Garden Tables

Mac had made three picnic tables, and they were placed in the garden below the restaurant.  These tables would help when people had to wait for a table to open up, we could give them drinks and menus to keep them happy until the dining room was ready for them.  I was reluctant to take reservations for the picnic tables, even though people loved sitting closer to the sea.  Today there is a huge almond tree covering most of the garden, back then the tables were totally at the mercy of the weather.

On fine nights we would set the three tables and offer them to walk-in parties of four or more persons. It was a lot of extra work for the staff if they had to run up and down the steps with food and drinks, hence the four-or-more rule for the garden tables. I ALWAYS stressed to people, even on clear-looking nights, that if it rained I would have no other place to seat them and that they dined at their own risk.  They always enthusiastically agreed to take the tables regardless of the risk, happy to have obtained a table without a reservation.  On fine nights this was a win-win situation unless, of course, it rained!  Garden diners often forgot their earlier enthusiasm as well as my warnings when it rained, and would run upstairs with plates in hand looking for a table.  I soon learned to read the sky before allowing people to be served in the garden, and got pretty good at predicting rain.

One night, just before the start of the first sitting, a large group arrived without a reservation.  They had obviously had a few drinks, they were loud and boisterous as they tried to claim a table.  The tables were already booked, with reserved cards on each, but they started to move them together to suit their numbers.

I hastened from the kitchen to explain that the tables were already reserved, and that the first sitting would be arriving soon.  They looked at me incredulously, to them they were looking at an almost empty restaurant and I was telling them we were full!

One of the group spotted the tables in the garden, and asked if they were available.  I had told the staff not to set them that night because I didn’t like the looks of the sky.  I told the would-be customers that we would not be serving in the garden that night as it looked like it was going to rain, at which point the loudest of the men said, “Listen to Hitler, she says it’s going to rain!”  She must be “German!”.  I said, “excuse me?  What did you just say?”  The man said it again even louder, to the amusement of his friends.  “Just a little Hitler on a little Island, that’s what you are”.  I was so astounded by this I had no response.  He was calling me Hitler because I had no tables?  The man, encouraged by the hilarity of it all, continued along in the same insulting vein, sneering, “Nah, she must be a Communist, Communists don’t like making money, she must be a Russian Commie!”

Well, rain or no rain, there was no way this man and his friends were ever going to have a seat in my restaurant!  I drew myself up and told them I was neither German or Russian, I was a Canadian Vincentian and owner of the restaurant. I stressed that I had no tables and asked them to leave. “Canadian!”  exclaimed the man,” She’s Canadian! That explains it!”   I could hear their voices for several minutes as they made their way along the bayside, screaming out, “Hitler! Communist! Canadian!  Sheesh, where on earth had that all come from!!??

Half an hour later I was gratified when the heavens opened up.  It rained, and it rained HARD.  I hoped that the name-calling tourists were getting the soaking of their lives, and also wondered if they paused for a moment to be thankful that I hadn’t seated them in the garden??