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The Importance of Answering the Phone


Joe H

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I am putting this on the D. C. board and ask Don not to move it. I believe this is of absolutely essential importance to anyone in the restaurant industry.

Tonight, my wife and I talked about a Great country inn that I first visited in the early '80's, the Wayside Inn in Middletown, VA which is just south of the intersection of I 66 and I 81. The Inn dates to the 17th century with a particular room called the "Slaves Kitchen" (i.e. stone walls, brick floor, lower wood beamed ceiling and the only dining light from candles on the tables and in wall sconces) which is one of the most atmospheric of any in America. Frankly, it would rival some of the great rooms of character anywhere in the world.

Years ago their chicken was fried in heavily crusted black cast iron skillets, with intense, thick cream of peanut soup, rich crust topped spoonbread, inch thick pork chops rolled in flour and egg and fried in lard-"Southern food" that justified it's cover story in Southern Living which featured it more than two decades ago.

The more I talked about it, the more I built an image and a taste-the more we wanted to go. No idea if it was would be anywhere near as good, no idea if it was still open-but we had to try. And, they have a website and a phone number. The 24 or so rooms of the Inn seemed to be still open, too.

I called.

...and got a recording.

I called again.

...and got the same recording.

I tried the restaurant, the Inn-I tried every combination, every number I could.

...and nobody answered.

We had a problem: we talked our way into the Virginia countryside and a country inn and our first choice didn't seem to want a human being to talk to them.

Well....there's another restaurant we haven't been to in a long time that I thought would work well, also: The Ashby Inn.

I called.

...and got a recording.

I called again.

....and got the same recording.

I tried the restaurant, the Inn-I tried every combination, every number I could.

...and nobody answered.

The Wayside Inn. The Ashby Inn.

On a wednesday night on the last night of October, wanting to visit the next night, neither was answering the phone. I thought that with leaves falling and changing color this was not a good sign. Nor was it a good sign if I was trying to reach someone staying in one of their rooms.

We then called Foti's in Culpeper which we were at two weeks ago and left wondering why we had waited so long to visit them again. They answered on the second ring.

We will be there tomorrow night at 6:00 after visiting a couple of Virginia wineries.

BUT the real point of this post is very simple for the many in the industry who follow this board: don't direct anyone to a computer or recording. Have a human answer the phone. No, I don't want to leave a recorded message nor do I want to send an e-mail. Part fo the success of a good evening is for the customer to feel wanted. If the experience starts without this it is not an experience worth having.

I wish someone would pass this along to the owners of the Wayside Inn and Ashby Inn. We won't be visiting either anytime soon.

We did try. We very badly wanted to go to them. And couldn't.

As I type this and remember how much we loved Foti's four years ago (three stars from Sietsema then) and how much we liked it two weeks ago (a different restaurant but still excellent and in a room of great character), it is for the best that it was they who answered their phone.

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I am putting this on the D. C. board and ask Don not to move it. I believe this is of absolutely essential importance to anyone in the restaurant industry.

[since it seems important to you, I'll leave it here for awhile.]

It should be pointed out that Foti's is a restaurant - a confined space; the other two places are inns, and at least in the case of Ashby, which is quite a large property, there are husband and wife innkeepers who might have been out pumping a flooded basement, chainsawing tree branches, picking a kid up from school, or walking guests to their room - at inns and B&Bs, there can be no guarantees of operators or managers being near a phone at every moment.

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....... at inns and B&Bs, there can be no guarantees of operators or managers being near a phone at every moment.

Qualified objection, from one who was once in the B&B business.

While it may be asking a lot for them to always be "near" the phone, if they really are committed to being on top of things modern technology certainly makes it possible. I specifically bought cordless phones (this was a decade ago) so that I could carry one around while on the property and not miss calls. Today, the same can easily be accomplished by forwarding calls from the primary line to one's cell number, and the phone can be answered no matter where one happens to be. I routinely forward my line phone to my cell when traveling. And after all, while these might be inns, if they are running serious restaurants there must be folks on staff who can be assigned the job of handling inquiries, from remote spots if necessary.

It's their business and it's up to them how they handle contacts. They must have made the choice to let some business slide by rather than go to the trouble/expense of answering every query with a real live person -- many make that choice. But it is a choice.

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I can fully understand how frustrating this can be. Hell, I have left multiple messages on answering machines to make long term reservations that were never returned. But I would not write-off either establishment on the basis of this. Particularly the Ashby Inn, which in July treated my wife and I to as magnificent a meal as I have had in quite some time.

ETA - It just dawned on me that I called the restaurant numerous times for that July meal, and not only did they answer the phone almost always, but I remember leaving a few messages (can we sit outside? we're running late stuck in traffic on 50, etc.) that were always promptly returned. It's entirely possible that they were without power, and their VM system, like mine at home, would answer, but the phones were not actually ringing.

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I am putting this on the D. C. board and ask Don not to move it. I believe this is of absolutely essential importance to anyone in the restaurant industry.

Tonight, my wife and I talked about a Great country inn that I first visited in the early '80's, the Wayside Inn in Middletown, VA which is just south of the intersection of I 66 and I 81. The Inn dates to the 17th century with a particular room called the "Slaves Kitchen" (i.e. stone walls, brick floor, lower wood beamed ceiling and the only dining light from candles on the tables and in wall sconces) which is one of the most atmospheric of any in America. Frankly, it would rival some of the great rooms of character anywhere in the world.

Years ago their chicken was fried in heavily crusted black cast iron skillets, with intense, thick cream of peanut soup, rich crust topped spoonbread, inch thick pork chops rolled in flour and egg and fried in lard-"Southern food" that justified it's cover story in Southern Living which featured it more than two decades ago.

The more I talked about it, the more I built an image and a taste-the more we wanted to go. No idea if it was would be anywhere near as good, no idea if it was still open-but we had to try. And, they have a website and a phone number. The 24 or so rooms of the Inn seemed to be still open, too.

I called.

...and got a recording.

I called again.

...and got the same recording.

I tried the restaurant, the Inn-I tried every combination, every number I could.

...and nobody answered.

We had a problem: we talked our way into the Virginia countryside and a country inn and our first choice didn't seem to want a human being to talk to them.

Well....there's another restaurant we haven't been to in a long time that I thought would work well, also: The Ashby Inn.

I called.

...and got a recording.

I called again.

....and got the same recording.

I tried the restaurant, the Inn-I tried every combination, every number I could.

...and nobody answered.

The Wayside Inn. The Ashby Inn.

On a wednesday night on the last night of October, wanting to visit the next night, neither was answering the phone. I thought that with leaves falling and changing color this was not a good sign. Nor was it a good sign if I was trying to reach someone staying in one of their rooms.

We then called Foti's in Culpeper which we were at two weeks ago and left wondering why we had waited so long to visit them again. They answered on the second ring.

We will be there tomorrow night at 6:00 after visiting a couple of Virginia wineries.

BUT the real point of this post is very simple for the many in the industry who follow this board: don't direct anyone to a computer or recording. Have a human answer the phone. No, I don't want to leave a recorded message nor do I want to send an e-mail. Part fo the success of a good evening is for the customer to feel wanted. If the experience starts without this it is not an experience worth having.

I wish someone would pass this along to the owners of the Wayside Inn and Ashby Inn. We won't be visiting either anytime soon.

We did try. We very badly wanted to go to them. And couldn't.

As I type this and remember how much we loved Foti's four years ago (three stars from Sietsema then) and how much we liked it two weeks ago (a different restaurant but still excellent and in a room of great character), it is for the best that it was they who answered their phone.

Wow, how silly. As a resident of Paris, VA I can tell you two things, Joe - first, if you really won't patronize the Ashby because they failed to answer the phone a day in advance of your needed reservation, that's fine, but you could just as easily call back today as opposed to posting a rant on here - heck, you also could also have left a message and gotten a call back - maybe even that very same day. That's a very real solution. Second, many in this area still lack power - a bit of understanding might be helpful. Serious.

I'm sure every restauranteur will find your post instructive, though. Personally, I'll be sure to eat at the Inn a few extra times this month.

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I am putting this on the D. C. board and ask Don not to move it. I believe this is of absolutely essential importance to anyone in the restaurant industry.

Tonight, my wife and I talked about a Great country inn that I first visited in the early '80's, the Wayside Inn in Middletown, VA which is just south of the intersection of I 66 and I 81. The Inn dates to the 17th century with a particular room called the "Slaves Kitchen" (i.e. stone walls, brick floor, lower wood beamed ceiling and the only dining light from candles on the tables and in wall sconces) which is one of the most atmospheric of any in America. Frankly, it would rival some of the great rooms of character anywhere in the world.

Years ago their chicken was fried in heavily crusted black cast iron skillets, with intense, thick cream of peanut soup, rich crust topped spoonbread, inch thick pork chops rolled in flour and egg and fried in lard-"Southern food" that justified it's cover story in Southern Living which featured it more than two decades ago.

The more I talked about it, the more I built an image and a taste-the more we wanted to go. No idea if it was would be anywhere near as good, no idea if it was still open-but we had to try. And, they have a website and a phone number. The 24 or so rooms of the Inn seemed to be still open, too.

I called.

...and got a recording.

I called again.

...and got the same recording.

I tried the restaurant, the Inn-I tried every combination, every number I could.

...and nobody answered.

We had a problem: we talked our way into the Virginia countryside and a country inn and our first choice didn't seem to want a human being to talk to them.

Well....there's another restaurant we haven't been to in a long time that I thought would work well, also: The Ashby Inn.

I called.

...and got a recording.

I called again.

....and got the same recording.

I tried the restaurant, the Inn-I tried every combination, every number I could.

...and nobody answered.

The Wayside Inn. The Ashby Inn.

On a wednesday night on the last night of October, wanting to visit the next night, neither was answering the phone. I thought that with leaves falling and changing color this was not a good sign. Nor was it a good sign if I was trying to reach someone staying in one of their rooms.

We then called Foti's in Culpeper which we were at two weeks ago and left wondering why we had waited so long to visit them again. They answered on the second ring.

We will be there tomorrow night at 6:00 after visiting a couple of Virginia wineries.

BUT the real point of this post is very simple for the many in the industry who follow this board: don't direct anyone to a computer or recording. Have a human answer the phone. No, I don't want to leave a recorded message nor do I want to send an e-mail. Part fo the success of a good evening is for the customer to feel wanted. If the experience starts without this it is not an experience worth having.

I wish someone would pass this along to the owners of the Wayside Inn and Ashby Inn. We won't be visiting either anytime soon.

We did try. We very badly wanted to go to them. And couldn't.

As I type this and remember how much we loved Foti's four years ago (three stars from Sietsema then) and how much we liked it two weeks ago (a different restaurant but still excellent and in a room of great character), it is for the best that it was they who answered their phone.

Ummm...did you happen to notice the hurricane that just passed through here? You think that the inn owners might have had something more important to do than sit by the phone waiting for your call?

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Yeah I don't know if they are NOVEC or Dominion, but my dad (NOVEC) just got his electricity back on Wed afternoon about 1:30 and at that time there were still about 500 NOVEC customers out (out of 5800 in the county) and IIRC around 2000 of the Dominion households out. Paris Mountain being at the far northwest end of the county and pretty far from any town of any size where a utility truck yard might be...wouldn't surprise me at all if they didn't have electricity which means no phone, at my dad's at least. As stated above, it will go into message but not ring.

Lots of OTHER cleanup issues in the wake of this one, too.

I'd cut em some slack.

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Wow, how silly. As a resident of Paris, VA I can tell you two things, Joe - first, if you really won't patronize the Ashby because they failed to answer the phone a day in advance of your needed reservation, that's fine, but you could just as easily call back today as opposed to posting a rant on here - heck, you also could also have left a message and gotten a call back - maybe even that very same day. That's a very real solution. Second, many in this area still lack power - a bit of understanding might be helpful. Serious.

I'm sure every restauranteur will find your post instructive, though. Personally, I'll be sure to eat at the Inn a few extra times this month.

Wow was my reaction as well. Notwithstanding the whole hurricane/no power thing, you fail to mention if you even left a message or how far apart you spaced your calls. Admittedly, you were talking about it "tonight" and posted at 9:45. Whatever. This is why it is good practice to take some deep breaths and a few minutes to put things in perspective relative to what is going on in the world around you before hitting send in this electronic age.

I will pass along to the owners of the Ashby Inn that I will make every effort to visit there in the next 2 weeks.

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I think Joe H must have been really upset for him to vent like this on the board. Yes, I know there are long-complainers on this board, but this story had a purpose: a beginning, a climax, and a moral. One that I would find frustrating had the setting been moved to <insert a fine dining establishment>.

Although the story may be illogical for some readers, I find the beauty of the board is to be able to vent. Vent about this, vent about how sporks don't work properly, anything.

So, I hear you, Joe H. Sorry to hear that you were frustrated, but I do hope you will give these places another shot, given that we do not know the whole backstory as to why they didn't answer the phone in this case. (Btw, I have not been to either, so I do not know what they are like, but it must be nice if many members are responding.)

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We went to the Ashby Inn tonight and had dinner. We were told that last night both Open Table and their phone system were down. We are also not insensitive to the problems and costs of a storm but that is another topic.

This was our first visit to the Ashby Inn and I totally understand why several (or more) are upset with my comment above. I should not have been so quick to pass judgment on either restaurant. I sincerely apologize.

As for the restaurant: this quite simply is one of the best restaurants in the United States. I could not rave more about it. From an imaginatively presented roasted chestnut bisque to one of the best dishes I have ever had, a "grilled beef short rib with kale, smoked potato, Stilton and preserved fig jus" this was one of our best dining experiences in a long time.

An extraordinary experience actually. We both thought the equal of The Inn.

Additionally its wine list may have the most complete selection of Virginia wines that I have seen incuding the '09 Glen Manor Hodder Hill. This was not available at the winery (sold out) but the Ashby Inn has it. A great wine; I think on the level of Octagon and Keswick Reserve. I have their '07 which is drinking well right now-but the '09. Wow!

We also found a remarkably atmospheric inn and pub in Upperville on the way back, the Blackthorne Inn (formerly the 1763 but we were told it has undergone an extension renovation and expansion). We only had a drink-no food-but the character and history of the many rooms as well as the adjacent pond is amazing. To experience both this and the Ashby Inn in the same night was a wonderful escape.

We will return to the Ashby Inn many times.

I should also mention that we were told that the Wayside Inn is not under the same ownership that it was many years ago.

This is an extraordinary follow-up that says more about you as a person than the original post does. I went ahead and moved your review to The Ashby Inn thread.

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I was wrong!

Joe H

Joe H

leviathan

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Sent Yesterday, 09:01 PM

Really, I was seriously wrong. My comments about the Wayside Inn and the Ashby Inn were born of frustration and I learned a lesson about not making a premature judgment.

Please feel free to delete my post (s) and the thread or whatever you feel is appropriate. If you would like to keep my last post and put it in Ashby's thread that would be fine, too.

He should have four stars from Sietsema. Fantastic experience.

Thanks, Don.

Joe

_________

Don suggested I post this private note to him on the board. Given that I made an unnecessary critical comment about a restaurant that I now believe to be one of the best I have been to I feel a few more comments should be added. Ostensibly some of this will be in my defense as well as my own process of how to learn a lesson. But I would also like to expand a bit more on my reaction to what Tarver King put on our plates last night.

I don't like having to make decisions on a telephone before speaking to a human. Recently MiniBar has taken it to another level where they ONLY accept reservations through e-mail. And I bitched on here about this. Of course I am not a fan of e-mail either because it is entirely devoid of emotion and tone.

I should also mention here that we've had extensive work done to our house for water damage in the past five weeks and Tuesday saw water return in three places. The whole idea behind visiting the Wayside Inn or the Ashby Inn (which I had not been to before) was to get away from this while also returning to Glen Manor and perhaps visiting Delaplane Cellars.

After the four phone calls to the Wayside Inn and then four to the Ashby Inn AND with Open Table not working I made my post above.

I should also note that my sister had a restaurant which Phyllis Richman once called one of D. C.'s fifty best. She still works 80 hours a week in her catering service at age 71. I say this because a critical word about someone who works their heart out can be a spear in their chest.

For me what drives this point even more right now is that I've eaten at 25 or more three Michelin star restaurants in 30+ years of heavy business travel. A number of these we built trips around just to be able to go to-that is how important they were to me.

I'd cross an ocean to go to the Ashby Inn. I'd build a vacation around getting into it. Given the personable excellence, knowledge and experience of our waiter (serious San Francisco roots), taste, knowledge and friendliness and Walla Walla connection of the sommelier/manager Neal (Walla Walla for college ((we first visited Leonetti in the early '90's and, yes, found K Vintners on his showstopping wine list)) and the breathtaking talent of the chef who is one of the great, imaginative talents anywhere--I could not have been more wrong.

Perhaps even more ironic is that many reading this know I am a champion of the Virginia countryside, having raved in numerous threads about its iconic beauty. We've been to most of the wineries and most of the restaurants and inns. I even drive from Reston to Potomac Vegetable farm four or five times a summer just to buy their tomatoes (almost twenty varieties of Heirlooms). I love this part of the world. It is gorgeous and is easily the equal of Tuscany or Provence.

Now RDV is making a wine (Lost Mountain) that can do for Virginia wine what Leonetti's '94 merlot and Quilceda Creek's cab did for Washington state. The Ashby Inn, with press and proper recognition, is on par with The French Laundry. Our visit last night reminded me of the FL twenty years ago.

I should also mention that Tarver King's ice cream is as good as mine.

And, they answered the phone when we called for directions. And let us in without a reservation. In jeans.

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Recently MiniBar has taken it to another level where they ONLY accept reservations through e-mail. And I bitched on here about this. Of course I am not a fan of e-mail either because it is entirely devoid of emotion and tone.

Joe, this is tangential to the larger thread, but I found this tidbit curious. Why should "emotion and tone" have anything to do with booking a party of 4 at 8:00 on a Friday? I'd much prefer a transparent, efficient system that doesn't require me to hit redial for 30 minutes only to be told that the day is already fully booked. This isn't American Idol, I don't want to have to perform for a better chance at a table. I'd rather throw my email into a hat and assume my chances are the same as everybody else (and I know full well they aren't; I don't have the kinds of connections that can get me tables behind the scenes).

For all of its flaws OpenTable is the best thing to happen to fine dining in the last decade (really, I believe that!). It doesn't remove any "romance" from the dining experience for me in the least. I can't recall picking up the phone to call a restaurant in the past 5 years except to order take out, confirm options for dietary restrictions or as a call back for reservation confirmations.

Edit: typo

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Joe, this is tangential to the larger thread, but I found this tidbit curious. Why should "emotion and tone" have anything to do with booking a party of 4 at 8:00 on a Friday? I'd much prefer a transparent, efficient system that doesn't require me to hit redial for 30 minutes only to be told that the day is already fully booked. This isn't American Idol, I don't want to have to perform for a better chance at a table. I'd rather throw my email into a hat and assume my chances are the same as everybody else (and I know full well they aren't; I don't have the kinds of connections that can get me tables behind the scenes).

For all of its flaws OpenTable is the best thing to happen to fine dining in the last decade (really, I believe that!). It doesn't remove any "romance" from the dining experience for me in the least. I can't recall picking up the phone to call a restaurant in the past 5 years except to order take out, confirm options for dietary restrictions or as a call back for reservation confirmations.

Edit: typo

I agree completely. I greatly appreciate it when restaurants have the option--or require--reservations made through email or online systems. I think it's more convenient for both the restaurant and me for a variety of reasons: I can do it at any time of day or night; I don't have to worry about international calling costs (or having to use skype) if it's for a restaurant abroad; on that same note, I can worry less about translating or otherwise creating misunderstandings; I have a written record of the reservation; and I don't have to worry about straining to hear the host or hostess over the din of the dining room.

To be honest, having to call for a reservation feels a bit antiquated and will probably be an increasingly rare experience.

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