Let There Be Light!
Published by Bill September 13th, 2006 in From Where We Sit.We’re your customers. That’s right, we pay your bills – so listen up. We can’t see a thing in here. We’ve been in coalmines with more light. “Excuse me, but is this the wine list or the menu? Oh, I apologize, I thought you were a waitperson.†We feel like a blind man in a nudist colony – we’ve just got to feel our way around. Did you forget to pay the electric bill?
Not all of us making these comments are older and visually challenged. There is a rising tide of sentiment within our ranks that we want to feel like we’re “someplace†when we dine out. You know, where it’s happening. Here in your place we feel like we’re in some mausoleum. Don’t accuse our romance of flooding from our souls, leaving only a dry husk of what has been. We might be hittin’ up on you right now if we could see you.
The low lights concept must have originated in nightclubs and supper clubs where the ambience caters to the noir side of human nature. If we go out to prowl in the dark, entering a place of glaring light is self-defeating – hence the low light concept. But sitting in a dark nightclub or bar requires only that we elevate our glass from the table or bar to our lips without incident: plus a keen sense of smell to know if we’re talking to a male or female.
Your fine dining establishment requires much more of us. We came to your high-end establishment because the chances of getting a good meal are enhanced. “A good meal†are the operative words here because the food and drink are the entertainment and the catalyst for sparkling conversation. To craft a good meal requires that we read and understand the menu in which you have exploited every possible means to confound us. Then we must plow through a wine list that should be published in hardback edition to select the perfect wines to make our menu selections soar like the eagle. I hate to break your bubble, but with 20/20 vision we can’t do this in the dark: unless you provide military night-vision goggles – or (God forbid) a flashlight. Just remember that the classic old shrines to fine dining like Antoine’s and Galatois’ in New Orleans and Jack’s in San Francisco were or are all high-light ambience.
Are we asking for high lights all around? No. We just want to be able to read the information you hand to us. Yeah, yeah – we see the charmingly romantic candle on the table, and, yes, we know our women are more beautiful by candlelight. Some of us look better in the dark, for that matter. Sorry, the candle doesn’t cut it, and it’s a constant fire hazard when we hold our menus up to the flame, trying to read them.
There is absolutely no reason for this problem to exist in your or any other restaurant in this age of halogen lighting. We really don’t care about the ambient light level in the dining room, unless we trip over another patron on our way to the restroom. We just want some light on our table. Lose the candle and replace it with a battery powered or hard wired (preferably rheostat controlled) halogen table lamp. Now we can dial up the light level most comfortable for us.
You just gotta have the candles, right? Not a problem. String overhead halogen wiring with drops and spotlight bulbs that light just the table surface. You can do this yourself, as the wiring is only 12 volts. Dial up the halogens until we can read the menus, and then we’ll stop complaining.
Amen to this one. I like seeing what I’m eating. However, no flourescents.
What’s really crazy is when you have to pass a tiny little tea light around the table for each person to use to peer at the menu. And HeyRestaurantGuy, how ’bout taking on LOUD MUSIC???
Lights?
Let’s talk about “music” and the inability to converse with your guests!
My guess is that the first person showing up for work that day sets the station and the volume of the music system.
That means the cooks or the busboys choose hip hop even though the customers in the restaurant are all over 60 years of age.
Hey, does restaurant management ever walk through the front door of the restaurant, instead of the back door? It might help if they did this periodically. They might see some of these issues. In addition to the lighting issue that started this post, and the above mention of music, what about weird chemical smells from various cleaning products, no place to put your umbrella when it is raining, no decent space to remove your overcoat/raincoat, no place to put that coat, missing hostesses at the check-in stand, and one of my favorites, the “chalkboard special” that appears to have been written by an octopus with a broken crayon. I’ll save customers talking on cell phones for a future rant.
Good suggestions little Stevie. And maybe chargers with adjustable pop-up lights so I can see what I’m eating. But please, keep your lighting ideas out of my bedroom. There comes a time in life when imagination is better than reality.
Yo Brother Bill, you got the light right. Most wannabe classy restaurants on this side of the pond seem to forget that the restaurants they’re mady trying to emulate are generally much more brightly lighted–no matter what the price range. But the specific solutions leave a little to be desired. Chargeable battery lights have a fairly short battery life–at least most do–and hard wiring is problematic for the major reason that architects are driven crazy by restaurant lighting: the desire of restaurateurs to be “flexible”. Waiters (and, one assumes, their bosses)seem always to be consumed by the possibility of shoving tables together to accommodate large parties. If all were booths or fixed seating of some kind, the overhead halogens (or, better yet, pendant shades that create a kind of space at each table) would be ideal. Maybe we just need to banish the big groups to back rooms; they’re usually too noisy anyway.