Bruce Feiler details his experience as the maître d’ at Union Square Cafe in a 2002 article for Gourmet Magazine.
The restaurant has a number of procedures designed to bring small pleasures. Those going to the theater get a card under their salt shaker to ensure speedier service. If it’s raining, they’ll give guests a free umbrella to take home. If guests are having difficulty deciding between two desserts, the server will often deliver their choice-and the other at no charge. “You are working for a company that is looking long-term at those kinds of decisions,” Meyer tells recruits. “Not ‘Oh my God, we gave away eight desserts.’” This system is even more striking when things go wrong. When a child dropped a Sprite in the bar, the entire family got new drinks. Meyer calls this “writing a great last chapter.”
Gourmet Magazine had an article, from 2000, exploring how far a $20 could get you with high-end restaurants sans a reservation.
There were 50 people lingering in the foyer of Sparks Steak House, a bastion of male power, when I entered at 8:15 with a male friend. We were told it would be 9:45 before we could be seated. I asked to be put on the list.
Given the size of the crowd and the length of the wait, I decided to reach for my right pocket. I waited until the man behind the podium was alone (Rule No. 6) and rested my left hand lightly on his back. Suddenly, I was Fred Astaire and he was Ginger Rogers. He knew exactly what to do. He pivoted toward me and turned his right hand from face down to face up, giving me a target. I slipped the bill into his hand and said again, “This is a really important night for me.”
He disappeared briefly, then 45 seconds later, he reappeared at my elbow. “Right this way,” he announced, and led us to a table. I had jumped a 50-person line and saved myself an hour-and-a-half wait. Forget Frank Sinatra. I was now James Bond.
I think I’ve slipped a $20 to a maître d’ in the past and it has worked. In today’s climate, however, I’m not sure how well this would work; it may even work better since more folks are skimping while dining out.
Adrian Reimann has created a series of illustrations of characters from Masters of the Universe in a fashion-esque style. Pay attention to the Dior Homme, Imperial, Iron Heart, and Flat Head jeans (alongside April 77, Common Projects, and other Superfuture-approved brands).
Then one day it will be complete enough to believe it is finished. Made. Existing. Done. And in its own way: a contribution, and all that effort and frustration and time and money will fall away. It was worth it, because it is something real, that didn’t exist before you made it exist: a sentient work of art and power and sensitivity, that speaks of this world and your fellow human beings place within it. Isn’t that beautiful?
An essay on photography by Paul Graham.
A scrolling animation of Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures cover.
This was, hands down, the best steak I’ve ever had in my life.
Scribblenauts is an emergent puzzle game for the Nintendo DS. It’s slated to be released tomorrow, September 15th, 2009, in North America and has garnered attention for it’s attention to detail and (seemingly) infinite array of plausible solutions. One reader claimed to have summoned a time machine to bring back dinosaurs to stomp an army of robot zombies that were, up until that moment, impossible to defeat.
I can’t wait to play this game tomorrow.
That 99% of compulsive thinkers’ thinking is about themselves; that 99% of this self-directed thinking consists of imagining and then getting ready for things that are going to happen to them; and then, weirdly, that if they stop to think about it, that 100% of the things they spend 99% of their time and energy imagining and trying to prepare for all the contingencies and consequences of are never good. Then that connects interestingly with the early-sobriety urge to pray for the literal loss of one’s mind. In short that 99% of the head’s thinking activity consists of trying to scare the everliving shit out of itself. (203 – 204)
Gorlami