When Restaurant Managers Attack

So the other night my wife and I had a great opportunity to reconnect with one of my favorite cousins and a couple of cousins I don't really know from the Left Coast. My cousin Luke invited us to dinner with my Dads 1st Cousin Smitty and his daughter Jennifer. They were in town for business and asked us to choose a place to eat.

Now when I first moved to Charlotte, there were not too many choices for foodies. With the introduction of Johnson and Wales Charlotte campus, the chef factory began to pump out new blood and along with that came alot of new choices for culinarians.

This left me with the challenge of deciding. The choices are the usual, ethnic, steak, seafood, fusion, high end, dives and everything in between. I eventually consulted with my good friend Bryan who is my culinary counterpart. We cook together regularly while our respective female companions happily enjoy not being responsible for the food choices in our lives(although they can both cook very well). Lucky Ladies.

Bryan brought me around to a decision after some discussion and I booked a 7:45 table for 5 at Blue Restaurant and Bar in Uptown Charlotte.

This classy upscale casual joint relies on a solid selection of award winning apps and entrees with wine pairings focused around a Mediterranean flair to classic dishes. They do a very respectable job consistently providing quality dining experiences and I would recommend them happily.

This meal had the distinct advantage of a vibrant server, Dianne, a young cheerful Asian woman who was prompt and friendly in service and who's only faux pas was underestimating our penchant for alcoholic refreshment. She would have been hard pressed to keep up with us though so I give her a pass.

The food started and finished very nicely with an award winning app of Jumbo Diver Scallops Wrapped in prosciutto and served over a fava bean puree with a lemon marmalade then for dinner Beef Tenderloin ala Blue pan seared filet topped with creamy gorgonzola dolce, served with sweet onion marmalade and a pancetta and green pea risotto. I found the risotto to be bland and slightly overcooked as was my fillet. Overall I would give a 6 out of 10 to my entree and a 9 out of 10 to the appetizer. The scallops were fantastic. My wife had a duo of Boar that was fabulous and worth going back for.

But this is not a restaurant review here. It is a story about overkill. The whole point of this entry was actually the floor manager and his untimely visit to our table. I will preface the telling of it with a quick rhetorical question. Do you know that point in a good meal where you have settled in and are tucking into your food and also involved in a good conversation with your table mates? This is the moment at which the floor manager decided to stop by to check on us and do his managerial duty. As it turned out, he mistimed his approach and landed in our midst with a bit too much suave.

Having managed restaurants for years, I understand just how completely important this can be and how it is one of the few checklists that a manager must accomplish during active service. I also understand how completely hung up on 100% table visits a restaurant upper management team can be. In other words, despite the fact that this is your sole individual duty during active service, discretion should be a large part of your approach as it can turn a good PR move into a frustrating exercise in social manners for your diners. To everything, turn turn turn, there is a season...and so on.

This manager had all the charisma of a dripping pot full of patchouli oil and as he meandered verbally in an ode to tortoise around each of our meals, asking the ever popular "is your_____cooked properly?", it was all I could do to not throw the aformentioned overdone tenderloin at him. And aim for his excessivley pink tie while I was at it.

I felt the need to write this down, which shows two things. One, how good intentions can go far astray quickly if you force your agenda on strangers. Two, I am becoming far more grumpy in my old age...

Bon Vivant...Eric