Reservations

The day arrived when I started taking reservations for the restaurant, up until then it had been first come, first served.  Sometimes a group would leave one person to save their place in line and head to the Frangi for cocktails, others  simply stood there and waited, often for a couple of hours!  Charter captains were unhappy with this arrangement, Bequia was a port where they could send their passengers ashore to dine, giving the crew a much-needed break.  They needed to know that their charter guests were assured of a table at a certain time, and lining up for God knew how long was not good enough.  This was understandable, and I began to take bookings for the dining room.

Each morning I drew a floor plan on a piece of paper which was then taped inside the reservations book, drawing a line through the middle of each table to separate the sittings. Diners had the option of dining early or later in the evening, and the tables were re-booked according to the size of the groups dining earlier. A table for two usually took one and a half hours to eat, while a table of eight would likely take two and a half hours. The larger the group the more the chatter, and the more they chatted the longer it took to get an order.  I wanted to make sure our customers enjoyed their evening but I also wanted to make sure they were out before the second sitting.

Mac’s was always incredibly busy and the first sitting was usually fully booked a day in advance. The one thing that threw the reservations out of whack was late arrivals for the first sitting because it caused confusion for the later one. I always stressed the need to be on time for the early sitting, explaining that the tables were re-booked. Once a reservation was twenty minutes late I would give the table away to grateful walk-ins on the condition that they be out by a certain time. It seemed every time I gave a table away those who had reserved it showed up minutes later, and I would have to tell very annoyed people that I had assumed they were not coming.  I hated having to do that but I hated tables sitting empty even more!

A British couple arrived one night during the rush of the early sitting. They had not made a reservation, and according to the Englishman they never WOULD. He said, “that’s ridiculous, one does not make reservations for a pizza!”  I warned him that we were usually fully booked each night and that it would be wise to make a reservation if he wanted to dine at Mac’s.  “Dine?” he snorted, “one does not DINE on pizza!”.  With those words he stomped away, with an apologetic-looking wife scurrying after him.  That couple showed up every single night for the two weeks they were on Bequia, and each night it was the same story. I couldn’t help it, by the second week I would start to laugh when I saw them coming up the steps, and that made the Englishman even more annoyed.  He never DID make a reservation and therefore never got to “dine” at Mac’s Pizzeria.

One particular day the lunch hour seemed to be never-ending, the tables kept filling before the staff had a chance to clear them and chaos reigned in the kitchen.  A man wearing a bandana and no shirt stuck his head over the swinging doors and said he wanted to make a reservation for eight people.  Uninvited, he came through the kitchen door, causing my staff to suck their teeth due to his nakedness.  The man was burly, with a very hairy chest and a thick Italian accent.

Glancing at the floor plan I saw that the first sitting was already full, and that the tables were large ones. I informed the man that I would not be able to take eight people until 9:15, to which he replied, “We will come at 7:30”. Showing him the floor plan I said, “no, we won’t be able to seat you until 9:15”. We went through 8:00, 8:30 and 9:00 in the same way until finally, red in the face, he said, “Ok! Ok! We come at 9:15!”  Whew, finally!  Pen poised over the reservations sheet I said, “name?” He replied (looking at me expectantly), “Armani. GEORGIO Armani”. I looked at him, looked at the reservations book and said, “sorry, it’s still 9:15!