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Some mornings I wake up and wonder why I keep my doors open in Old Town, because running a small business is as challenging an undertaking as I’ve ever attempted. Launch your own modest enterprise, and you’ll truly understand the old adage, “The faster I run, the behinder I get.” Every day brings a new twist, unanticipated curveball or sensitive customer encounter.
Here are two examples you may find entertaining.
Giving credit where credit is due: Several weeks ago on a Tuesday morning, I received a panicked call from my son, Drew, who is, in truth, the person who runs our little restaurant and wine venture on Lincoln Way. “Dad, we’ve got a huge problem with American Express.”
It seems that on the previous Friday three couples spent the evening with us and then requested that their check be split evenly over three credit cards. This can be a tricky maneuver, and I always refuse to do it myself. In this instance the charge to an American Express card failed over several attempts, and no transaction receipts were ever generated.
Drew’s panic was based on the fact that our Wells Fargo account showed a deposit of nearly $600,000 from charges over the weekend. A brief analysis revealed the bulk of the deposit was from a charge to a single American Express card. My immediate, explosive reaction (expletives deleted) was, “How could Amex accept a charge of this magnitude from a restaurant without red flags popping up every where? Why didn’t someone call?” Six hundred grand is roughly double our total charges through Amex during the course of an entire year.
It gets even worse. After Drew let me know he had already contacted our customer to let him know what happened and that his card had been credited, he dropped this bomb on me: “They charged us a service fee of more than $19,000!” And the reality is, they can just take the money from our account ... we couldn’t stop them if we tried.
Restaurant mogul Randy Paragary might be able to afford a hit of that magnitude, but I sure can’t and neither could most small businesses. Fortunately, Drew learned how to play hardball from his old man and Amex quickly backed down.
That wasn’t the end of the story, though. We not only got a $19k credit ... we got two ... for more than $38,000.
You can’t please all of the people all of the time: Auburn is the kind of town where people really enjoy going out on the weekends, which puts a ton of pressure on places like Carpe Vino because we have a seating capacity limited to just 32. We try to encourage our customers to dine out during the week—as do many of my restaurant colleagues—but it is what it is, and we often sell out the weekend by Thursday and sadly end up turning folks away.
On a Friday evening not long ago, the joint was rockin’ early. The restaurant was sold out from the get go and the bar was SRO-jammed with the after-work crowd. I remember it vividly ... people shouting above the din, everyone demanding something simultaneously: “Gimme a glass of chardonnay, Rombauer if you’ve got it.” “How about a menu, Gary?” “What kinda zins are you pouring tonight?”
While I do possess sufficient bandwidth to process numerous requests
for service, I confess I have limited tolerance for incivility and will
often take the time to counsel my guests on the basic ground rules for
enjoying access to the hospitality of the former Union Saloon. I feel
especially obligated to acquaint new patrons with the finer points.
Often, a first-timer will react like I was a parent scolding a child,
until a regular will say something like, “Don’t pay any attention to
him ... he’s from Chicago,” as if that’s enough to explain away my
stern countenance. Actually, it’s part of my schtick, and most people
get it and love it.
When it comes to dealing with truly difficult patrons, though, I don’t get very high marks.
On this same evening, a couple pushed through the crowd to the dining
room entrance. I recognized the gentleman as someone who had joined us
for dinner before, but after Drew checked for his reservation, it was
clear there was a problem. There was nothing in the book, and the
situation deteriorated rapidly from there.
It happens from time to time, and we do the best we can to accommodate
people in these situations. Drew was able to rearrange planned
seating, and told the prospective diner we could seat him in 10 minutes.
“I’m a great customer,” he said, “My reservation is for 7:00, and I
demand to be seated now ... in the front window as I requested!”
Obviously beaten, Drew approached me with, “He says you took his reservation ... he’s your problem.”
Of course I apologized profusely, to absolutely no effect. “Look,” I
said, “this is one of our busiest nights of the week. If this were
Roseville, you’d be waiting an hour even if you did have a confirmed
reservation.”
His reply: “Well this isn’t Roseville.”
“And we can both be thankful for that, can’t we?” I shot back. “We’re
doing the best we can,” I said, pivoted and walked back to the bar.
One way to temper these situations is with wine, so I poured two
glasses of a nice cab as a hopeful peace offering. My guest’s response:
“I’d prefer something white.”
As I bit my tongue and returned to the bar I froze in my tracks when I heard him say to his companion:
“They certainly are busy ... even for a Saturday night.”
The lady on his arm immediately alerted him to the fact that it was Friday night, and he about choked on his chardonnay.
I checked the book, and, indeed, my petulant guest was 24 hour early. We haven’t seen him since.
Gary Moffat is a journalist and he owns Carpe Vino in Old Town Auburn. He can be reached at
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Isn't it great fun to learn that in a service business that the the owners must adapt to the customers--not the other way around. Ole. 
