Been a while, hadn't had a decent bee under my bonnet in over a week, hence the quietness of this blog.

Although now is probably a good time to talk about some of our customers (saying that I'd like to warn people that although I am not above naming and shaming, in this case it would be most prudent to use a little discretion).

The restaurant has been open now for nearly thirty years and it sits in quite a picturesque little town in the north, (a town which, incidentally, has just celebrated its 800th anniversary). Thankfully, our restaurant doesn't get that many of what I would like to call "finicky" customers, we have survived thus far because we are known as the "local" restaurant. Thankfully most of our customers are absolutely lovely. The "finicky" ones, are the ones who hardly ever come out to eat, or big business men who expect to be treated like the king's and queen's they clearly think they are...WRONG.

Quite frankly unless you have HRH in front of your name and an entourage following you calling you "your majesty" or "your highness" you will not be treated like royalty. I was not brought up to pander to the ego's of those who have done nothing worthwhile and yet still expect to be treated like their special. Here's the rub, your about as special as everyone else...Catch my drift? One thing that I have noticed over the years, and this includes working in retail for a while, (I'd like to point out that most people don't, but you do get the occasional few), they seem to think that because your merely a waitress or working in sales (the politically correct term for this nowadays is "sales advisor"), they need to speak slower because apparently you don't have a brain. (Of course you do get the odd few that genuinely don't but that's a blog for another day, and in all honesty, their not dumb, just lazy). Please can we stop with all the stereotyping? I don't go around saying "me so solly", so kindly don't expect me too.

Now, getting back on topic since it seems I've gone off on a bit of a tangent. A few weeks back we had two pretty big tables booked, and I would like to point out that in this credit crunch time people don't quite seem to realise that the first thing they stop doing when there is no money available is go out to eat, unless it has been pointed out to them (then its a case of "oh yeah"). Now we had one huge table for 50 people and another for, well, it was booked for 25 but only 19 turned up. Can I just say that smaller table was double the work of the big table. Here's a tip, when your ordering, never EVER order for everyone without prior consultation, especially if its a set dinner that no one else has even seen, because there will always always be at least one person who will be a fussy eater, and guess what? The person who booked the table, ordered for everyone, he ordered 15 set meals and 2 vegetarian set dinners. Now whichever way you look at it, thats 17 set dinners...so obviously there won't be enough, no matter which way you look at it, if he had ordered 16 then yes you can argue it will stretch. But, won't be told, at the end of the day I can only say so much and I can only take to the kitchen what you, yourself have ordered.

Of course everything was wrong, the food was bad (despite the fact that they ate EVERY thing, practically licking the plate clean), service was bad (which quite frankly they were told beforehand that service would be slow, especially since we were unexpectedly understaffed since my mother had suddenly taken ill, in fact ratio wise it worked out that there was about 20 people to one waiter/-ress). The worst was one of the vegetarians, now 9 times out of 10 vegetarians are not a problem, but you do get the odd one who uses vegetarianism as an excuse to hide their awkwardness. This particular one, just wanted chips...all she wanted. So we gave her the chips, she sent them back because apparently they were "cremated" on the outside, and "cold" on the inside...How in the good lord is that even possible when you fry chips in oil???? (Actually they weren't cold at all, they were still warm, which considering she was sitting in front of the door and went out for a cigarette shouldn't really be that surprising). So they demanded we give them 15% discount, not asked, but demanded and it was said in such as way as if to say we were doing them a favour, bottom line? Never met a more patronising person, typical characteristic of someone who is used to getting it all without actually working for it, the type of person who the world must bow down too and worship.

Of course it didn't end there...the person who booked wasn't actually the person who paid. So, another round of apologies, but by this point I had had enough, it was close to midnight and I had been in work since 7am I just want my bed. Of course he wasn't happy, food was bad, service blah blah blah. There was the usual we're not coming here again, so. as I said, by this point I had had enough so I said "well that's your privilege", thereby implying that I really couldn't give a monkeys, which I didn't. "Well then your reputation in this town will go down hill", HA! I have news for you boyo, the reason why we;ve stayed open for nearly 30 years is because of the local people, so heres a parting shot, I don't WANT you back thank you very much!