Restaurant refuses to sing happy bday to 6 yr old

[J.A.K.]

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He told her it wasn't him that would be disappointed, it was a six yr old, and that since they agreed to do it they should honor it. He said she got very rude with him and said, its a restauant, not a dinner threatre. If you want singing take him to a show.

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If the above was really the exchange, LMAO...I keep seeing SNL "buh-bye".

"Hi, could you arrange to sing HB to my son?

"No, we don't do that anymore."

"But the hostess..."

"Here's me- 'No'.
Here's you- 'but I want to say something important'.
Me- 'No'
You- 'but I'm Joe Birthday Dad...my son's six years old'
Me- 'No'
You- 'But I wear a suit...no way am I a Loser...'
Yes you are, take your puke kid to a show...BUH-BYE!"

[Blarg]

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they should get something comp'd for the hostess' mistake but I think it's ridiculous to expect to have happy bday sung against the restaurant's policy.

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Part of this doesn't have anything to do with their refusal to follow through on what the hostess said they would do.
Another part of it is where "she got very rude with him and said, its a restauant, not a dinner threatre. If you want singing take him to a show."


This is out of line and inappropriate assuming that the Dad was being polite and was not escalating the situation as much as Blarg is speculating.

This a significant point by the way.
Blarg keeps insisting that the guy was escalating it and practically harassing them. Whereas I think Eld and I and others are picturing the guy being polite with the waiter and saying, "That's weird because you guys told me something different. Maybe I could speak to the manager about this" or something like that.

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That's the thing, and it's caused a lot of disagreement, much of it based on a lot of speculation. The story is about conflict, and it is being told only by one side. That's never good. Now we're all guessing and assuming and bouncing off that like we really have any way of knowing.

[Eurotrash]

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He's 6.
Don't batting cages fire it in there pretty darned fast?

We played T-Ball when I was 7 or 8.


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damn dude, that's pretty old for t-ball. unless you mean like unorganized, pick-up t-ball.


and yeah, there are cages that pitch slowly enough for a 6 year old to hit.


edit: or at least I've seen cages that are slow enough for that age. probably not as widespread as regular cages, but you can find them.

[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.

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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!

A business that relies on one guy always being there to keep from going to hell is a business in precarious shape. If that person is as low along the line as a hostess, that's a badly run business or else a very small one indeed.

You have to have the place run well when the boss isn't around. If your employees cannot do that much, fire them. If you cannot ever get them to do that much, fire yourself by hiring a manager who CAN do it. Works great sometimes.

Owners working their own places is standard, but it shouldn't be a necessity. At least, not forever. And lots of times when they do, it isn't. They hopefully are contributing instead of just wasting their employees' time and needling them because they have no life. But if they truly can't take a day off, something is very wrong. Btw, it's dirt common for bosses to think they're needed one hell of a lot more than they are. More places than not that I've worked, the place runs much smoother without the boss.

As to my needling you about a bar being a big business and a few nights being all whoop dee doo, what happens if your business has multiple departments? Say you run a restaurant/bar combo, not just a bar? Or a hotel/restaurant? Or a hotel/restaurant bar? There's no way in hell a manager/owner can handle every little thing that comes up, nor should he have to. He'll go nuts and burn out if he tries, and eventually be incredibly unproductive. People NEED time off. Otherwise, divorce, madness, and drug abuse await. So they need people in their employ to make that possible for them.

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Owners want to know what's going on, and I'm sure guids will corroborate that bar/restaurant owners are workaholics, possibly to support a burgeoning coke habit but more likely because they worry too much about what they're missing to stay away, or are micromanagers, and an industry with high turnover and theft lends itself to that.

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Yeah, those are definitely species of bad management.

Hiring and developing good people can be very hard, especially in bad markets. It's one of an owner or manager's most important jobs. Everyone you bring in is a bit of a gamble and someone you have to put at least a little trust in. And you can be reluctant to let go a "project" you've worked on developing for so long. Then again, you can finally get someone really good and doing great for you, who uses what you've taught him to leap over to another place or start up a business on his own.

If you never manage to develop anybody good in your company, though, it's not them -- it's YOU.

[Blarg]

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"its obv what kind of person the owner of this place is."


The kind who is rude to their customers when their own employees give bad information?

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he said/she said

[Blarg]

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they should get something comp'd for the hostess' mistake but I think it's ridiculous to expect to have happy bday sung against the restaurant's policy.

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Part of this doesn't have anything to do with their refusal to follow through on what the hostess said they would do.
Another part of it is where "she got very rude with him and said, its a restauant, not a dinner threatre. If you want singing take him to a show."


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I was ignoring this and just focusing on the "they had an agreement" argument because 99% of the time the story you get about who was rude/how the conversation went is inaccurate. Clearly, the owner was out of line if this actually happened.

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Agreed on both counts.

[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.

[happyhappyhappy]

It's the owners fault that her staff wasn't aware of any policies that had been put in place. This is what mise en place/pre-meal is for before you open everyday.

Since her staff wasn't aware of their own policy, anything up to a dinner for two gift certificate/comp should have been offered to alleviate the situation along with a lot of apologizing. That being said, even though it is the owners fault, she shouldn't be changing her policy at this moment, and the customer should not expect them to, especially after the owner has apologized for their mistake. So she needs to grovel a bit, and offer up the GC, and Dad needs to accept that as best he can without ruining his kids meal.

As far as Dad goes, anytime you want something specific out of a dining experience, whether that be singing or a souffle, a call to the establishment beforehand to clarify is completely reasonable.

We have no idea how any of these conversations went though. Dad could've went by the seat of his pants and asked the hostess on the way to the table, the owner could've offered comps, or could've been rude, etc.etc. We don't know.


This doesn't sound like a place that is very well run. Dad seems to have thought he was at Friday's. It seems like a bunch of imbeciles ran into each other at the perfect time.


And fwiw, at any restaurant that is worth its salt, the host/hostess is absolutely one of the most important people in the restaurant, right up alongside the chef.

[tuq]

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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.

[Blarg]

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It's the owners fault that her staff wasn't aware of any policies that had been put in place. This is what mise en place/pre-meal is for before you open everyday.

Since her staff wasn't aware of their own policy, anything up to a dinner for two gift certificate/comp should have been offered to alleviate the situation along with a lot of apologizing. That being said, even though it is the owners fault, she shouldn't be changing her policy at this moment, and the customer should not expect them to, especially after the owner has apologized for their mistake. So she needs to grovel a bit, and offer up the GC, and Dad needs to accept that as best he can without ruining his kids meal.

As far as Dad goes, anytime you want something specific out of a dining experience, whether that be singing or a souffle, a call to the establishment beforehand to clarify is completely reasonable.

We have no idea how any of these conversations went though. Dad could've went by the seat of his pants and asked the hostess on the way to the table, the owner could've offered comps, or could've been rude, etc.etc. We don't know.


This doesn't sound like a place that is very well run. Dad seems to have thought he was at Friday's. It seems like a bunch of imbeciles ran into each other at the perfect time.


And fwiw, at any restaurant that is worth its salt, the host/hostess is absolutely one of the most important people in the restaurant, right up alongside the chef.

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All of this seems fair and correct.