Restaurant refuses to sing happy bday to 6 yr old

[guids]

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Immediately leaping as quickly through the chain of command as you can isn't necessarily helpful. It can actually just make things more confusing and amp up something small into something big.

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One thing you keep assuming for some reason is that the owner isn't readily accessible and/or very hands-on.

A friend's father ran a very high-end Italian joint here in town for upwards of thirty years and he was the host on average of six nights a week.

Another friend of mine was a bartender here in town who bought a sports bar with a friend and fellow bartender. It was a busy place but they would put themselves on shifts behind the bar several nights a week.


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Wow, a whole several nights a week? Pretty impressive. A business as big as a bar, you say. Whew!

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I can't tell by your tone what you mean by this. I'm just talking about when they put themselves on the schedule. In both restaurant instances the owners would usually come in at 9AM or 10AM or whatever to manage the books, deliveries, payroll, back-office type stuff. Then they would often work the evening.

We're on a bit of a tangent, but a lot of very successful bar/restaurant managers are control freaks who invest huge amounts of time in their businesses. Whether they're also successful outside of their work who knows, but I don't think it's at all unusual for an owner to be so hands-on in a floor level situation at a moderately sized restaurant.

EDIT: Basically, what guids said upthread about owners either being very hands-on or very hands-off.

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blarg, normally in business I would agree but restaurants are different, unless its a chain, a lot of succesful restaurants (not high profile ones, just your normal corner joint), are the ones who have an owner who is there all the time.

[mason55]

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Blarg, I was referring to your points that the dad was at fault for not calling ahead and for asking to speak to the manager.

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I never said that. I just said he should call ahead. He may or may not get the manager, but at the least, he's given himself a chance to avoid wasting some time if they say no.

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Now, if the father had called ahead to ask, and been told that they would get a song, he would be blameless for not going to a different restaurant. But he shouldn't even have stepped in the door of this one without even asking if they do that kind of thing.

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I don't get this vitriol for showing up at the restaurant to ask, esp when this is a known kids/family restaurant AND there are more restaurants close by as a contingency if they get there and are told that they changed their policy.

[Blarg]

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Immediately leaping as quickly through the chain of command as you can isn't necessarily helpful. It can actually just make things more confusing and amp up something small into something big.

[/ QUOTE ]
One thing you keep assuming for some reason is that the owner isn't readily accessible and/or very hands-on.

A friend's father ran a very high-end Italian joint here in town for upwards of thirty years and he was the host on average of six nights a week.

Another friend of mine was a bartender here in town who bought a sports bar with a friend and fellow bartender. It was a busy place but they would put themselves on shifts behind the bar several nights a week.


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Wow, a whole several nights a week? Pretty impressive. A business as big as a bar, you say. Whew!

[/ QUOTE ]
I can't tell by your tone what you mean by this. I'm just talking about when they put themselves on the schedule. In both restaurant instances the owners would usually come in at 9AM or 10AM or whatever to manage the books, deliveries, payroll, back-office type stuff. Then they would often work the evening.

We're on a bit of a tangent, but a lot of very successful bar/restaurant managers are control freaks who invest huge amounts of time in their businesses. Whether they're also successful outside of their work who knows, but I don't think it's at all unusual for an owner to be so hands-on in a floor level situation at a moderately sized restaurant.

EDIT: Basically, what guids said upthread about owners either being very hands-on or very hands-off.

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My tone was just being playfully as*holish. It was making fun in a snotty way, but I hope I explained why in the rest of the post.

The tldr is: owners often work when they don't have to, and should fix it so their business doesn't go belly up if they get sick for a while, etc. Cuz sooner or later, it's gonna happen. And if it doesn't, they'll probably have heart attacks, become drunks or drug abusers, swallow a gun, divorce their wife, whatever.

Also, that some businesses by their nature cannot be run by having the boss jumping to put out every little fire. They're either too big or too complex or both. Or maybe even they're small but the boss is needed elsewhere. The whole point of hiring people to run things is to have them actually run it.

So the boss always being there is often far from a sign that a business is being run well.

[Blarg]

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Blarg, I was referring to your points that the dad was at fault for not calling ahead and for asking to speak to the manager.

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I never said that. I just said he should call ahead. He may or may not get the manager, but at the least, he's given himself a chance to avoid wasting some time if they say no.

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Now, if the father had called ahead to ask, and been told that they would get a song, he would be blameless for not going to a different restaurant. But he shouldn't even have stepped in the door of this one without even asking if they do that kind of thing.

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I don't get this vitriol for showing up at the restaurant to ask, esp when this is a known kids/family restaurant AND there are more restaurants close by as a contingency if they get there and are told that they changed their policy.

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I'm mystified too. And I've re-read the quotes a couple times. Vitriol is in the eye of the beholder, I guess.

I'm not sure why poor planning should be thought of as anything else. It's pretty simple stuff. I usually check stuff like this out before driving around town. What happens if they found not just one restaurant, but two that wouldn't do the singing thing? There's no number at which not picking up a phone makes a lot of sense.

If saying someone should pick up a phone counts as vitriol, I must be a pretty bad guy, because I say lots worse.

[Blarg]

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Immediately leaping as quickly through the chain of command as you can isn't necessarily helpful. It can actually just make things more confusing and amp up something small into something big.

[/ QUOTE ]
One thing you keep assuming for some reason is that the owner isn't readily accessible and/or very hands-on.

A friend's father ran a very high-end Italian joint here in town for upwards of thirty years and he was the host on average of six nights a week.

Another friend of mine was a bartender here in town who bought a sports bar with a friend and fellow bartender. It was a busy place but they would put themselves on shifts behind the bar several nights a week.


[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, a whole several nights a week? Pretty impressive. A business as big as a bar, you say. Whew!

[/ QUOTE ]
I can't tell by your tone what you mean by this. I'm just talking about when they put themselves on the schedule. In both restaurant instances the owners would usually come in at 9AM or 10AM or whatever to manage the books, deliveries, payroll, back-office type stuff. Then they would often work the evening.

We're on a bit of a tangent, but a lot of very successful bar/restaurant managers are control freaks who invest huge amounts of time in their businesses. Whether they're also successful outside of their work who knows, but I don't think it's at all unusual for an owner to be so hands-on in a floor level situation at a moderately sized restaurant.

EDIT: Basically, what guids said upthread about owners either being very hands-on or very hands-off.

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blarg, normally in business I would agree but restaurants are different, unless its a chain, a lot of succesful restaurants (not high profile ones, just your normal corner joint), are the ones who have an owner who is there all the time.

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There's a difference between having one there and needing one there, and a very important one. Asking the owner doesn't necessarily give you a reliable idea on how much the owner's presence is worth, either, because most people's valuation of themselves is pretty much infinite and a lot of people have no lives whatever, so where else would they be?

Lots of owners hire managers, too. Or empower their employees to make decisions.

Also, my reading is this place is not that high end.

And, the owner can be there every night, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's going to be there every day, too. When he's not, who is going to make the decisions?

A place that falls apart as soon as the owner has flu or takes a weekend off or is for whatever reason temporarily unavailable is a business in peril. At least, in peril of not making the money it should. Restaurant or bar, too.

[happyhappyhappy]

Using the term imbeciles was a bit harsh.

[mason55]

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I'm not sure why poor planning should be thought of as anything else. It's pretty simple stuff.

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alkfa;w4if vo;nv ;ev

what does this have to do with anything?

[Stuey]

Kids can sense when adults are upset and it makes the kid upset. So you people need to stop being nits about this stuff cuz it is upsetting me and I might have a fit.

[Blarg]

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I'm not sure why poor planning should be thought of as anything else. It's pretty simple stuff.

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alkfa;w4if vo;nv ;ev

what does this have to do with anything?

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Your stuff is becoming a series of non-sequiturs to me.

[mason55]

lol i just had the same thought abolut you.

i dont understand what the dad's choice to drive to the restaurant to ask or the fact that the owner is needed to take care of problems has to do with the OP