Want That Hot Restaurant Reservation? Ask With A European Accent
The parasitic Grocery Shrink Ray has infected restaurants, shrinking portions and spurring substitutions as restaurateurs struggle to pry revenue from cash-strapped customers. Desperate to fill seats by any means, restaurants are borrowing from the airlines and are starting to overbook reservations for peak times. They're also giving preference to the new big spenders: Europeans.
Many restaurants are trying to sate diners and give them a sense of plenty for the lowest price possible.
“You have to be smart as a restaurateur and a chef and say, what’s the most value I can put on this plate so it looks like a lot of food and still appears to be a value and doesn’t anger anyone?” Ms. Taras Wallach of Little Giant said.
“I serve a lot of grits,” she added.
And many restaurants are trying harder than ever not to let any seats go to waste. Ms. Arpaia said that at Mia Dona she is accepting more reservations between 7 and 9 p.m. rather than steering diners toward early and late times that they might reject. Even if this means lengthening diners’ waits for reserved tables, she, like other restaurateurs, wants to make sure that no-shows don’t cost the restaurant money.
“I’d rather have people wait at the bar and buy them a free drink than not get them in the door,” she said, adding that she knows of other restaurants acting in a similar, extra-cautious fashion.
“You should see, when [the Europeans] come in the door, the shopping bags they hand off to the coat check,” said Graceanne Jordan, the general manager at the Modern, which is part of the Union Square group and is near the shopping corridors of Madison and Fifth Avenues.
“I mean, they’re just spending. It’s Monopoly money to them.”
So if you want that prime-time reservation, break out your best cash-happy faux-Euro accent and ask: "Sir? SIR! Ver eez my täbel, monsieur?"
As Belts Tighten, Lobsters Shrink and Bar Menus Grow [The New York Times]
(Photo: Sherry's Rose Cottage)
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Comments:
it's an allusion to seafood.
I wonder how the servers feel about giving preference to Europeans. Many are lousy tippers out of habit. That's not meant to say that they're cheapskates, but where they live, restaurant staff are already paid decent wages and typical tipping custom is just to round off the bill, nowhere near 15-20%.
i've been enjoying the input of the cat contributers in recent articles.
as for shrinking food portions at restaurants -- it sucks to not get the expected "money's worth" people in the u.s. have grown accustomed to, but i welcome it. the portions we're used to eating here are really ridiculous.
Europeans generally don't tip for crap, though. Just throwing that out there. ;)
Yeah, but in my neck of the woods, they would just make you feel uncomfortable and act like we can't understand your accent like we do to all of the foreign people.
But where I live it's also cool to put "REDNECK" on the top of your windshield so...
Considering the dollar is still crap compared to the Euro, its no surprise NYC and other area's have been experiencing a Euro invasion.
I don't think I want to go to the restaurant where portion size is the signifier of value.
Great! I'll try out my new yobbish, chavvy manchester accent! That'd work... innit?
@forgottenpassword: Heh! I was thinking about having my father-in-law make our restaurant reservations from now on, but somehow I doubt they'd be impressed by a Scouser :)
Portion size in the U.S. is ridiculous. I would happily pay the same for my meal, or even 20% more, to have multiple courses that were smaller. Nearly every "French", "Spanish", and "Italian" restaurant in the United States is a joke. First, each "course" comes out in a size that is a complete meal in and of itself, second each "course" has the price of a full meal. Then, if they are smaller, they still maintain the same price or only drop it a little bit.
In Europe, for $20USD, I can buy a four course meal, including dessert. If I wanted four courses here, I would need a second stomach and $80.
I welcome smaller meal sizes and hope for smaller portion sizes. And I really wish less U.S. restaurants would be so snooty about sharing meals, if they are going to give me enough food to eat for three meals rather than one.
"Yes. I'm Abe Frohman. Party of three for 12:00... That's right, I'm Abe Froman... Are you suggesting that I'm not who I say I am?"
Western or Eastern European accent?
Europeans? I thought they weren't used to our custom of tipping servers.
@maztec: word! They act like "oh I didn't know you were poor" when asking for a second plate but when me and my fiance's wieght combined doesn't even make 300lbs, and your serving me more food than can easily sit in front of me, what do you expect? And then you think I want dessert? Like huh? And no I don't want to take the leftovers to my house to throw them away for you. But seriously, I'm with the whole "appetizers are as large or larger and same price or $2 less than the main course" crowd.
@maztec: Which country are YOU eating in? We went to England in May and were shocked at the cost of restaurant meals.
UK tipping is usually of the order of 10% but I used to have friends that "didn't believe in tipping".
It took me a while to adjust to tipping when I moved over here and I am particularly irked by what I call "tipping creep", no not everyone somehow deserves to be tipped for no reason.
Yeah, Europe food is expensive as hell. I had to put everything on my company card last time, because the GOA permitted per diems would have resulted in my losing a lot of personal money!
I do love European (and Mexican, really) style dining, and deplore places at home that (a) force me to make a reservation; (b) rush me; (c) bring the check before asking; (d) crowd me in. Really, eating a meal in and of itself isn't the point -- I've got food at home. The idea is to get out, relax, enjoy each others company, and while we're at it, eat something that I want to try making at home, or something I wouldn't bother trying to make. I would gladly, gladly pay a premium to go to those types of place.
This advice comes a bit too late. The dollar is strengthening again and I'm willing to bet the slew of Europeans coming over to spend their Euros will slow over the next few weeks.
Yeah, last time I went to Scotland, the Marriott breakfast buffet was four times the price it would have been back home at an equivalent business-class Marriott in Houston. I felt like I was eating pure distilled company profit.
Euros were roughly 1-to-2 for dollars while I was there. When I went shopping and looked at the prices, the prices looked surprisingly familiar... except that instead of a $ in front of them, they had a €. Even the gas prices were the same, numerically, once you ignored the fact that the price was in euros and the quantity was per liter.
Maybe people are going to the wrong places in Europe (i.e. touristplaces) because when I eat out there, it's cheap...
But really, I don't need to deal with anymore faux-Europeans or faux-Brits so please stop with such silly advice ;_;
@emington: I don't know ... we were in the Wirral in England, which is hardly a tourist hotbed, and the food was still pretty frickin' expensive. I can see paying an arm and a leg in London, but we were pretty off the beaten path.
I CAN HAZ GREY POOP ONZ?
First, you can never go too far, and second, if I am going to get busted, it's not going to be by a guy like THAT!
It's interesting that restaurants seem to want to accept reservations more from Europeans. Is the euro and the dollar separated that much?
Cheers!
@snoop-blog: The servers are looking at you like because, by splitting one entree, you're cutting their expected tip in half. Of course it's not your fault, but they're just trying to make a living & they're not the ones deciding the serving sizes.
Not to mention the fact that a significant portion of those who do split a single entree also seem to think that 8-10% is a generous tip. Those frickin' frackin' people take up a table that could have earned the person $5-8 bucks easy, then leave $1.50? Not a recipe for good service the next time that couple comes in!
@emington: I think you're right. When I was in Paris not too long ago, restaurants near the tourist attractions were high-priced, but significantly cheaper near where we were staying (a residential neighborhood a few Metro stops from the touristy areas), and just as varied and good.
Bonjooooouuuurrrrr, ya cheese-eatin' surrender monkeys!
European accent??
In some neighborhoods an European accent is going to get you mugged or worse. Yea, just go ahead and speak like a Frenchie and see what it gets ya.
Then there are the parts of Brooklyn where an European accent is going to get the server speaking in your non-native tongue.
What in the name of all things holy is a European accent? You mean an accent from a country in Europe?
And no, 'Europeans' don't tip for crap (we're all the same, didn't you know?) because a) it's law that waiters are paid at least minimum wage, and no-one else in a minimum wage job gets tipped; and most importantly b) we don't tip for crap service.
People say England is expensive because people barely ever go outside of London, by far the most expensive place in the country. A one bedroom flat there costs as much as a huge house in some places.
The Dollar is so weak it's actually cheaper for us to FLY there and buy our stuff there, depending on how much we buy. Big department stores in New York even offer discounts to anyone who isn't from America.
by the way european accent means not american. I guess youd have had to live abroad a while to understand what that means. but a good idea is james bond films (the really old ones) and other great films like Snatch and Trainspotting, Rob Roy, etcetera.
@maztec:
Yeah, at this point, I think the US ought to switch over to the system used in most Chinese (as in IN China) restaurants and just expect that 2 or 3 entrees are ordered from which everyone shares.
@Onouris:
"What in the name of all things holy is a European accent? You mean an accent from a country in Europe?"
What else would it mean?
Hey, there's more than one American accent, too. Hell, there's more than one New York accent.
@Overheal: A "European" accent means "not American?" Last I checked, there were non-English speakers in both North and South America. There also exist people in places other than Europe and "America". Duh.
@Onouris: So minimum wage (which, for a tipped employee is $2.13/hour) is supposed to pay someone's bills?
@stoppie: SOME Europeans are lousy tippers. Please don't assume all of us are unaware how the server's wage system works.
@Sanveann: Depending on how strong his accent is they might not even understand him - they had enough trouble decipering my Yorkshire accent when I was in Oklahoma.
Well done to the Americans here showing how prejudiced and narrowminded you can be. You're saying Europeans 'are crap tippers'? You're being stereotypical of an entire CONTINENT? You realise you're generalising about more than 40 countries and over half a billion people here, right? Do you realise the cultural differences between most of these countries? Just because we come under one name due to politics and semantics doesn't mean we're all the same.
@shufflemoomin: Hit a nerve, did we? Do you, yourself, make an effort to tip adequately, or have you been the target of a servers' frustration lately?
OK, seriously... servers always complain about tips, just like every other working stiff complains about their pay. There is never going to be a high enough tip percentage to satisfy all of them. Period. A decade ago, the standard tip was 15 percent. Now it's 20 percent, and they're angling to make it 25 percent. There's never going to be a point at which they quit complaining about "crap tippers." That's just the way the world works.
Grow some skin and stop nominating yourself "defender of Europe".
@Preppy6917: It does for EVERYONE ELSE who is on a Minimum Wage job. Why is it any different for them?
The minimum wage here applies to all jobs, as far as I'm aware. It definitely applies to waiting staff. Whether other countries let businesses get away with ridiculous pay is their business. But they can always look for another job that is on the real minimum wage.
@speedwell: Why don't you look outside your own country once in a while. It's comparable to us saying people from the USA are exactly the same as those from South America, multiplied by about 20.
It's like Emeril says: "Order grits, and I'll charge you a dollar. Order polenta and I'll charge you ten."
@Onouris:
Minimum wage for wait staff is a scam. Employers are only required to pay around half of minimum wage as base pay. If total tips plus total pay across a week doesn't make minimum wage, employers are supposed to make up the difference.
The catch is that wait staff typically do not report most of their tips, in order to avoid taxes. Employers don't particularly want to crack down on this practice, as it's essentially free pay for employees.
Employees don't want to call out employers when the wages don't stack up to minimum wage, as then they could potentially run into trouble when they fail to report their larger incomes on the weekends.
Seeing as everyone involved has a motive in lying to the government and not catching the other party cheating, it should be no surprise that employees often do not make the "minimum wage" on a particular shift.
Wait staff depend on tips because it is most profitable for them to do so.
Good to know. I find the German accent is easiest to fake, plus their govt-mandated 30 days of vacation makes it plausible for them to be all the way over here in the west.
@hapless: That just makes the whole thing worse. They moan and bitch incessantly about not getting minimum wage, but at the same time they THEMSELVES ensure they don't get it by not declaring everything, all to avoid tax?
I am boggled by the picture associated with this story.
Though, it is a cute picture.