The waiter on San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf had the bounce of a ballet dancer, the cheeky pout of a Graham Norton, and the forked tongue of a particularly disingenuous cobra.
I’d just ordered a bottle of wine at $53 for myself and a client.
It happened to be the second cheapest priced on the menu, but none the worse for that.
But American waiters work on tips, and tips are percentages of a total. The Bay City’s answer to Boy George could see someone on a business lunch where expense, he assumed, was no object.
He intended to fatten the tip by embarrassing me into picking a much more expensive wine.
He looked down his retrousse nose: “I wouldn’t recommend that one sir. Not a good choice.”
I glared at him with not entirely fake menace: “Well if you wouldn’t recommend it what the hell is it doing on the wine list?”
Bombastic bluff called he collapsed in a blubbering heap of apologies and expiations, and from that moment on did as he was told without editorial comment on my choices. He’d got the message. I was in charge, not him.
Eating out on business is like feeding with sharks. You’re fighting a battle of wills to get what you want and not get ripped off or made to look stupid.
So you’ve got to show them straight away who is boss.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been presented with an inaccurate bill, presumably on the basis that I either won’t check it, or won’t dare to appear mean or foolish in front of a client by querying it.
Bad mistake. I work hard for my money and I don’t waste it.
The nerve of these culinary con artists can be breathtaking though. A restaurant in Burgos once had the cheek to add a bottle of champagne to my bill, when we’d clearly been drinking (expensive) claret.
Give the maitre d’ his due, he certainly had cojones. When I queried it he looked me coolly in the eye like he was a matador facing off against a particularly troublesome bull who refuses to lower his neck for the sword thrust.
“Senor surely had champagne as an aperitif?”
Experience has told me the best response to breathtaking lies is silence. I met his stare unflinchingly, and he read my expression which warned: Death in the afternoon, Manuel, if you keep this up, and I don’t mean lending you my Hemingway.
At last he averted his eyes, bowed, flipped the bill like it was a cape, and said unctuously: “I shall remove the item immediately, senor.”
The scams are legendary and watching for them can get wearying. And it’s not just padded bills.
If I hear, ‘Do you have a reservation?’ once more from a po-faced man standing in front of a sea of empty tables at seven in the evening, I’ll vomit in the finger bowls.
I have a Gordon Ramsay-like f-word phrase for how I feel about eating out for business.
Fed up.
To contact Stuart White email stuartwhite383@btinternet.com
