It’s Not Just a Chair
My husband and I talk a lot about what I should write about here in regards to the restaurants. Even after being together for 17 years, it’s still a foreign world to him. He’s never worked in a restaurant and has exceptional patience with me. He understands so much more than he did. Like, when I say I’ll be home by 9 PM it really means 11 PM (or later). Or, that I may not need to work a full weekend really means he knows I am going to work. He knows that it has to get done and I’m part of a small team that makes it happen.
My career is second nature. How I operate & move through the world of restaurants comes to me as easily as breathing. It’s weird, I know, and it has become so much a part of me. But, it’s hard to write about because it’s to familiar to me. I forget that most people haven’t worked in a restaurant or events. It’s “normal” to me so how can it be interesting to someone else? But I guess it is! How I work now is obviously different from twenty years ago. I’ve learned a lot about myself, the types of people who choose this life, and a hell of a lot about the public. There’s certainly a lot of interesting people out there!
In the year and a half or so leading up to the Pandemic I was focusing less on event planning and more on higher-level strategy, marketing, and as ever working closely with Chef. Of course, COVID changed all that and I’m planning full-time right now. We are in the midst of wedding season and it’s been one we will be telling stories about for a long time.
This brings me to yesterday. So much of my job is how people perceive the information they are being given. But, the number one thing I have to do is make people happy. They need to feel heard and cared for while I’m working with them. I excel at building relationships & earning trust quickly. It’s what makes me an exceptional salesperson; I’m a closer. Above and beyond are not just words; it’s a mantra, it’s what I do because that is what hospitality is. I do a hell of a lot of problem-solving all day every day. We’re out of a certain wine because the container is stuck overseas, the right fish didn’t come in, the asparagus field froze yesterday so no more asparagus, someone called out, the client added twenty people. Anything you can think of has happened. Anything, seriously, ask me. It’s my job to spin everything into a positive. Often, I don’t tell a client something because in three hours we will have a solution and I didn’t need to cause them undue stress in the meantime. Like I always say to my staff, it’s not surgery, we are just serving people food & drinks. Every problem has a solution.
Yesterday, we had a very large rehearsal dinner (not a wedding!). It was dinner first and then the couple had an additional 80 guests arriving for desserts, more snackies, and lots of drinking. This is normally a walk in the park for us except they wanted a plated dinner, which we rarely do, and did not give us much wiggle room in terms of time to reset the room. But, it’s our job to figure it out.
As I was looking for parking I get a call that I need to come to deal with the tables & chairs for the event tonight. It’s about 10:30 AM at this point. I find the rental delivery driver sitting in his truck in the middle of the street (the wrong street). Of course, he only speaks Spanish, no English. I have to explain to him (in my broken Spanish) where to park his truck, walk him down to the elevator, only for him to tell me the tables won’t fit. Meanwhile, the Mother of the Groom (MOG, the host of the dinner) is upset because she doesn’t like the chairs we have in-house and insists on different ones before her event starts at 5 PM. I also have the event planner (that the couple hired) calling/texting me that the MOG is mad and she forgot to rent chairs and what can we do? This, technically, is not my issue but this guest is now in my care so we are going to find a solution. A lot of people would have placed the blame on the planner, put their hands in the air, and said there’s nothing I can do because I was not responsible for renting the chairs. That’s not how I operate. I could never, ever do that to someone.
My job is to PROBLEM SOLVE and let me tell you, I LIVE FOR THIS! I am the calm in the storm. No one ever knows I’m mentally working overtime to figure everything out. All the guests see is my smiling face and easy demeanor.
I tell the driver to meet me with a table at the elevator where he promptly tells me it won’t fit. I have to explain to him, multiple times, that it will but if it doesn’t he will have to carry these heavy ass farm tables up five flights of stairs. Also, I know these tables fit because they’ve been in our space before. And like magic, he tries it out and they fit but only the tabletop. The tables have to be built inside the event space because they’re so big. This process took almost three hours to complete. We gave the delivery drivers lots of Mexi-Coke to keep them happy and offered some snacks too.
In between the site-tours I have booked myself for potential clients I meet with the MOG. Along with my event lead we discuss chairs for the her event. We walk across the street to one of our other restaurants where we have these lovely Parisian rattan chairs (see above photo) that I know would be perfect with the farm tables & the chosen decor of daisies, muslin runners, green glassware, and white votives. MOG loves this idea! I’m now 2-0, except the restaurant only has 37 chairs and we need 53. We have a Scottish pub at the other end of the street and they had 17 of these same chairs and we found 10 in our storage. I swap 17 of our chairs so he can use them for the evening and we arrange to schlep the other 37 chairs, six at a time, after they close at 4 PM (event start is 5), and bring up our 10 so we can choose the best ones to use at the tables. Meanwhile, the outside Terrace is being power-washed, skylights are getting cleaned, and the plants are being watered because MOG didn’t like those either even though it was being planned for later in the day. She was watching so we made it happen.
It was my job to ensure she felt like she was being heard and taken care of. That no matter what, her event was going to be beautiful, the food would taste good, the cocktails would be plentiful, and she could relax & enjoy herself. She offered to help move chairs & buy us lunch, which while a lovely gesture, I would never accept.
By 4:30 PM our team had done everything we needed to do to be ready for our event. But, the planner could not figure out her seating chart. With guest arrival imminent I had to help. I had printed my copy on a legal-sized paper because flipping one piece over and over would confuse everyone. So, person by person we walked the entire setup to make sure each guest was placed exactly where they needed to be. I called the name, their entree, and touched the back of the chair so she could rearrange or replace name cards. We got it done.
The event was a lot of work; there were a lot of moving parts. It was a lot for the front and back of the house staff. The dumbwaiter stopped working 3/4 of the way through dinner service (this is how we get food up from the restaurant to the rooftop) but it got fixed. My client was none the wiser. The couple, the MOG, and all the guests had an amazing time. The MOG was so pleased with everything we heard her recount the saga of the chairs to several guests throughout the evening. She beamed watching her kids and basking in the excitement of her son’s wedding. She felt heard, cared for, and relaxed, and we made sure she had a full glass of wine all evening.
I finally cracked open my laptop at 10 PM to start working on my inbox, had a giant glass of rose, and ate my lunch. But don’t worry, I had to get sandos for the team at 4 PM because we all needed to eat our feelings a little bit.
I left around 11 & my husband kept me company on the drive home recounting the day with the kids. I woke up promptly at 3 AM worrying about all those chairs getting back to their respective homes today. And, sure enough at 8:30 AM I get a text that we need to get 11 chairs back across the street. It got done.
Let’s do it again today.