This Saturday night a friend of mine was turning 30 and one of our group of friends made reservations for 12 at a new Sushi restaurant in Raleigh called Sono.
 
I had not been there before - but in the email that let everyone one know where and when to meet we were told that everyone had to be there before they could seat us all. I understand this policy (sort of). When we arrived there was one couple missing and thus there were ten of us at the small bar waiting. We received a call from the missing couple saying that they were having trouble parking but they were on their way.
 
While we were waiting I talked to my friend who had made there reservations and said we should be asked to be seated since we are taking up room at this small bar (which was and also badly managed since only about 4 of us got served a drink) and blocking the way for people who were being seated since the bar was between the door and the dinning area. My friend said that when she made the reservations she was asked to give her credit card number and that she would be charged $20 for every person who did not show up. This seemed like a contradiction.
 
So I went up to the front of house and asked that we be seated - I explained that 10 out of the 12 were there and that the other couple where on their way. The bored response I received was "this is not our policy" - you must have the total number of people to be present before we could be seated.I pointed out that we were talking up valuable bar real estate and blocking the way for the rest of the customers and it would make more sense to have up seated out the empty table that was set up for us. Again the same bored response. I then suggested that they follow their other policy which was to charge my credit card $40 if the couple did not show up, I was willing to risk it. They said they could not do that either. I asked them if that made sense - I was hoping they would answer that it was not their policy. But instead I was told that again I would have to wait for all members of our party to show up etc etc... There is really nothing to say after that and so I went back to our party, the couple arrived and eventually we were seated.
 
My wife wrote on their feedback ticket this issue - but I just found the issue funny and annoying - especially in this economy and especially if you are a restaurant - when you are new you are busy but 4 months down the road it will only be repeat business that keeps these places open and I will not visit there again.

Recent laboratory tests found so much mercury in tuna sushi from 20 Manhattan stores and restaurants that at most of them, a regular diet of six pieces a week would exceed the levels considered acceptable by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Sushi from 5 of the 20 places had mercury levels so high that the Food and Drug Administration could take legal action to remove the fish from the market. The sushi was bought by The New York Times in October.

"No one should eat a meal of tuna with mercury levels like those found in the restaurant samples more than about once every three weeks," said Dr. Michael Gochfeld, professor of environmental and occupational medicine at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Piscataway, N.J.

Dr. Gochfeld analyzed the sushi for The Times with Dr. Joanna Burger, professor of life sciences at Rutgers University. He is a former chairman of the New Jersey Mercury Task Force and also treats patients with mercury poisoning.

In general, tuna sushi from food stores was much lower in mercury. These findings reinforce results in other studies showing that more expensive tuna usually contains more mercury because it is more likely to come from a larger species, which accumulates mercury from the fish it eats. Mercury enters the environment as an industrial pollutant.

In the Times survey, 10 of the 13 restaurants said at least one of the two tuna samples bought was bluefin. (It is hard for anyone but experts to tell whether a piece of tuna sushi is bluefin by looking at it.)

By contrast, other species, like yellowfin and albacore, generally have much less mercury. Several of the stores in the Times sample said the tuna in their sushi was yellowfin.

"It is very likely bluefin will be included in next year's testing," Dr. Bolger of the F.D.A. said. "A couple of months ago F.D.A. became aware of bluefin tuna as a species Americans are eating."

High Mercury Levels Are Found in Tuna Sushi [NYT]
(Photo:Tony Cenicola/The New York Times)