David learns yet another lesson from his wife

(Also known as 'The redemption of a restaurant')

I apologize for being a bad journaler.  I promised that I would provide the end of the #23 story from my birthday list either yesterday or today, and here it is today... and still nothing!

The post is actually written and ready to go, but I have some pictures that I forgot to ask my lovely wife (A.K.A. the keeper of all the cool graphic designer electronic toys) to scan for me. 

I mean, who doesn't love pictures with a story, right?

Also, instead of reminding Zahava to scan the pictures for me yesterday I spent the day bad-assing (I'm pretty sure there really is such a word, although my spell checker is giving me the squiggly line of scorn), around the beautiful blue Mediterranean with the Israel Navy on one of their newest (and fastest) vessels.  Sometimes I have to pinch myself at how unbelievably cool my job is!

So, instead of the illusive conclusion to #23, I will share a restaurant experience (two actually) for your dining and dancing pleasure.  Seriously, who doesn't have ten great restaurant stories, right?  They are almost as common as blind date stories! ;-)

A few months ago when my parents were visiting we all went out for a nice dinner in Jerusalem.  Despite dire warnings from our friend Noa, we went to an upscale eatery called Limonim.  It is located in Jerusalem's historic Khan theater complex, a 14th century structure which had originally been used as an inn for visiting pilgrims.  With such an ancient reputation for hospitality how could we go wrong?

We made a 7:00 reservation, and uncharacteristically arrived exactly on time.

When we walked into the restaurant, the place was only about half full and we were quickly seated at a nearby table. 

That was the last quick thing that happened.

We watched in growing frustration as people continued to arrive... be seated... be served food... all while we had yet to be asked for our orders. 

After several futile efforts to get our waitress's attention I finally got up and intercepted her as she was bringing a first course to a couple that had arrived 10 minutes after us.

I told her that we would like to order and that we would at least like to have a pitcher of water while we waited.  She nodded and set off for points unknown.

After another 10 minutes with no more progress towards ordering, I got up and again blocked her progress as she tried to sneak more food past our table.  I said, "This is really not nice!  We have been here for over 20 minutes... If you don't want to take our order we will have to go somewhere else."

Customer service is a relatively recent innovation here in the holy land, and in this case she reverted to instinct rather than training.  Rather than apologize and say something like, "I'm sorry, it's very busy tonight (it wasn't)", or "I'll be right with you, I had no idea you had been waiting so long!" (she did), she fixed me with an icy stare and said, "Well, I'm here now!"

We ordered salads, soups, main course and a bottle of wine... and before she went away I reminded her again that we would really appreciate a pitcher of water since my parents were parched from the dry Jerusalem air.

She turned on her heel and didn't come within 20 feet of our table for another 10 or 15 minutes.  No water.  No bread.  Bupkes!

I finally walked over to a man who seemed to be the Maitre d' /manager and explained what was going on.  I pointed out our 7:00 reservation in his book and mentioned that it was now almost 7:40 and we had not had so much as a drink of water... and that we were leaving. 

The truth is that we were all starving by this point, but on principal I didn't want to give them my hard-earned money.  Besides, it really is foolhardy to get into a pissing match with someone who is going to have unfettered access to your food before you eat it.  No, we were leaving.

In any normal restaurant in the world the manager would try to persuade the guest to stay... offer an apology and a complimentary bottle of wine... something!  The gentleman just shrugged and said 'good night' (and not in a nice way).

Luckily we ended up having a really nice dinner at a nearby restaurant after only a short wait for a table to open up.

The next morning I woke up and wrote a scathing account of our experience at Limonim and scheduled it to publish on both treppenwitz and Isreality at noon.  I also intended to submit a review to eLuna (a great resource for dining in Israel).

One of the reasons I don't publish any of my journal entries right after writing them is that a few hours often allows me to cool down... not to mention that it gives my wife's well-developed 'uh-oh' meter a chance to kick in and for her to talk me down from whatever tree I've climbed into.

In this case Zahava gently suggested that I not publish the reviews, and talked me into calling Limonim's owner to tell him about our experience.

When I spoke with the owner he was genuinely shocked at what I told him (I have a finely tuned BS detector), and spent several minutes asking detailed questions about what had happened (all the while making those little clucking/grunting sounds we all make while writing stuff down).  He then apologized profusely and asked that I take his personal cell phone number and to please call him directly if we would like to give him an opportunity to make up for our shabby treatment. 

I was mollified enough by the owner's apology that I decided to delete the hatchet jobs I had put on hold at Zahava's request.  However, I really didn't want to go back, so I tossed the scrap of paper with his cell phone number into a desk drawer and forgot about it.

Last week Zahava wanted to take me out to dinner for my birthday and asked if I would consider trying Limonim again.  Enough time had passed that I figured, why not give them another chance? 

Remarkably enough, I was actually able to lay my hands on the owner's cell phone number... and on the way home from work I called him up.  It was immediately clear that he remembered me.  He apologized that he was not in the restaurant at the moment, but assured me that if I would call and make a reservation he would see to it that we would be well taken care of.

The difference in our dining experience was like night and day.  When we walked in we were greeted by name and escorted to a nicely situated table next to a window that overlooked the ancient courtyard of the inn.  Between our very attentive waitress's frequent visits to our table, several other waiters casually stopped by to make sure we were enjoying everything and to see if we needed anything... anything at all.

Our meal was beyond delicious and every detail of the experience from soup to dessert was perfect. When I finished my espresso (tall, of course) I was in heaven!

When the check came the total had been crossed out and replaced with a number half as big next to the words "50% discount with our apologies".  The only awkward part was that the gratuity was included in the bill and I felt terrible that a wonderful waitress was forced to take a 50% hit on her tip because of the bad service we had received from some (presumably) former employee.  We resolved this by adding back in the other half of her tip (and then some).

The reason I wanted to share this long, rambling restaurant story is that dining out is often fraught with emotional undercurrents... especially among those of us for whom dining out is a relatively rare treat.   We invest a lot of emotional energy in the anticipation and enjoyment of these occasions, and when things go badly, we can be very quick to scratch an eatery off of our 'list' and to tell our friends to black-list it as well. 

But this experience has taught me that good restaurants sometimes have bad nights (and bad waitstaff), and if you give them the chance... they will sometimes bend over backwards to try to make things right.

I'm glad (once again) that I listened to my wife.  Thanks again for the birthday dinner, honey!