So, last Tuesday was Dining Out For Life, benefiting Nashville Cares. Basically, if you are not familiar, participating restaurants donate a voluntary percentage of food sales to the organization for a certain shift or day. It is what I like to call easy charity, in that you just have to do business as usual and then write a check. Even easier, in that lots of people come in to have dinner on a Tuesday, leaving more money with you to give away. Most restaurants donate 30% of their food sales...
We decided on 105% this year.
We have been the #1 contributor of this event since our first year of business, back in '04. Obviously, the cause is important to Jay and I. More importantly, I have hoped that our overzealous approach would have inspired others to step it up a bit.
It worked.
I realize that this is not a competition, not a contest. However, who doesn't want to be the most generous? Who doesn't want to be the #1 contributor?
That is where the extra 5% came into play. We have inspired one other restaurant to step up their effort. They decided to go 100%, along with their previous Sunday brunch sales, and their lunch sales (3 shifts to our one shift, if you are confused)
I assumed that we had this one in the bag. Last year we pumped 320 people through on DOFL night. Over 7000.00 to Cares. I figured that this year would be better, both the extra 5% and even better planning. Planning? Yes...
NO BIG PARTIES! I know most people assume that restaurants like large parties. Well, large parties are good on a normal Tuesday. They are NOT good on a busy Tuesday. They are horrible when you are trying to go all out for charity.
You see, big groups require special attention. You have to plan the table, inevitably having to hold it empty for some time. They also take longer to wait on and cook for. Finally, they tend to linger, chatting away while others wait for the table(s) that they occupy.
More importantly, large groups never arrive on time. They never arrive all together. Rarely do they arrive with the same number of people that they expected.
So, we limited the large groups. For example, the very first reservation that called for the event... a party of 24 at 7:30! I told "Mr Smith" no. I told him we could handle his group at 5 o'clock, or we could break them up into 6 tables of 4 at 7:30. I also told him that I could not guarantee the tables would be even remotely close to one another. He opted for the latter.
Anyway, I will not continue to bore you with these details. Instead, I will get to the point...
People ruined it! We had been fully booked for weeks. We had been turning away business for weeks. We confirmed every reservation 2 days prior. We confirmed the time, the number, the reservation policy... We even reiterated that as this night was for charity, it was VERY IMPORTANT that they arrive on time, etc, etc.
OVER 50 PEOPLE NO-SHOWED.
"We were 10, but now we're 6" they would say as they walked in.
"We were 24, but now we're 17," said "Mr Smith" before his people began to complain about not being seated together. Yes, somebody left us a note that their evening was a huge disappointment because we decided, at the last minute mind you, to split them up.
When I called "Mr. Smith" the next day, he reiterated this sentiment. He said he was never told about the 6 tables. Really? Well, I told him that I took his reservation and that I know we discussed it. He told me that he just didn't feel appreciated, and that while the cause was a good one, he didn't think he would ever feel comfortable coming into my restaurant on a regular evening, when we keep the money.
I simply explained our reasoning, our overzealous desire to beat last year's total, and then apologized for his experience. I said, "I am sorry that charity created such an inconvenience."
The end result? 700.00 less than last year, and we are the #2 contributor. Through no fault of my own, we didn't win. Well, at least Cares wins. At least we did raise the bar...
In other news, a great week on the exercise front. I ran a consistent 9 minute mile on all my runs. More importantly, I was limited by my brain, not my legs. As I continue to force myself to take it slow, it ends up as follows:
Monday: 3 miles, Greenway
Tuesday: 1 mile treadmill, 1 mile elliptical, core and leg weights
Wednesday: 6 miles, Greenway
Thursday: 1.5 miles elliptical, core and upper weights
Friday: just work
Saturday: 5 miles, Greenway
Sunday: 3.2 miles, hilly street run
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2 comments:
I am quite impressed with your running and I just don't even know what to say about the charity dinner other than it sucks and you win some/you lose some. We had to raise prices--haven't done that in over 2 years-- and we lost some customers but gas is $1.50 more now.
Kudos for supporting a great cause.
I'm very surprised you told this story without a single exaggeration. That's pretty much how it unfolded. So Red nosed us out, eh? Oh well.
That's interesting about the "winning it" or not. I sort of felt the same way, even though it was TOTALLY not about us. But I wouldn't do it differently next year; the amount is still a tremendous number and I don't think it's worth "winning" if it's a five-hour nightmare at the door. Not to make it about ME or anything...
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