Nestled deep in the heart of the Granville Street construction circus sits The Granville Room.
And sitting in The Granville Room (brought to you from the Donnelly Group, by the way)this weekend was myself and three others who came, like many do, to get the night started in downtown Vancouver (‘cept we weren’t clubbin’).
I’m not going to go on about the scene and the mayhem that typically finds itself weaved along Granville Street on your typical Friday or Saturday night. That’s for another day perhaps and is highly correlated to the ‘I’m getting to old for the Granville Street scene’ defense.
What I do feel like talking about is the service we received before we got there (food plug right here – the fat burger, yam fries, mussels, and edamame were outstanding).
The telephone convo to secure a reso went a little something like this:
[The Granville Room hostess]: Hello, Granville Room.
[Interested patron with three hungry guests]: Hi…I was hoping you’d be able to put us down for a reservation for 4 at 8?
[The Granville Room hostess]: Yeah, I guess we could do that.
[Interested patron with three hungry guests]: You guess?
[The Granville Room hostess]: Yeah…let me check with my manager…
<strange pause>
[The Granville Room hostess]: Yeah, we can do that…so 4 people, right?
[Interested patron with three hungry guests]: Yes.
[The Granville Room hostess]: Can I get your name?
[Interested patron with three hungry guests]: <blank expression>…Darren
[The Granville Room hostess]: Can I get your last name?
[Interested patron with three hungry guests]: <a more emphasized blank expression>…Patrick
[The Granville Room hostess]: Can I get your email?
[Interested patron with three hungry guests]: <a concerned expression, taking the place of the former blank expression>…Why?
[The Granville Room hostess]: ‘Cause my manager says I need to get it.
[Interested patron with three hungry guests]: Ummm, no, you’ll get that later. So we’re good for 8pm then?
[The Granville Room hostess]: <in a condescending type of tone…one that probably sounded like a ‘Whatever!’ from 1988>…Ummm yeah.
<click>
Whilst I understand the need for mailing lists, I don’t feel it is appropriate to jam it down your potential guest’s ear. Nor do I feel ‘becuase my manager says I need it’ belongs anywhere in the vicinity of an experience that you’d be proud of passing along to others (read: not professional).
In fact, it kind of reminded me of when I used to come home and beg my parents for a new BMX and when they asked why, I gave them the ‘because [insert best friend's name here] just got one‘.
Like I said earlier, the food was great, and our server was pretty decent. The huge photo/piece of art displaying a ‘topless young girl hanging on the edge of a bathroom stall with others looking on’ kind of took away from the burger’s impact, but I’m not complaining. It’s artistic…in a Andy Warhol/Howard Stern kinda way.
The hostess taking our reso prior to us running into this piece of art and excellent burgers was also artistic…in a pre-schooler playing with finger paints kinda way.
darren
