I think I hate restaurant week. Not because it isn’t a great
idea. (It is.) Or because the food isn’t good. (It mostly is.) But a hint of
snide annoyance, like the faint taste of fennel, hovers over too many of the
participating restaurants. I understand why it’s a hard two weeks — the hordes
of new faces unfamiliar with the menu and dress code, the large groups who come
early and linger for far too long after the bill has been paid. “Why are these
people here?” is the pained conspiratorial look exchanged between too many
hosts and servers. Why indeed? It’s because they’ve heard that you are a
wonderful place for a meal, a place where the diner can feel welcomed and
cosseted, and because it is a fair exchange of steady money for what might
otherwise be empty seats.
I’ve been getting lots of emails from diners who went out, ate
well, and enjoyed themselves during restaurant week. Some of them dined out
multiple times, considering it a welcome treat in the middle of winter’s glum
last gasp. But several correspondents couldn’t figure out why the restaurants
seemed to be offering hospitality through gritted teeth. Obviously, being busy
means more work than being moderately full. Logistics are different and
staffing is up, but this should still be good news. Tables are filled, the menu
is narrowed, and each diner gets dessert — even if the margins are slightly
reduced. Why does it seem that there’s such a chip on collective shoulders?
Obviously, every restaurant in the city would love it if night after night,
sophisticated, appreciative regulars came for dinner. Grow up, already. If you
can’t reach out a warm, welcoming hand to newcomers, diners for whom eating at
your tables is a special occasion, why are you in the hospitality business?
Open a private club, not a restaurant.
This year, I got a lot of mail from restaurant-week patrons. Most
gushed about this memorable bistro meal or that new dining find. But then there
were the disappointed diners who needed to drop a dime. “I went to XYZ for
dinner. We took the earliest reservation on a Wednesday night so we could go
right from work. We’d always heard and read so much about how great the food
was, how smooth the service, etc. But everyone seemed so rushed and impatient,
like they didn’t have time to explain anything on the menu,” a new BFF texted.
Another new pen pal confided, “We felt like we were at Disneyland, or one of
those places where you feel you’re supposed to hurry up and get moving because
everyone else is waiting in a long line out in the cold. The food was good, and
I know the price was a deal. But we’d never go back.” A third wrote, “I guess
we were the bridge-and-tunnel crowd. Sorry we annoyed them.” If there were just
a couple of random complainers, I’d shuffle them off to email oblivion. But
there were too many others who wrote in the same vein, and I knew they were
speaking truth.
Restaurant week is a great marketing tool, a revenue booster for
mousy March, and an opportunity to turn newcomers into devotees, reward
regulars, and foster conviviality in the community. I hate to sound preachy,
but hospitality people, next time you invite people into your home, try to act
like you’re glad they came. Here’s the good news: you’ll get another
opportunity this summer, with a restaurant week scheduled for August 9–14 and
16–21. That leaves plenty of time to practice between now and then.
