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Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Seating for Sixteen

Today's mission at work was to find a restaurant that could accommodate a party of 16 on a Saturday night. You would think that in a large metropolitan area, this would be easy and I would say to you "nay, nay dear reader"... Indeed, the metropolitan area is large but apparently a party of 16 is a humongous undertaking. Oddly enough, when I lived in a smallish rural area and had a group of 30 people to accommodate, there was no problem at all. SEVERAL venues didn't even blink at the request and there was no shoving me off on the "private dining" overlord who started talking about 3 course dinners with 3 choices... nope, 30 people were seated in a main dining area and ordered off of the regular menu. Sure, I DID call ahead and let them know the party would be coming but they didn't require a deposit or anything as the party of 16 did ($500 deposit... holy cats!)

I did finally find a restaurant that was suitably "upscale" that could work with a party of 16 on a Saturday night at 6PM. The deposit is holding the reservation. The cool part of this is that I am actually invited to this soiree and will get to go to a restaurant that I could not normally even DREAM of affording (which is no reflection on the salary I am paid, this is just one of those ultra-pricey venues).

So, I hope that the experience is a good one and that the server doesn't implode or something serving this HUGE party. You know, for a city that hosts huge conventions, I am a little stunned that a relatively small party of 16 seems to be such a huge undertaking.

I'll let you know how it goes after it's over (in a couple of weeks).

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