Bertucci's: "Credits cards get lost when they come to our house"
Check this out: Caryn and I decided to partake in a nice little pasta dinner at the local pizza establishment, and we end up getting seated in a new waitress's section...
- She only had two tables. Okay, not unusual per se.
- She seemed frazzled about not having rolls for us immediately, i.e. "I'm so sorry. We supposed to always have rolls."
Not a big deal, really. The woman at the other table was bitching loudly about the lack of rolls on her table. It was her son's birthday, after all. * - She forgot to bring our drinks over until after our salad arrived. Okay, that woman at the other table was really annoying. I wouldn't come back to our section either, drinks or no drinks.
- She was unable to handle the touch-screen register. Okay, that's not too unusual, seeing that the waitress was middle-aged. But to share this information with us...?
- She forgot to come back to give us our check. Okay, our waitress was quite frazzled all night... not unexpected...
- She took my credit card with the bill, went out back, and ending up giving it to the woman at the other table, who walked out with it...
Uh-oh. This is nicht gut.
So, after Caryn and I spent a good amount of time wondering if the waitress was ringing up the bill, or out back having a smoke, the waitress came back to sheepishly tell us she's misplaced the credit card. I assumed another waitress had taken the bill for us, so I joked the card must have upped and walked out of the restaurant...
(...funny how my ESP works...)
The upshot is the assistant manager moseyed came across the dinner room, sat down, and went into "responsible food service manager mode". I've seen my brother (an assistant manager at a lesser establishment) do this before. It's similar to how I imagine a flight attendant would get passengers off a plane via emergency slides after the front door of plane gets stuck **:
- Greet passengers/diners formally and explain "this never happened in all your years working in the air-travel/food-service industry"
- Bring the passengers into the front cabin/back office and provide aid to resolve the issue
I.e. Bring me into the back office to call Fleet.
Where was Caryn? Well, she was at the bar enjoying free Cape Codders with top-shelf vodka. (In Caryn's words, it was "like drinking 'Earl Grey' tea".)
For security reasons ***, only one of us, me, was allowed in the back office.
Conclusion: My credit card's canceled and being reissued, Caryn and I have a $50 coupon *** for dinner for two, and the waitress most likely isn't long for a life at that Bertucci's. (According to the bartende, the waitress has had many "bad" nights.)
All which leads me to purpose a new verse for the Bertucci's jingle:
No, we've got no fresh rolls, a-holes
No, we won't bring your drinks, you finks.
Gimme your damn Visa, Meestah.
Credits cards get lost when they come to our house.
*Happy birthday, kid.
**I assume an attendant in a real emergency situation would just bolt for the slide themselves. Loose their shite over other people losing their shite, so to speak.
***If your definition of security reasons is that the room is the size of a bathroom stall and you have your wine cellar connected to it. I suppose I do look like the type of person who would stroll into a Bertucci's, and knock off an assistant manager to tab me a few bottles of 1999 Fat Bastard.
***"No Alcohol Value", the manager penned on the coupon. I suppose I do look like the type of person who would stroll into a Bertucci's, and knock off a few bottles of 1999 Fat Bastard on the assistant manager's tab.