Rules are rules

I’m meeting an old friend for dinner at Angelica Kitchen (yes, no possessive) and arrive early. I ask for a table for two, and the hostess tells me I have to wait for the rest of my party.

“Can I then have a table for one? It comes to the same thing,” I say, gesturing to at least three people sitting by themselves in tables for two.

“Sorry, it’s policy,” she explains. I give up and spend the next fifteen minutes reminding myself that without rules our world would descend into chaos.

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POSTSCRIPT

When Gothamist recently reported that Angelica Kitchen was in financial trouble, I thought I’d plug the blog post above. More than 800 people clicked on the link that day, and one of the first, named megahertz9 (one of the Transformers?), responded quite quickly:

OMG you really nailed them with that one…. tons of restaurants subscribe to that policy – I doubt that has anything to do with their economic problems…

I was tempted to explain to mega that my intent was not to “nail them,” nor was I implying that this was the reason they were having economic problems, when LinusFale piped in:

Did I understand your posting that you stayed to eat? That’s all you had to say about it was that you were made to wait for 15 minutes? Great article.

I had to read that twice because of its unorthodox syntax, but yes, Linus, essentially that was pretty much it, except you missed the part about the “table for two” rule.

As I pondered whether it really could be so difficult to understand a single point in three short paragraphs, TerryKeefe jumped in:

You really felt the need to link to that brilliant take-down of a small business? You waited a few minutes. Grow the hell up.

Despite his ire, I was flattered that Terry saw my blog as having such a strong influence on restaurant goers. StevenP, whose comment came in a day later, would not agree with him:

What a pathetic blog, reflective of its author. Seriously. Please, never cross my path in RL.

I can’t imagine where I might cross StevenP’s path, except perhaps waiting for a table at Angelica Kitchen. Not to worry, though – I hear that might not be a danger for much longer.