America, We Have a Drinking Problem
America, We Have a Drinking Problem
In recent weeks, I've come across two alcohol oddities.
A friend e-mailed me to say that he tried to have a beer at Mr. Chow TriBeCa, a recently opened New York restaurant, and was thrown out because he didn't have a reservation for dinner. He wrote, "We take seats at the bar, place our order, receive our drinks. The bartender asks us for the name our table is under. I assume she wants to transfer the bar bill to the dining bill."
Well, he assumed wrong. It turns out that if you don't eat at Mr. Chow, you don't drink at Mr. Chow.
My friend says he was informed that the bar was reserved for customers awaiting tables. He pointed out somewhat grumpily that if the restaurant seated people on time, such a rule would be unnecessary.
According to his report, a hostess came over and rudely told him and his friends to finish their drinks and leave. He asked me if I could make sense of such a rule, but I cannot. I called the restaurant to ask for policy enhancement and a reservationist was only able to reiterate that it was "house policy." She had no idea why. My guess is that the Mr. Chow restaurant empire survives by convincing patrons that it is some sort of fashionable and exclusive club, and entrée into the bar is one of the benefits. (For more insights into the wacky world of Mr. Chow, see Frank Bruni's New York Times review, which ran on June 28.)
A little later I saw a story in the St. Petersburg Times about a customer who was tossed from Carlie's Lounge because of a drinking problem—he refused to consume alcohol. According to the story, Gary Maujean Jr., a designated driver, was allegedly told by the owner to drink or leave. The altercation that followed ended, according to the newspaper, with a bouncer jumping to the aid of the owner. Maujean required 18 stitches in his arm.
What these occurrences say to me is that we might want to revisit one of America's great lost traditions. It was called Prohibition.
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I posted an entry on the new Mr. Chow's in my Style Guy blog a few weeks ago. I've been going to Mr. Chow's on 57th Street for years and never had any problems there. Sometimes the bill seemed partially invented but they always seemed open to negotiation. Downtown, however, the bill seems entirely at the discretion of the servers who, as the Times noted in their review, seem to have dollar signs in their eyes. When we arrived at the Tribeca Chow's we were sent to the bar to wait for our table which was actually sitting vacant. I assume this is a policy, forcing drink sales at the bar. Clearly this is a restaurant for people who have 500 horsepower cars that go 180 miles per hour and 15,000 square foot houses where the Hamptons used to be. I have taken my custom to the Chinatown Brasserie.
glenn
Sep 5, 2006 8:17:21 PM