4- Friday, June 7, 1985 - North Shore News strictly by Bob Hunter t’s true — service in most B.C. restaurants and hotels is the pits. It was last fall when Tourism Minister Claude Richmond revealed that a survey of departing American tourists had come up with the recurring com- plaint that our waiters and bartenders are surly. Since then, I’ve asked a lot of people who travel fre- quently what they think of the local service. Back came an earful of grumble, let me tell you. One businessman who spends a third of his year in Japan, a month in Europe and splits the rest of his time between here and the U.S., said: “I always know when I'm back in Canada. I have to wait for a drink.” A year ago, at a fairly ex- pensive restaurant ($180 to feed two people), I discovered sand in my oysters. When | asked the waiter to take them back, keeping my voice low to avoid embarrassing him, he shrugged. ‘‘lt happens sometimes,’’ he said. “That’s the way it is with oysters. Can’t really do anything about it."’ When the restaurant went bankrupt a month later, I understood why. The new owner has infused his staff with the right attitude, so he might just make it. The other guy was doomed. Another restaurant was built close to my place not long ago. A magnificent structure. Looks like an an- cient castle. Inside there are Bavarian flags and suits of armo even a lifesize repli- ca of a medieval catapult. Grea: place. But the service! The staff were all young, which shouidn’t be an excuse, but it’s the only one | can think of. They waited on us as though we were an irritating inconvenience, interrupting the fascinating conversation they were having in the kitchen. When 1 asked for another bottle of wine, I was treated like a raging alcoholic. This other restaurant went into receivership after just six months. Somebody’s try- ing to get it going again, and I notice the new batch of staff is a lot more polite than their now unemployed predecessors. Some lessons have to be learned over and over again, it seems. Let me give you one more example. I went to a nearby pub recently to quietly read my newspaper and suck down a bubbly. There were three empty chairs at my table. Next thing 1 know some guy wants to sit there. Sure. Minutes later, a drunk and his girlfriend crash into the remaining two chairs. Seems they know the first guy. All three start baobling obsenities at each other. The waitress rushes over and yells: ‘“‘Okay, that's it for this table! You're cut off!” ‘But,’’ I start to say.... ‘‘No buts!’’ sez she. When I complain to the barman that I’m an innocent victim of fate, he says: “*Tough."’ I could go on. I'm sure most of us have our litany of restaurant horror stories. And of course it goes without saying that there are plenty of good restaurants with good staff. Yet, on the whole,, ] would describe ser- vice in B.C. as being damned poor. So far as our American Service with a smile guests are concerned, 1 think there’s probably another factor at work, one nobody likes to talk about. | mean Anti-Americanism. The change of government in Ot- tawa notwithstanding, there is still an underlying mood of resentment toward the Yanks. After all, why does their ecomomy keep boom- ing while ours spins its tires in regulatory mud? Not surprisingly, we're envious of them. It's a cheap reaction, but pervasive. I’ve seen it before abroad. In France, 20 years ago, you were practically pshed off the sidewalks if they thought you were an American. But that’s changed. By last year, the French were bending over backwards to squeeze some good hard foreign cur- rency, hopefully in Uncle Sam greenbacks, out of you. Yet it wasn’t just that their economy had nearly collapsed. It was also the fact they they had establish- ed their own military identity in that time. Politically, they’d distanced themselves from American foreign poli- cy, carving out their own uniquely French niche in the scheme of things. In ouher words, their an- ti-Americanism had lapsed because they no longer felt culturally or politically overwhelmed. In Canada, well... if even I, a_ fellow Canuck, get the kind of shoddy service I all too often get, I can just imagine what our American visitors run -into. Again, not everywhere. But in too many places. A waiter or bartender who can’t stand customers is in the wrong business. If they want to push people around instead of waiting on them, they should get a job in the civil service. Forget catering. 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