in a modern restaurant is not, or should not be, such a celebrated divide of caste, but the basics of how a restaurant’s service staff should act are still rooted there. We are being paid in that place and that moment to be of help to people, not to mingle with them. Stand aside. Clean the drink stirrers and crumpled wrappers and cocktail napkins off the table. Fold their napkin when they get up from the table. Be cheerful not chummy.

Alas, in walking through the aisles of restaurant after restaurant after restaurant (off-duty, as a customer) the last few years I have rarely ever been met with this basic courtesy from staff.

And far too often, it is just the opposite. A waiter—brow furrowed, cheeks flushed, nose buried in a dupe-pad or doing their best stickman run-walk from computer stand to kitchen or bar—storms by with nary a glance to see who they are brushing off.

Most customers, admittedly, probably don’t notice. We are all too wrapped up in ourselves these days, absorbed more with what we’re going to post about next than with old school social graces, to care.

So perhaps such niceties are destined to be forgotten in all but the most fastidious of fine restaurants, where French service standards are upheld.

C’est la vie.