The Wreckoning

Wreckoning Mailbag. Vol. 1

Since the Wreckoning launched over two years ago, the stories have incited a flurry of comments from readers, much of it warmly encouraging, a lot of it appreciative of the writing, but wary or even disdainful of a perceived snootiness on my part. A number of readers think I need to lighten up, that I'm "unfair" or "bitchy". Some are adamant that I have no idea how a restaurant "really" works. One guy I'm pretty sure wrote to me in Klingon. It's time to open up the Wreckoning mailbag and respond publicly to some of the things readers have had to say.

Let me say straight off that I appreciate every single comment, good or bad. I publish all of them (although I've lost a few over the years due to my own technical incompetence) and always try to respond personally to each one. Please include a name when writing, even if it's "Bibs" or "Rotgut" so I can have something to call you other than "Asshole" or "Lunatic." I promise not to correct your usage.

A large number of comments come from restaurant employees, past and present, who either want to share horror stories of their own or admonish me, with varying degrees of literacy, for a perceived lack of understanding and compassion for what servers and other staff have to put up with on a daily basis. As I've stated several times, I started at the bottom, working as a busboy (we didn't even call ourselves bussers back then) in my teens and early twenties in hopes of someday landing my own station as a waiter. I did that for years. When I finally rose to the ranks of server...a dozen restaurants later, the level of frustration and humiliation was hardly different.

A reader of my last piece had this to say:

Not all servers are pretentious assholes, sometimes diners are pricks with extreme expectations. I am a server in Portland, I am not an aspiring actor, nor do I believe I am a career server. It is never my intention to provide rude service, it is never my intention to provide bad service, but i take pride in my relationship with my customers and their experience. In your blog, it is always an attack on the food or the service. I really enjoy your witty prose, but I am starting to wonder why you dine out at all if every endeavor seems to disappoint you in one way or another. You extensively blogged about something as insignificant as a bar transfer, and maybe once or twice have you written positively about an entire experience. As a former employee of the service industry, can you not have a little compassion? Was your experience as a busser/server/bartender/whatever so horrid that you must be critical of every little minutae. guess what? the world is not out to get you, i promise.

To conclude, I think I may stick with my small scaled, local, and unpretentious crowd over here than deal with the mediocrity that it sounds like you must deal with on a daily basis down there.

Oh, if only every dining endeavor disappointed me enough to write about it. I'd have three times as many entries and a book deal by now. And while I wouldn't want you to get the wrong idea--I eat out a lot, but the majority of the time the servers, bartenders and other staff are perfectly fine. I just don't write about them much because the blog wouldn't be very interesting. I'm not a restaurant critic. The internet needs another snarky critic or another burrata-loving foodie like a seized-up Cash-for-Clunker engine needs sugar water. I'm trying to make people laugh and perhaps polish up a few observations into something meaningful. But there is a theme to the restaurant stories, an unnerving undercurrent that fuels my ability to write for this site. I'm here to call out the poseurs, the kids who are playing restaurant with your money. The Wreckoning is and always has been concerned with a very specific type of attitude found in a very specific type of establishment: namely, the places that care more about who they are serving and how much they can get away with charging than with the quality of what they serve or the attitude with which they serve it.

As for the claim that I "blog extensively about something as insignificant as a bar transfer" , I offer no argument; the insignificance is precisely the point. A restaurant that won't transfer your bar tab to your table is like an opponent of same-sex marriage: they don't have a logical leg to stand on. The bar transfer story inspired quite a bit of controversy.

Reader Jeannette had this to say:

The bartender and waiter ARE separate businesses.. Independent contractors, so to speak- The restaurant is the General Contractor, and the bartenders, servers, busboys, etc. are the "sub-contractors."

No, they're not. They are employees. They serve at the pleasure of the owner and are all part of the same company. As soon as restaurant gets divided into little territorial battles of "this is mine and that is yours" then it has lost the plot. But the blame for this lies with management for letting it get that bad in the first place. Again, I understand that there is dishonesty and distrust among restaurant workers, as there is in any business, but the solution is to retrain (if not fire) the perpetrators instead of letting a correctable problem become systemic.

When I wrote about the excellent restaurant Anchor & Hope in San Francisco, I got a lot if this:

TOO NICE! I like your bitchy reviews better. - Anonymous.

That reader wasn't alone. The stories about restaurants that get everything wrong seem to be what most readers want. After I exposed Gladstone's for the shit-tastic rip-off that it is, Kakutogi has this to say:

Christ, what an abomination. The conclusion damn near made me gag. Not the writing, the food.

The "conclusion" was a summary of one of the more harrowing dishes, Gladstone's original seafood molcajete:an inexplicable cauldron of scallops, shrimp, lobster tail, panela cheese, bell peppers, onions, cactus, ranchero sauce and I have to stop because just writing this makes me want to hurl.

But post of the year honors has to go to a reader who, after wading through a particularly self-pitying post-breakup confessional of mine, summed up the entry succinctly in thirteen words:

No wonder you were dumped. You come off like a bitter, cunty fag.

I hear you, brother.

If you would Beso inclined ...

Beso might be the last man standing when the economy finally recovers. If so, it won't be because it's that great of a restaurant. It won't be because the food is great. The food is just good enough. It won't be because it's reasonable priced. It's not. It's just not as overpriced as some of the places that strive for the same clientele. (And most of those places have failed. People aren't tolerating the fifty-dollar steak like they used to.) It won't be because, as one bartender aggressively told me, "Dude, we are so much nicer than bartenders at other bars. We are so much nicer than we have to be!" He was almost spitting as he told me this, but more on that later. If Beso weathers the current economic storm, and all evidence says that it will, it will be because Beso does just enough right to not piss you off to the point of never returning.

The bartender's bizarre, telling comment came one night when I was waiting at the bar for my friends to arrive for dinner. I asked what beers they served on tap.

"Nothing", he replied. As a beer drinker, I'm especially sensitive to places that disrespect the suds.

"No love for the beer drinkers, huh?" I asked.

"We're bottles only. It makes our job so much easier."

Okay, red flag! Red flag! It's not about your convenience, pal, it's about mine! I'm the customer. But I just filed that one away. As it turns out, Beso stocks a decent selection of bottled beers. I ordered a Negra Modelo. He ripped off the bottle cap and smacked the bottle down in front of me.

"We normally serve it with a nice slice of jalapeño in the bottle. It's really good."

He might as well have been speaking Klingon. Jalapeño? Really? I'll applaud the effort. Somebody took the time to figure out a little bit of personalized flair for something as mundane as cracking a beer. And I'm sure the result is quite invigorating, but you'll understand if I pass. (He seemed to pout a little when I demurred.)

"No," I said, "But I'll take a glass." Come on, don't make me ask. Too much work for you again? But I will give them credit for not cramming a lime wedge that I didn't ask for into the bottle. Can the bartenders of the world stop with that, please?

I asked how the place was doing. He looked at me confidently. "Good. Real Good...Other places are having trouble but we're not. Later tonight, it'll be blowing up in here." I sipped my beer. He continued, "I mean, I can only speak for the bar, but one reason, I mean, dude, we're so much nicer than bartenders at other bars. We are so much nicer than we have to be!"

Translation: "As big of an asshole as I'm being right now, I could be so much worse." Noted.

Certainly rampant assholery is a favorite target of this website, and when customers are paying a couple of hundred bucks a head for the privilege of being treated like shit, I'm usually all over it. But to have the existence of such behavior acknowledged openly, well, I was stunned. Thank God my friends showed up about then. I left the recovered asshole to his jalapeños.

I've been seated at three or four different places in the dining room and they're all about the same. The banquets along one wall are best and filled with beautiful people. Beso really manages to promote an air of superiority to diners by simply taking away their armrests. Astonishing. The only seating that really doesn't work are the absurd arrangements in the bar area. Uninviting ottomans serve as chairs at tables that are uncomfortably low for eating (which of course, the unfortunates who don't make into the proper dining room must do. Oh, the shame.)

The menu has some steady choices and some missteps. A conversation starter for sure is the "Tomahawk Chop", a brontosaurus sized portion of bone-in beef ($64) that my friend Alan has ordered three times but has yet to finish once. He usually slices me off a pound or two. I'll admit it's tasty. The outer layer is perfectly charred to crispness while the interior stays pink and juicy, as ordered. The grilling station is separate from the main kitchen and adjoins the dining room like a sort of meat-based observation booth. Perhaps the proximity to the customers (or more specifically the fact that the customers can see their faces) inspires the grill cooks to amp up the effort. The results seem to work.

Overall the wisely smallish menu gives a very slight nod to celebrity owner Eva Longoria's Mexican-American heritage without being disingenuous or precious about it. There's a dish called Eva's avocado guacamole with crispy tortilla chips, which my friends seem to like more than I do. The "avocado" in the above item might seem redundant until you see the next item on the menu, Todd's artichoke guacamole with za'taar pita chips. I've no idea who Todd is, but I assume I'm supposed to*. I'm underwhelmed by this dish, but my friends seem to like it, so it sits half eaten on our table every time until the entrees arrive and table space becomes a premium. The other eponymous dish, Eva's tortilla soup, sounds perfectly rustic but would be better suited for a writer who doesn't hate tortilla soup. Otherwise, the addition of Manchego cheese, chorizo, salsa verde and pico de gallo to a few dishes upholds enough cultural identity to give the menu some personality without making the claim to be authentically Mexican. Perhaps, as I've written about many times in this column, this because is high-end Mexican restaurants don't survive in LA.

A friend and I both went for the salmon steak one night. Although the waiter cautioned us that "it isn't a filet," we were still unprepared the pervasiveness of the tiny bones. For $34, how about making it a fillet, huh? Avoid it unless you like your meal coupled with busy work. Since then, I've stuck to the pork chop or the grilled striped bass and have been much happier. I've never been in love with the sides or the preparations at Beso, but I've also never left hungry. The deserts are lovely, but at a table full of guys eager to keep their shirts off all summer, grudgingly overlooked. The exception was the one time we had to wait in the bar longer than usual for our table. On that occasion the manager brought a complimentary assortment of sweets after our meal regardless. In was a classy touch, one that in other restaurants would be considered "way more nicer" than was necessary.

* "Todd" is restaurateur Todd English, Longoria's partner in Beso. But seriously, are you supposed to know that?

Beso: Hollywood Boulevard. Located near the Vine St. Red Line station, which is a good alternative to the valets' $7 fuck-you fee. Good bottle beer selection for a place that hopes you never order a beer. Acknowledge the niceness or don't come back, fucker. (photo by Aaron Black)

Transfers of Power

There are two types of restaurants: those that will transfer your bar tab to your table and those that will not. Those in the former category send a confident signal that they have their stuff together. Those in the latter are admitting defeat before you even see a menu. I have never understood the rationale behind requiring a customer to settle up at the bar before moving to a table. It invariably hints at deeper, systemic problems within the restaurant's chain of command and always seems a tad distrustful.

This happened to me last night at Magnolia, and it was not only annoying, but socially awkward. My date was already at the bar when I arrived. She had just ordered a drink, a drink I would've happily paid for had I been next to her. But at the exact moment I entered, the hostess walked to up to escort us to our table. She informed us we would need to settle our bar tab before being seated. After entirely more conversation than was needed, and after the uncomfortable moment of deciding if I should pay for her drink, even though to do so when I didn't order one just seems plain weird, we managed to cancel the drink before the bartender had made it (like that should matter) and opted for a bottle of wine at the table.

It was roughly around the second glass of reasonable Pinot Noir that my date informed me that she couldn't sleep with me that night because she had a "houseguest" in from out of town--a guy. A straight guy. A tall straight guy--who's sleeping not in her guest room, but in her bed.

"Then why in the world are you out with me?" I asked. A better question, where the hell is he tonight? Did he have a date too? Mind you, I didn't ask to have sex with her, nor was I expecting to. It was just rather obvious, because, well, that's what she and I usually do with each other.

I was mortally offended, not that I wouldn't be getting laid, but at her reason--and that she decided to tell me in the first place. And that she hadn't cancelled, which would've been fine. And that she hadn't come up with a better excuse than the truth. A wave of anger started to rumble deep within me. How glad I was that I hadn't paid for that damn drink.

The drink. The bar tab. What were we talking about? Ah, yes--a restaurant that makes you settle up at the bar before being seated.

I can think of no legitimate reason why this should ever happen.

Are drinks slipping through without being paid for? If so, find the crack and fix it. If there's a dishonest server or bartender in the mix, fire him. If there's some glitch in the computer software or tracking process that won't allow this type of transfer, then chuck the outdated, ineffectual system and get an upgrade. If the problem arises from infighting among the staff over whose tips are being taken or not taken, stop the bickering and grow up. Gratuity distribution should never, under any circumstances, be the customers' problem.

And this customer was having his own problem. The woman across the table from me saw the look on my face. She heard the tone in my voice. I'm a progressive guy. My bed sees its share of boys and girls and, when it comes to sex, I'm about as judgmental as tooth decay. But this was just too 21st Century, post-gay, all-four-girls- from-Sex-and-the-City-morning-after-gabfest for me.

She'd screwed up and she knew it. She apologized. But the idea of picking up the check, which I was about to do out of some long-standing but in this moment completely irrelevant social construct, just made me feel like the biggest sucker on the planet. That's when she grabbed my hand.

"I'll get this," she said. "Please, it's the least I can do."

And so I let her, wishing I had ordered a drink at the bar, preferably a nice 16- year Lagavulin with a large Chimay Grand Reserve as a chaser. She had a half-ass restaurant to thank that I hadn't.

As we left, I started to feel bad. I'd let her have a good half hour of "how could you treat me like this" punishment. My self-pity was red-lining. I suggested we hit the bar next door for a drink. My treat. Besides, a nightcap would make her even later for her hook-up with the tall, non-gay asshole.

We drank together at the bar and laughed, remembering how much we like each other, but that we aren't really cut out for a relationship. Just for fun I asked the bartender if we could move to a table and still keep our tab open. He looked at me like I'd fallen out of a tree.

"Yeah, of course." He shrugged.

My pretend-date and I went back to my car and made out for ten minutes before saying our goodbyes. All seemed right with the world. I'll bet her houseguest is back in New York by now.

I should really give her a call.

Magnolia - One of God-knows-how-many-restaurants that charges A.O.C. prices for Applebee's-like service. Located near Vine on either Sunset or Hollywood Boulevard, I can never remember which. Expect to be treated with as much trust as at a check-cashing place.

Valet Villains of the Valley

Valet parking is one of those eye-rolling Los Angeles institutions that is probably here to stay, much like the inexplicable line of customers outside Pink's hotdogs. Compulsory valet service is annoying and pricey for residents and a source of great derision among visiting LA bashers (to Hell with them anyway), but in a pinch, or when weather, time constraints, or serious shortage of parking arise, it's a necessary evil.

Don´t even THINK of parking here

Let's say I'm running late to dinner, and my friends are already at the restaurant waiting for me. Then I'm obliged to valet park. No fair trolling the streets for a free spot when I'm already keeping people waiting. I look at it as penance for being late. Maybe that $8 will get me out the house ten minutes earlier next time.

The most irritating instance of valet parking, however, isn't the chic nightclubs and restaurants that charge top dollar to park your car. It's the more casual spots, the nickel-and-dimers who charge a few bucks when they have no business offering valets in the first place. At no time do I ever drive away from a valet stand feeling like I got a deal, unless it's at big talent agency or production company in Century City that provides the service for free. But those times I'm usually too busy stewing about the pitch meeting I just tanked to care about the ten bucks I saved.

In parts of town where parking is scarce, like Hollywood, then valet parking is useful. In trendier parts of the city, like Hollywood, it's also obnoxiously expensive. Shelling out $10 to roll up to Hyde is part the glitterati game you buy into when you go to such places--as is the $12 martini. (Bottle service, however, is ridiculous under any circumstances. Three hundred dollars for a bottle of Skyy and some mixers? Suck me.)

At least the valet operations at those trendy haunts serve a purpose--finding a parking spot for cars in areas with little or no parking, and most important, allowing beautiful, underdressed women in six-inch heels and impossibly tight skirts to simply "be beautiful" without the indignity of having to baby-step a couple of long city blocks at the risk of twisting an ankle, freezing to death or being accosted by the corner meth dealer with leering eyes, a rude mouth and too much time on his hands.

According to Los Angeles's traffic officials, a great deal of congestion in crowded areas comes from drivers circling the streets in search of free or metered parking. Valets, to a degree, cut down on such congestion. But in areas of the city where the parking situation is a little more forgiving, or in some places ample, then valets become unnecessary. And at restaurants that have their own parking lots, the presence of a valet is not only useless, but offensive. It's nothing but a clumsy and inflammatory attempt to bilk a few extra dollars from customers.

For some reason, towns like Studio City, Sherman Oaks and Encino seem especially prone what I call the "Fuck-you valet" - compulsory, useless and more of a hindrance than a help.

Take Casa Vega , that license-to-print-money, dark cave of a cantina in Sherman Oaks that has an hour wait seven nights a week, despite mediocre fare and airport-quality margaritas. My own Baptist grandmother in South Carolina makes better nachos and she's about as Mexican as a hockey game. Casa Vega has it's own large, easily accessible parking lot a stone's toss from the front door. You're just not allowed to use it. You'd think a place that should be thanking it's customers for 40 years of robust patronage would be happy with the profits garnered by its overpriced menu, but no. They want to round out the raping with a little post meal shake-down at the valet stand.

What is the point, really, of having valets at a restaurant that has it's own large parking lot? The lot easily accommodates the restaurant at full capacity and street parking isn't that bad around there anyway. Having a little more space for things like parking is one of the reasons people move to the valley in the first place. What's worse, bordering on the criminal, is when you drop your car at the valet, then go inside to find that the wait is, say, a breezy ninety minutes. You decide you'd rather go elsewhere. You return to the valet, sometimes before your car has even been parked, only to find that they still want to charge you. Granted, sometimes they'll let you go free (or with a tip) but it's not a given. I've seen it happen.

I'm never one to throw compliments in the direction of Jerry's Deli, but at least the one in Studio City, which has a smaller parking lot than Casa Vega on a stretch of Ventura that has fewer metered spots, still doesn't charge for parking. Then again, where else can you pair a candy-appletini with chicken piccata and a side of kreplach and not cause the waiter to bat an eye. That place has a menu from Mars.

There are a few places along the boulevard that warrant their valet service. Cafe Bizou sits on one of the tighter stretches for parking and yet their valet is only a couple of bucks. And despite their dining chairs, which seem to have been stolen from the breakfast room at the nearest Raddison, the $2 corkage fee is a surefire crowd pleaser. Talk about knowing your clientele.

Getting in and out of Senor Fred is also helped by the presence of valets, but the attitude there is a little more mercantile. Like Firefly in Studio City, Senor Fred wears its over-pricedness like a badge of honor (as a tip of the hat to their desire to turn Ventura Boulevard into Sunset Boulevard of the north---a quest that never seems to take hold) and is reflected not just in their menu pricing, but at the valet stand as well.

Moving farther down Ventura into Encino, however, we find the two most egregious offenders of the fuck-you valet. And both of them are chains. Islands restaurant, a burger and taco enterprise that for years has remained appealing to value-minded customers offers "endless mugs'' of soft drinks, enormous portions, and, in a recent development, free fries with all burgers and sandwiches--all served with friendly, south-of-the-border flair--or is it Polynesian? I can never tell, with their Mexican hamburgers and Hawaiian tacos. The Islands in Encino has perhaps the most spacious parking lot on the boulevard, and yet, even on a dull Wednesday afternoon recently, I was stopped at the entrance by a bored young man eager to park my car--for the required $2.

It would be so nice to park ones car in that spacious lot, stroll into the restaurant to gorge myself on Baja tacos and bottomless cold beer (alcohol refills aren't free; I just pretend they are.) Then that fifty yard journey back to my car would serve as a digestive after-meal walk. I'd really feel like I was getting a deal. Instead, thanks to all those delicious frosty-glassed Coronas, I forget to have my ticket validated from Skip at the hostess stand and have to trudge back inside to get stamped just so I can pay three bucks for the privilege of having a complete stranger adjust my perfectly positioned car seat for his four second drive to the front door.

Honestly, what is the point?

And then there's Encino branch of Buco di Beppo, a faux Italian eatery that stole it's entire concept and family-style menu from Carmine's in Times Square, right down to the menu board font and quaint Italianate photographs on the wall. Again, we find a restaurant that has it's own convenient parking lot and forces customers to use the valet. I refuse. I park on the street no matter how far the walk, but I could sniff out a free parking spot in a cobweb of crosswalks, fire zones and emergency room drop-off lanes. But that's me.

Here's a perfectly reasonable solution. How about making valet in these places optional instead of mandatory? Plenty of elderly folks and lazy fatties with four pounds of alfredo sauce in their to-go tubs would still happily pay a few dollars for the convenience of curbside valet. As for the rest of us, get out of our way. We're trying to park.

Ventura Boulevard: defending Los Angeles from the San Fernando Valley with a gauntlet of Ralphs supermarkets, coffee shops and cheap sushi. If you need an auto parts store, you're screwed. Valet prices may vary.

Photo by Aaron Black.

Rancor, then Hope - Dispatch from San Francisco

When you're hungry, you want to eat. When you're tired, you want to sit. Neither was happening.

The evening was gearing up to be everything a restaurant experience shouldn't be: stressful, annoying and carried out on the restaurant's terms, not those of the paying customer. We had a reservation at Anchor & Hope, the new offering in SOMA from the guys who brought you Town Hall and Salt House. (That's how they bill themselves on the Anchor & Hope website.) But for Anchor & Hope, our table was booked a week in advance and still the best we could get was 8:45. That's a perfectly reasonable hour in most cases, but on this night, I was with folks who worked real jobs and started their day with the roosters--not to mention two of our party had a $15-an-hour babysitter at home. By 5:30 that afternoon, were already starving and exhausted, so we called the restaurant to see about sneaking in a little earlier.

The young woman working the phones was about as accommodating as if we'd asked to take the china home with us. "There's really no way I can get you in before the time you were given," she told my friend. So when we countered by asking if we just showed up maybe twenty minutes early, would they see what they could do for us? The hostess replied. "You can come in a little early, but it's still going to be 8:45 before we can seat you."

Fair enough, it was a Friday night in a big restaurant town. And reservations are just that, reservations. Still, I was picking up some heavy attitude. This place had better be great to warrant this level of ego. (Is it ever warranted, really?) Anchor & Hope's pedigree is worthy enough. Expanding on the brand created by local darlings Town Hall and Salt House can only be expected and doesn't seem to have been done in an overly rushed manner. Town Hall, while a bit full of itself, is consistently good and proved reasonably accommodating to last minute reservations when I was living in San Francisco.

We arrived at 8:30 and checked in with the hostess, who reiterated what she had told us over the phone before motioning us to the bar area. Having a drink at the bar before a meal is a wonderful way to unwind, provided there is room for you at the bar, which of course there wasn't. What resulted was forty minutes of constantly feeling like we were in the way. At one point my friend and I were trying to hold a conversation with an enormous basket of baguettes standing between us like some golden-crusted sea urchin (more on those spiny creatures later). It was a dramatic piece of decoration. But I hoped for everyone's sake it wasn't functional. One sudden wet sneeze and the whole evening's bread supply would be speckled with a phlegmy dose of head-cold. As fate would have it, a server slipped between us a few minutes later and plucked out several loaves destined for consumption. We wouldn't be having bread that night, we decided silently. (Let's hope the management rethinks this little misguided storage decision.)

Despite our enduring the restless shuffling and the hostess's unnecessary coolness, everyone else on staff seemed ever so courteous and professional. We couldn't even get up to the 35-foot long zinc bar to order because of the crowd, so the bartender made a point to recognize us and then walked around to our side to ask what we'd like to drink. It turns out there's a great selection of interesting beers behind that long, beautiful bar that we couldn't get close enough to touch.

It was a rainy, cold night. The only table that looked close to paying its bill was an inhospitable little outpost erected by the front door like a cruel afterthought. The four miserable people seated there clutched their coffee cups a little tighter every time the door opened and a bracing San Francisco breeze ripped through their bodies. The risk was too great. Aware that it could delay our meal even further, I approached the hostess perched imperiously behind her podium.

"I know you're doing everything you can," I lied, "But could we request that we not be seated at that table?"

The hostess nodded knowingly. "I understand," she said. It was the first glimpse of humanity she'd let escape.

Mercifully, a few minutes later a better table opened up and we took our seats. Our waiter, Brady, turned out to be the general manager. And with his appearance, Anchor & Hope began to redeem itself. He apologized immediately, but more impressive, knew exactly what he was apologizing for. "Hi there. I know you folks were hungry and tried to get seated a little early, and here we are not seating you until twenty minutes past your reservation time. I'm really sorry about that. It's been an unusually busy night, but that's no excuse."

Ok, so you had me at, "Hi there." A heart-felt apology goes a long way in the customer service world, and Brady's was no exception. All at once the stress of the last hour melted away. We had a great table. More fun beers were on the way. And some earnest words from the manager made us feel appreciated.

But Brady wasn't done. Five minutes later he appeared with one of their signature appetizers for the table, compliments of the kitchen. But sea urchin, in any form, excites me about as much as putting on wet clothes. It's the thought that counts, right? I folded my hands politely while my three friends dutifully and gratefully picked at the freebie.

Thanks anyway. (photo by Marcia Gagliardi, tablehopper.com)

Heavily tilted toward fish and oysters, the menu offered little that I could get excited about. Perhaps I was so hungry that seafood didn't seem substantial enough, or perhaps the memory of the urchin had pointed me away from the ocean entirely. I opted for the pork, which was good, but nothing to blog about.

As we finished our main courses, a man came up to our table and identified himself as Dough Washington, one of the owners. He apologized for not getting to us sooner, citing a extremely busy night not only here at Anchor & Hope, but over at Salt House from where he had just come. He then apologized for the fact that we had tried to get seated early and ended being seated after our scheduled time. Brady had well briefed him; it was a nice touch. Then he offered to buy us a round of drinks. but our Midwestern Protestant upbringing waved him off. They'd done enough for us, I heard myself think. Fortunately, my Californian never-say-no-to-free-booze lushiness caught him before he walked away.

"You know, I think I'll take you up on that." I said. My friends didn't need much prodding after that. Mr. Washington quickly returned with two glasses of champagne and two good local beers.

So at this point, we were content. The food was good, not great. But we had been well cared for after an initial annoyance and felt like all was right. So happy with the new restaurant were we that we even ordered dessert, something I'm genetically incapable of doing when a place has pissed me off. I just can't.

And that's when Brady hit the ball out of Pac Bell or AT&T or whatever-the-hell-it's-now-called Park and plunked it into McCovey Cove.

"I know you folks were kept waiting tonight, sorry again. We brought you some appetizers. I hoped you enjoyed them, but I got the sense it wasn't your favorite. And two of you ordered the pork, but you just didn't seem too blown away by it. And we want you to be. So tonight, we just like to make you our guest."

Pause. Did he just say he's comping the whole check?

"You don't have to do that." Four adults said in perfect unison. But Brady was adamant. We hadn't enjoyed our meals enough to please him and that was that. And he'd been watching.

So for watching, and for paying attention, and for trying to make things right, he earned himself a few customers for life--customers who will tell their friends about it, just like I'm doing now.

Anchor & Hope. 83 Minna St., San Francisco. Great beers. Avoid the bread, unless you're already sick. Suggested dish: Order the pork, then act slightly, but not overly displeased. Good things might happen. Note: free stuff cannot be guaranteed.

This dispatch from San Francisco is part of an ongoing mission of the Wreckoning to explore the best and worst of other cities around the world. Coming soon...New York City.

Hope and Anchor photo by Joseph Lubushkin