I often read rants against restaurants by customers.
I don't have the full facts. I don't know the owners or customers.
However, this is a topic for concern to restaurant owners and customers, both in individual incidents and in general.
Are people of all religions and none welcome in a restaurant? Is a restaurant a public place? I'd be interested in other people's comments.
Lots of restaurants and pubs have people standing around the doorway smoking, preventing would-be diners from entering easily.
When I visited or passed one restaurant it did seem that customers or onlookers were standing around outside treating the place like a bus station.
Many people think even a bus or train station should not be treated this way. (A gathering place for groups. Are they groups of homeless and penniless teenagers who stand smoking and talking before gathering in a group to go off elsewhere, presumably to gatecrash parties?)
1 What are the aims of the restaurant owners and the customers?
What the real problems? What caused the problems? What's the first spark of conflict? Is there an ongoing conflict? What's the last straw?
What could be changed?
2 What do the owners want?
To sell food and drink?
Many restaurants have this problem. They want to attract and fill the place with the small spenders in daytime and between meals. Only if the small eaters spend on drink.
They want people who have finished eating to move on. They don't want people to sit without ordering. It seems to me that the initial problem, or the ongoing problem is this.
3 The secondary problem is: The secondary aim of the restaurant is to provide a place with a theme.
Provide a place where people of any age or religion can feel at home?
Provide a place reminiscent of the culture and religion back home for expats, nostalgia and tourists?
Turn the situation around. Are Italians more welcome in Italian restaurants? Can the italian speaking waiters explain the menu's dishes to English speakers? Can the Polish speaking waiters explain Italian dishes?
It seems to me it took a long time for us to make it a legal requirement to list drinks prices. It should now be a legal requirement to list the ingredients of dishes in English.
I remember years ago a dispute between a customer (my mother) who ordered a canneloni, expecting to get a meat canneloni, and getting oen filled with spinach (Florentino). A restaurant owner cannot expect every customer to know every dish on the menu.
I think as a minimum, we should do as the French, and make it a legal requirement to have a set meal including a drink (soft or alcoholic) and coffee and tax and service for a set price so the customer will know what it will cost and that he or she has enough cash or credit to pay. It would make entertaining easier too.
If seats must be vacated by a certain time, a sign should say so, and a customer should be given a five minute warning.
Now lets look at another source of dispute. Racism.
Are Jews welcome in Arab restaurants? Are Arabs welcome in Jewish restaurants?
How does the restaurant owner know the customer is Jewish? Arab? Muslim? By dress, language, topic of discussion?
How can the restaurant owners make friends with the customers?
Have the customers make friends with the owners.
3 At one restaurant the premises provide a mixture of the outdoor shish smoking lounge at the front (attracting youngsters who want to smoke and drink and snack) and the more expensive restaurant at the back (attracting the older and affluent couples and groups who want to eat a three course meal or youngsters who want celebrate a birthday.
The result is that the front area attracts onlookers and passers by and groups, who block the entrance to the diners.
If the owners, as is the case with most businesses, want to make money from selling food and drink (with the lounge at the front attracting attention), then customers who want to sit and chat to each other without ordering food and drink will not be popular with the staff.
Do we know anything about the owners when customers write rude comments? Very little.
Do we know anything about the customer? Very little.
In one complaint or rant which I read, the customer seems to have had a smoke without ordering any food or drink.
The customer, on that internet site, had not praised or patronised any other food or drink place.
2 What could restaurant owners do, there or elsewhere? Any restaurant needs to keep on good terms with all local communities.
Some would say: Be careful not to alienate youngsters whose parents or grandparents may be dining inside. Make it clear what the seating policy is. Has a restaurant become very popular and attracted more than they can seat?
Maybe if both sides tried to apologise and think of helping the other, life would be better for everybody.
Others would say, don't let one set of customers alienate others.
But I've seen Arab/ Muslim and Jewish restaurant and shop owners who are both in sales get on very well. The Jew goes into the Muslim's shop or restaurant and knows him by name, greets him, expresses interest. 'How are you Mohammed. How's business? Wonderful place you have. Wish you every success. Is it okay if I have a drink without ordering any food today? Mustn't get in the way of your regular customers. ... Please go ahead, Madam... Mohammed, you are the best. Give me your card. I have a cousin / neighbour who could help you ...'
Then Mohammed is giving 'Moishe' free drinks and leftovers. Suddenly you find they are actually in business, bosom friends, renting each other's property, sharing this and that, making profits together.
In one customer complain I read it sounds as if the customer went back 'after everything calmed down' - to complain - and did not get a good reception.
What if you heard this story in court, as a Magistrate, a case of assault? One has to hear both sides of the story.
Clearly one has to avoid racist remarks, whatever the provocation, because they are likely to alienate everybody.
Should a restaurant be invited to reply?
But would that prevent people from complaining and turn sites into slanging matches?
Monday, June 1, 2009
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Retrospect
I haven't kept up with the cancer diary daily. I've been too busy. But here are some observations from experiences over the past few months.
On a bank holiday T went for a blood test. The blood test department was closed.
So he went to A & E. He was told he would have to wait two hours.
In the blood test department he has priority. I don't know why cancer patients get priority. Either because getting the results is critical. And therefore they are rushed through to get the results. Or because otherwise they might get fed up and miss the essential appointment? Or because people needing a one-off appointment can wait once or twice, as the cancer patients do on their first couple of visits, but if you are have regular tests you can't wait that long each time, and they have all your records so it's easy to rush you through?
However, the nurse in A & E told him not to wait in A & E, because people in A & E have all sorts of infections he should not be exposed to. (Maybe that's why cancer patients are rushed through in the blood test department, so they don't sit for two hours in a confined area when because their immune system is down they must not be in crowded places.) So he went the next day to the blood clinic. 'Delivering blood,' he quipped.
Cervical Cancer
This year, 2009, we have all, in the UK anyway, heard about the death of celebrity Jade Goody. She had cervical cancer. The good news is that her death has increased awareness of the problem and in my local area, Bushey, a newspaper reported that there was an increase in the number of requests for cervical smears.
What are the ways of dealing with cervical cancer? Obviously, start with education. Then:
1 Be a nun. Nun's don't get it. Or it least not at the same rate as the rest of the female population. In the olden day's this would have been a good choice. The first choice. Abstinence from sex. Nowadays other options are available and preferred.
2 Vaccination. I spoke to a gynaecologist about this. The government (NHS) is planning to start vaccination on 14-year-olds. Girls before they reach the age of consent, and before they become sexually active. How long will the vaccination be effective? A year, five years, ten years, a lifetime? We don't yet know because we don't have a large population who have been vaccinated who have lived long enough after the vaccination for us to get the results.
3 Cervical smears. This is both before and after treatment, but mainly after. Before in the sense that you might spot something which would later develop into cancer. (And a few false positives or just the thought of having the test might scare people into seeing that they and their children get vaccinated.) Mostly after, by identifying cancer in the early stages you treat it before it spreads all over the body and is untreatable.
Restaurant Cleanliness
I love sugar lumps served with coffee in restaurants, but I notice that when I try to take one it's hard not to get your fingers on the adjoining lumps. Whatever happened to sugar tongs?
I'm sure in five-star hotels at tea-time they have elegant sugar tongs. But restaurants don't. They should put a spoon in the sugar bowl.
Why does it matter? With a member of the family having cancer treatment, and their immune system down, we are all washing our hands in gel when we are in our homes or out with the person having cancer treatment. And now even when I'm not with them, I'm thinking about the dangers.
It's a matter of life and death. Am I exaggerating? No.
This week, a member of my family logged on to Channel News Asia. If you want news from Singapore you could log onto Channel News Asia or The Straits Times. The big story was the death of a banker who had leukaemia. He was on cycle two of the six or eight cycles of treatment and got the dreaded high temperature. This signals that the body has an infection it can't fight. The immune system is down because of the treatment.
You are told to get to hospital within an hour. No messing about at A & E. The cancer ward admits you straight away. If you are living at home or away on business you must be within an hour of the nearest hospital with a cancer centre. (You carry your pills and medical your records with you.)
The man who died was only in his forties. He was a banker. All his money could not save him.
So I look very carefully at restaurant hygiene.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Health and Healthy Conversation
Health
Health is now a major issue. T does not impose his rules on anybody outside the house. He says, ‘It’s their life’. But when sharing a table at a restaurant, his rules take priority.
I must not catch anything in case I give it to him. So my health has to stay tip top. Must get to sleep by midnight. Take a brisk walk every day before it gets dark. To get the vitamin D from sunlight. Wear walking shoes in the morning because I shall be walking later.Conversation
Strangely having cancer has become not an obstacle but a link in conversation. Everybody wants to tell you about somebody they know who had it. The window cleaner - both his late parents and his in law.
I am also getting daily practice at positive thinking in conversation. Not just being upbeat, but sounding cheeful.
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