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Scott

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Everything posted by Scott

  1. You don't "build" the restaurant from the ground up before every shift. This is deflecting the point. No-shows are a "contollable" business risk for a restaurant, as much as is controllable by confirming reservations in advance, taking credit card numbers, charging for illegitimate no-shows, etc. (BTW - I do believe that legitimate, documentable cancellations should be handled on a case-by-case basis as was already suggested.) Ditto. See my prior posts and above. Again, is it so much to ask that the customers show the bare minimum level of civility and common courtesy and call to cancel within a reasonable time frame? Would ANY business person in ANY industry not be upset at clients that blow off meetings, don't show up for scheduled appointments, etc.? And it doesn't just waste the restaurant's time, it wastes tangible assets (food goes to waste) and prevents the restaurant from maximizing their ephemeral offering (a seat TODAY at THIS meal at THIS time). Quite right, and precisely why these measures are necessary. As for charging the single diner for two covers, changing the subject or providing a satirical example isn't furthering your opinion. At least with anyone that carries it past the first step of logic. If a restaurant wishes to control that issue, all they have to do is set a policy whereby large parties or single diners are not seated at "prime time" on the busiest nights. Diner is free to make reservations elsewhere if that is unacceptable to them. This is what I'm saying... Katie, I find it odd you accuse me of twisting things, to my mind the reverse is true. It sounds like you do not appreciate how these things are conducted in the UK. Most restaurants do not levy a cancellation charge, including the hardest table of all, 'The Ivy'. If you haven't caught up: 1. we don't know how much this guy was charged 2. he DID ring and cancel 3. you might want to control your risk, but it doesn't make it LEGAL. As for your suggestion that a single diner should pay for 2, well, you can't be serious - are you ????? It is not a satirical example, it's an example of specific business risk to the restauranteur, a risk that is essentially unique. As Glenn points out that cancellation charges are not honoured in the US by card providers, and I'll bet they're not honoured in the UK. Which could tell us something about the legitimacy of these tolls. Few business are as Legally savvy as visa!
  2. Nothing, but the risk is different from industry to industry - clearly.
  3. I disagree strongly with this statement. What's to disagree with? fact of life, you pay for the fittings, lease, staff etc of a restaurant hoping to find enough custom to pay the bills - it's called business risk and is not up for debate. it's the same risk for every restauranteur. No shows are part of this industry, as ANY restauranteur will tell you. Next you will be telling me a single diner should pay for 2 covers because they held the table. As for the question at hand, I would also be keen to know how far in advance the booking was made. Also as for this, highly dubious " a contract has been entered into stuff", guys consider the service charge. Some menu's state a discretionary 12.5/15% service charge added, others will leave out the discretionary part and tell you that a charge will be added. However this is irrelevant by law the service charge is discretionary regardless of what the restaurant tells you. Which comes back to Labour charges and business risk, - it's not duty bound upon the customer to pay your staff. I think it also reflects on what is actually being sold, as mentioned before, if you are not in the business of selling 'table time' I don't believe a cancellation charge is valid. It's the key difference between a hotel room and a restaurant - in a hotel the core provision of service is to make available the room, in a restaurant, the core is the purchase of goods, preparations and discretionary service - not holding the table. How do you measure the quantum for the cancellation, what he should have ordered? plus standard wine, water, and coffee????? Once you have your table there is no obligation on how much you must order and spend? what if you only have water? what if you arrive, decide you don't like the menu and leave, should you pay a cancellation charge? So much of this falls within a restauranteurs business risk.
  4. Reason 1 why I don't think it's legal, though the quantum has to be considered. is that when you go to a restaurant you are not paying for a reservation. you pay for: food wine water coffee service but not for the table, except in the odd italian where there's a small cover. Basically the reservation charge is not part of the deal. I do agree with everyone who says the quantum is the key, if they were however being unreasonable and charging excessively, I'd be inclined to challenge the charge with Visa, and put it upon them to justify it. Another question which would mitigate the righteousness would be if you offered to reschedule your booking.
  5. Yes. but's thats just business risk. part and parcel of being a restaurant.
  6. Disagree, strongly. If you give rise to the need to charge, then charge, but it's not a free revenue stream. I'd say legally they would be on shaky ground if it's been charged, and the table was filled. There is a tacit understanding here, and that is to prevent loss.
  7. Scott

    Boycott Beaujolais

    That is and will always be true in this regard I think.
  8. It's funny, only in the city does the term 'reasonable value wine list' take on a whole new meaning. Reasonable compared to what? a mugging?
  9. good lord, how do we get some of that!!!
  10. A great 1964 is the Chateau Figeac - an immortal wine. Super ripe, round and with still plenty of fruit vigour.
  11. I still the best cheap food in London is had a Rotisserie Jules in South Kensignton. Beautiful spit roasted chickens, best chips, funky and quite hot waitresses, and they BYO for £1 a bottle. They do Lamb and duck also, but still to the chicken. A right little slice of St Germain.
  12. Chris, Now I see you don't actually expect to be taken seriously. wish granted.
  13. If only that were all there were to it... Chris, you seem to be ignoring the basic points of this argument, and substituting your own deeply flawed, callow assumptions. Perhaps your comment explains why... I think you believe you're calling it straight, but it sounds more and more like this is an industry you just don't understand - at all. Champagne is a luxury product, the motivations of the consumer are much more complex than that for more everyday goods. It is not nearly as simplistic as you'd like to believe, in which a linear relationship exists between the everyday consumer, and a celebratory event that warrants a luxury product. That you are wrong in this assumption, and so many more, shows the wholly unsatisfactory and insubstantial basis of your suggestion that this is a no harm crime. You contradict yourself, over and over, at one point you agree that this is wrong but is a no harm crime, then you later suggest the EU laws are wrong and there is no basis for this protectionism. you also continue to neglect the hypocrisy of the AVA. As it stands it's getting harder to take you seriously. As an aside, do you actually practise in trademark law?
  14. You wouldn't think so.
  15. Geez, you're really starting to talk tosh now. 1. you're guilty of a staggering lack of vision on how brands are built and a fundamental misunderstanding of the battle to win the middle ground of consumers who do not sit on your fictious polar ends. 2. I will repeat, you don't seem to get this, these bans are in place in nearly every other western country on earth. understand? this has done them no harm.
  16. Scott

    Chateau talbot 1937

    I would say drink it, probably on it's own, and do NOT decant. expect the wine to start falling apart after about 45-60 minutes. It will probably still offer some pleasure, but it will fade quickly once opened. Now if you have 1937 Burgundies...
  17. Products have rights? Where do these rights spring from? Sure there are some zany statutes giving producers of stuff a legal right to defend their products from some sorts of disparagement, i.e. the veggie libel statute in Texas that caught up Oprah Winfrey a few years ago. If I recall correctly (and I've not bothered to do the research), that law was tossed on US Constitutional grounds... Something about peoples rights trumping products' rights... first amendment in this case. There is obviously no statutory right that Champagne has to protection in the American legal system... it certainly may have one in France under the AOC laws, but French laws do not apply in america, nor do they generate any sorts of "rights". The AOC law imposes a duty upon the growers in a region to follow certain procedures if they desire to label their wine as coming from that particular place. I don't see the flip-side of this duty as creating a universal right. Consumers have rights-- not to be misled or lied to. What constitutes misleading depends on how a message will be interpreted by a reasonable consumer. Saying "This is Champagne" to an American consumer will not (at present... and it may change over time) bring to mind the necessary conclusion that the product in the bottle began its life 90 miles east of Paris. When (or if) American consumers come to the point of sophistication that they do make that conclusion when a bottle says champagne, and the law that allows plonk growers in California to call their plonk champagne is still on the books, then I'd get somewhere near as miffed as you are right now. Not 'til then. Chris, once again you go off on some meaningless tangent. We all know there is no statutory control in the US - there should be. That's been the whole point, surely you can see that? Then again, I suspect you can't , which perhaps tells me all I need to know about you.
  18. Ok Chris, let's get back on topic, and simply state: 1. no malice - so? 2. difficulties - it's been done successfully everywhere else. The US stands alone here, so to suggest it's too hard is disingenuous, especially when considering the AVA. The AVA has an even more tenuous to right to geographical designation, as I'm sure these distinctions have not seeped into the public conscious yet. I appreciate you see this a pro point, I see entirely the opposite. ergo: that the less 'people' understand these distinctions, the less need there is for specificity, and possibly in turn less right to it, after all if there not understood who are you protecting? Those areas, in this case, champagne, that do have an association, have far more need to be protected. Yes, it might be more difficult, but isn't that the point - that there is a need to protect the rights of their product? I don't see any correlation between the inherent difficulties in doing so, and the right to assert place of origin in the first instance. Besides, perhaps you, or somebody else can answer why the US can't do this when: - Europe, Asia and the Australasia's have managed it. - The very same thing has been created (AVA) to protect domestic rights of US producers. I see this as a pragmatic apologists view of "I'm all right, stuff you".
  19. the bin 61 ages for quite sometime, often still good at 15 yearsof age.
  20. Clifford, on many levels I do agree with you, and I am glad to see you acknowledge that this misrepresentation is wrong. Interestingly in UK and in France, Champagne is an everyday drink. If you can't protect your product's unique identifying characteristics, why bother to promote it until the generic barnicles are removed from the hull.
  21. Chris - see point 1 yes, many people do think of Champagne being sparkling wine - that is mine, and the Champenpoise's point. It's an amoral obfuscation by the unprincipled, if you wish to take it as a reason to remain static. Geez Chris, how do you take some agreed common ground, and twist it suit yourself - is it your profession again? or is it that you don't really appreciate or understand wine? The grapes used are not in question, the right to assert it's origin is. How does this illustrate your point? I notice you have not addressed my point about domestic origins, or the legal standard point of AVA's? Should a central valley producer be allowed to assert that his sparkling wine comes from Anderson Valley or his cabernet from Calistoga - IF IT DOES NOT?
  22. given the low end consumers these sparkling wines might be pitched at, isn't this exactly what is taking place???
  23. Oh, you are still free to say "Champagne" for sparklers in general. But you are no longer allowed to write it on a bottle. Of course you are allowed to say Parmigiano for every white stuff you throwing at your spaghettis. But you are no longer allowed to write Parmigian on pieces of white rubber. And it's effective. 20-30 years ago, here in Europe, most people outside of France used to say Champagne for sparklers as well. This has significantly changed. And it has a lot to do with producers no longer labelling their stuff in a misleading way. They simply have to promote Prosecco, Cava and so on now. Absolutely spot on. I note with interest, that the arguments put forward by Brad and Katherine have little to do with the rights of the champenoise, but more to do with the inconvenience of having to respect them.
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