The blog you love to hate, or love, or hate, or love?

Dear sweet Paolo, I believe I am in love with you! Whether you hate us or love us your comments about our blog are just what I needed. Thank you!

So this week I have all kinds of things to comment on, some of which are inspired by the comments on sf.eater.com. Many of you seem to think our blog is about posting a list of complaints about our customers. Actually, I started the blog because I really didn’t believe half of the stories I had heard about customers until I lived them myself. You see, I’ve only worked in this one restaurant and yes, as if that wasn’t odd enough, it’s not even my primary profession. What I am is an absolute food lover and honestly, if my pocket book could afford it, I would eat out 5 days a week. I’m the kind of person that sets up whole vacations around food.

Having said all that, I want to address the servers in the world and support you for all that you do. I can’t speak for all jobs, because anyone who has to deal with people on a daily level, has their own set of stories, but I think there’s this thing that happens when one is serving food.

I don’t think I have ever thought of this before, but a restaurant serves food and that’s something personal, something important, something that can change, alter or destroy or improve your mood. People get engaged at restaurants, break up at restaurants, celebrate, birthdays, anniversaries and even deaths at restaurants. So yes, I believe that serving food and working in a restaurant is in fact different than any other profession.

Additionally, whole families can come to a restaurant and trust me, some of those families don’t get on well with each other and guess what, servers often bare the brunt of their discontent.

Our blog is a highlight of the most challenged serving experiences because it is my personal crusade to have people relax and understand that honestly we care a lot that you are having a good time and when you don’t we want to work on it, but some people just need to read about their own messed up patterns of inappropriate behavior to really “get” how offensive they are for all our sakes (regardless of what side of the table you are on).

Love us or hate us, come in to visit us. If your experience was fun and yummy then you will really see how irrational the folks we mention are. Or, you may find out we are totally annoying and our food and our attitude are just what you thought, inappropriate.

If you’ve read the blog before, you may recall my entry where I mention the comment cards we have. This weekend the same server had what I would call a “hate card” and a “love card.” I was just laughing and laughing about this. It’s actually turned into a game I play with myself to see how many good comments I can accumulate in a day.

This day, my co worker got a hideous review and even one that said she ignored them because “they didn’t order any wine, forgot her tomatoes and didn’t bring the bread they wanted.”

By the time I got to them, they seemed to be less frustrated, but I assured them it had nothing to do with whether or not they ordered wine. About 2 hours later however, she got a review that said she was basically “the most kind, thoughtful server the family had ever had and that they had a great time during their meal and didn’t want to leave.”

Oh, but wait a minute, it was a pretty manic Saturday now that I think about it. I remember two other polar opinions about her…..

One table said that she was rude, short and inattentive while yet another table said they come for raw clams to our restaurant and loved them so much that whenever they are in town, they come by as much as possible.

So, thank you again sf.eater.com, Paolo Lucchesi, and all that have read our blog and commented on it. We appreciate you and hopefully you can’t wait to read our next blog since we can’t read to hear your next round of comments.

Oh and remember, EAT FISH!