Restaurant Review: P.F. Chang, or the Case of the Disappearing Booth

Pop quiz: What's more important, a paying customer or a seating policy? If you're P.F. Chang's China Bistro at White Flint Mall in Rockville, Maryland, the answer just might be the latter.

Last night I went to P.F. Chang's with a friend. It was very busy (around 6:30 p.m. after work). To make a long story short, we prefer sitting in a booth so we made multiple requests for the empty booths but were told we could not have any of them for a variety of reasons. When we were finally shown to a table instead after a 25-minute wait, it was not our preference so we asked if we could have an empty booth nearby. Told it had been reserved, we pointed out several other empty booths but were told they were only for larger parties. Miffed by all the refusals, we considered leaving but finally decided to sit at the less desirable table, only to notice that a couple was now seated at the booth we had requested but were told had been reserved. I asked the couple directly if they had made a reservation and they told us they hadn't. I also asked the hostess who had refused to seat us there what time the reservation was for, and she said she didn't know. If she knew the table was reserved, why didn't she know what time the purported reservation was for? And how is it that the people who supposedly made the reservation told me they did no such thing?

I angrily told one of the hostesses that I had found out that the booth they claimed had been reserved actually wasn't. Ordinarily, I don't like squabbling over such a petty thing, but by this point it wasn't about the booth anymore: I'm not stupid and I hate dishonest or inconsiderate treatment when I'm trying to spend my money in an establishment. I can't know with certainty people's level of honesty or motivations. We were well-dressed, and we were polite until our multiple requests for any of the empty booths were refused to the point of nonsense, so I doubt any discrimination was involved. I suspect the misinformation had something to do with saving face when our requests were refused and we resisted instead of accepting the marching orders about where we were to sit.

My friend confronted one of the hostesses who had refused to seat us at a booth and pointed out all the inconvenient facts while nearby customers listened. She claimed it was an accidental mistake and soon a booth magically materialized. The food was delicious and the server was excellent, and we tried to make the best of it, but by that point we had already spent the better part of an hour either waiting or arguing. My mood and appetite were largely spoiled by the unprofessional, ham-handed treatment and I ended up taking most of my dinner home in a box. If there's one thing that disappoints me about a business, it's when I stop wanting to buy or use their core product for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of the product. How sad to take a customer who has arrived at your door in a pleasant mood and is ready, willing, and able to spend money in your restaurant, and turn that person into someone who just wants to leave and never come back.

Treating customers like their business is valued is more important than the Company Seating Policy or the ego of a hostess whose first seating choice was not the customer's preference. Restaurants should train hostesses and floor managers not to give customers a hard time about being seated at the table of their choice. Seating charts and policies ordinarily make sense -- of course management wants resources to be used as efficiently as possible -- but when a customer expresses a clear preference, the restaurant should try to accommodate the customer's wishes somehow if at all possible. If the customer's wishes cannot be accommodated, then an apologetic and honest explanation should be given. If a table is empty and there is no server assigned to it, and a customer wants to sit there, the manager should assign another server to that table.

It's not rocket science. In fact, it should be a small issue, and it was unnecessary that this situation got blown ridiculously out of proportion. What a sorry waste of everyone's time and energy. There are real problems in the world and this kind of escalating battle over nothing of importance shouldn't even happen. A reasonable, relatively minor customer request should be handled with an attitude of prompt accommodation, not with a blank stare and a string of refusals. I'm sure many servers would have jumped at the chance to collect a tip from an additional table, and the restaurant would have gained a loyal customer instead of someone who stays away because they don't want to have to fight to sit at an empty table. And who is annoyed enough to blog about it afterwards.

If you take your customers too much for granted, they might stop coming back. They might tell their friends about their bad experience. And these days, they might also post their experience to a blog for other potential customers to see. If we all stop tolerating shoddy treatment of all kinds, and publicize it, maybe we can help to reduce it. That's the power of speaking our minds.

In that spirit, I e-mailed the details of this experience to P.F. Chang's headquarters and suggested that they train their people to handle customers in a more appropriate manner in the future. If I get a response, I'll post an update.

Miracle of Miracles: Rule of Law Upheld

Either I'm finally losing my mind or the Supreme Court actually made a decision with which I agree wholeheartedly. Can it really be true? Dare I believe it? Is our system of checks and balances still there? Does the rule of law still matter?

Pinch me, I must be dreaming.

I'll have more to say about this when I get some time to read the Supreme Court's excellent decision today. For now, I'll simply provide the link to the full text, as well as this cogent quote from Justice Kennedy:

Military Commission Order No. 1, which governs the military commission established to try petitioner Salim Hamdan for war crimes, exceeds limits that certain statutes, duly enacted by Congress, have placed on the President's authority to convene military courts. This is not a case, then, where the Executive can assert some unilateral authority to fill a void left by congressional inaction. It is a case where Congress, in the proper exercise of its powers as an independent branch of government, and as part of a long tradition of legislative involvement in matters of military justice, has considered the subject of military tribunals and set limits on the President's authority. Where a statute provides the conditions for the exercise of governmental power, its requirements are the result of a deliberative and reflective process engaging both of the political branches. Respect for laws derived from the customary operation of the Executive and Legislative Branches gives some assurance of stability in time of crisis. The Constitution is best preserved by reliance on standards tested over time and insulated from the pressures of the moment.

SAY it, brother Anthony! Shout it from the mountaintops!

Global Warming: Who Should We Believe?

If it weren't so sad, Mother Nature would be laughing up Her sleeve at our willful stupidity. Nature is what it is and all the spin in the world won't change the facts. The laws of nature are cold, impersonal things. If we keep producing too much CO2, global warming will continue whether we agree with it or not. Given the fact that none of us has a crystal ball, I'd rather listen to the scientists screaming at us to pay attention, and a very intelligent man (Al Gore) who has studied the problem in much greater depth than most people, than stake the future on the opinions of those with a vested interest in closing their eyes and ears to any evidence that doesn't support maintaining the status quo.

There remain missing pieces of evidence that researchers will need to fill in, but, as Ralph J. Cicerone, Ph.D., President of the National Academy of Sciences, noted in his 2005 testimony before Congress, "Nearly all climate scientists today believe that much of Earth’s current warming has been caused by increases in the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels." The "plausible" standard should be good enough to take some reasonable measures, given the possible moral and physical consequences if we choose to ignore this. Sure, we're not responsible for all the CO2 in the atmosphere, and we can't yet say reliably beyond the previous 400 years what the natural fluctuations might have been, but why not reduce whatever negative effects we can control while we have the chance?

Some say that nonscientists should stay out of the debate because they are not entitled to make pronouncements about global warming if they don't have a scientific background. This is the ad hominem "embarrassment" method of shutting up one's opponents by implying they're unqualified to have an informed opinion. Unfortunately, nonscientists can't afford not to have an opinion on this particular issue; we can't stay out of this debate even if we want to because it is our decisions that will affect the CO2 levels and that will elect the people who will either make a difference -- or not. Our decisions, individually and collectively, will determine the future health of our planet.

For those of us who can't spend our lives studying the problem, then, the question becomes: who should we believe? Follow the money, folks; there are people at the top of the fossil fuel industry who are well on their way to a nice, fat retirement and don't want their fantasies disturbed. There are people who believe what they want to believe and don't give a damn about what happens to the world after they die because it doesn't serve their purposes. As one of my favorite people, Maury Roberts, used to say, "Never underestimate the power of self-interest." Who would you rather believe? Who is most likely to be telling the truth? My money's on the scientific consensus that we've got something to worry about.

This is a nonpartisan issue. Nature doesn't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican, conservative or liberal. Do your homework in a clear-eyed, honest frame of mind, and then respond as best you can. Read or study whatever you have time for, and always consider the source and the interests that will be served by any conclusions that are drawn. As Dr. Cicerone said in his 2005 testimony, "The task of mitigating and preparing for the impacts of climate change will require worldwide collaborative inputs from a wide range of experts, including natural scientists, engineers, social scientists, medical scientists, those in government at all levels, business leaders and economists." And citizens like you and me. We'll all respond in different ways, of course, but we all need to respond.

What Were They Thinking?

Have they gone mad? Have they gone nuts?

The Department of Homeland Security just cut antiterrorism and disaster preparedness funding by 40 percent for the two targets of the 9/11 terrorists: Washington, DC, and New York City. New Orleans also inexplicably had its funding cut in HALF, but DHS in its infinite wisdom increased it for such terrorism magnets as Charlotte, North Carolina. The DHS "risk scorecard" declared that there are "zero" national monuments or icons in New York City, the home of the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, the New York Stock Exchange, and the Brooklyn Bridge. These landmarks were taken into consideration under other categories, but the end result remains: funding to protect the people and places in NYC and DC -- two of America's prime terrorist target cities -- and in New Orleans, the site of one of the biggest not-entirely-natural disasters in U.S. history, has been cut drastically.

Are they completely insane?

This sounds like the product of one of those goofy computer programs that the fancy pants in this country think work better than human minds at figuring things out. Apparently, in addition to "risk scores" and "effectiveness tests," there was a review panel of actual human beings, but gee, for some reason, DHS won't discuss the make-up of the panel or release any of the names. NYC Mayor Bloomberg observed: "When you stop a terrorist, they have a map of New York City in their pocket. They don't have a map of any of the other 45 places." All I have to say is duh.

Here's what the Washington Post had to say. The Moderate Voice has a nice compilation of commentary excerpts and links.