Well. Everything is super the normal at the moment.
Over the past week we have been exposed to the scourge of human society. People yelling at NHS workers outside Tesco that they are ‘hungry too, you know.’ Snowdonia having the busiest tourist intake on record this weekend. Contrarian bullshit journalists like Brendan O’Neill writing opinion pieces saying ‘we didn’t close the pubs during the blitz, this is ridiculous, bloody snowflakes. etc etc’ Fucking hell Brendan, yes the Blitz was horrendous but at least you could SEE what was going to kill your family. You aren’t being asked too much pal, just have a brew and sit down.
It’s made me think about how shit people can be. I love a good ‘ooooh, they are just the worst’ *wringing hands* type of moment! Highly therapeutic in the right setting, especially in a global pandemic. So I’m gonna gently put to the side the heartwarming stories of Italians singing to each on balconies and turtles playing noughts and crosses with their owners and tell you about the time where I have never hated a person more.
Her name was Lily.
I’m gonna take you back to 2017. A happier time, where restaurants were open and I worked in one. This particular restaurant, Flat Iron, I have spoken about before. For those of you who haven’t heard of it or haven’t been, it’s a ‘trendy’ London steakhouse that is relatively cheap, great quality and therefore has a reputation of having VERY long queues. You ask anyone if they have been and normally their first reaction is ‘I’ve wanted to for a while! I can never get in though’. Back when I was on dating sites, I literally put in my bio that I worked there and I could get guys a table if they played their cards right.
Slightly prostitute-esque, I grant you. Still, the limited success I had on Tinder and Bumble, I mostly attribute to that statement.
I was Head Host of the flagship Covent Garden branch for about 2 and a half years. In that time I saw the company boom and we soon tripled our weekly sales in a very short amount of time. The queuing system was always the same – if there isn’t space, we take your contact details, you go for a drink, we text you when the table is ready. I personally still stand by this system as it saves an empty restaurant due to cancellations, and you will always get in eventually. It made sense.
A Friday or Saturday night at Flat Iron was quite a sight to behold. Think that scene in Wolf of Wall Street but with steak for a tenner and free ice cream. HUNDREDS of people would swarm in and out of those doors every night, whilst still maintaining a feel of social nuance. Warm lighting, mosaic floors, hanging plants, tiny tea lights.
At it’s busiest, you would have 4 hosts on a night. One to manage upstairs, one to manage downstairs, and two to manage the queue outside. One night at Christmas, I was literally pinned against the door there were so many people. It was a military operation and as a team we treated it as such. Having more than 80 tables waiting at one time was commonplace – a wait of 2 and a half hours was expected. We also knew we had a responsiblity to understand that this wasn’t ‘normal’. To people outside of the city we definitely at times could have across as flippant and nonchalant but more often that not, this was a coping mechanism to having ‘are you FUCKING joking?’ said to you over 50 times a night.
God, we had fun though. Fits of painful laughter filled those years, as well as screaming matches at meetings, throwing clipboards out of the door, crying in the disabled toilet, having someone projectile vomit onto you, being put in a headlock by a drunk punter at the bar. But that is for another, much longer, story.
On this particular night, my two partners in crime on the door were two of my, still to this day, very best friends.
Lottie has been at Flat Iron for 5 years and (despite a unfortunate hiatus currently) is still one of Flat Iron’s longest serving employees whilst doing her masters to become a therapist. She truly is unshakeable to the naked eye. She never loses her temper, never raises her voice. She will patiently reason with someone, go cry in the toilet and come back without letting anyone know she was gone. This is the women who literally got her crotch grabbed at the bar and calmly asked the guy why he thought that was acceptable.
She is a pro. She made me look like a bloody banshee.
Sam is a different kettle of fish in many ways. Shaved head, funky earring, jazzy printed shirt ALWAYS wearing shorts, long socks and converse. To a lot of people he seemed a bit intimidating but to me, he is one of the funniest people I have ever met. Sam had a tendancy during his time at Flat Iron to wind customers up for his enjoyment, with mixed results. His favourite moves were shouting ‘Where the HELL have you been? I’ve been worried sick!’ when groups came back for their table or simply just throwing their buzzer into the street as it went off. He was one of the only people who really made an effort to talk to our largely Asian clientele who mostly went unnoticed. He also did not take any shit.
Apologies for the long introduction but I feel like I needed to set the scene so you can truly understand how much of a dick Lily was. Right, here we go. The point.
Busy Friday Night as ever and the bar is full of customers, waiting for their imminent tables. Lottie is outside taking people’s numbers and Sam and I are looking at our growing list and wondering how the hell we are going to fit everyone in.
Enter Lily, casting her deathly shadow from the door. In her mid to late thirties, dressed in corporate clothing, flanked by her 7 mates, all in suits. All between the ages of 30-40 years old.
She addresses me directly and ignores Lottie. This is commonplace, the hosting system isn’t obvious to everybody but I immediately gage that she is drunk. Not paraletic, but enough that she isn’t really going to listen anything I have to say. Again, not rare.
‘I need a Table for 8 at 8pm. It’s my birthday.’
I look at the clock. 7.56.
I brace myself. ‘Sorry, I don’t believe we will get you a table that soon. But my colleague Lottie can put you on the list. It will probably take -‘
‘It’s my birthday.’
I glance at the group behind her. All stone cold sober, not saying anything.
‘It’s a lot of people’s birthdays. We will take your number, and we will give you a text when it’s ready.’
Before I could finish speaking, they flood in. Lottie desperately tries to grab a name from one of them as I watch the already crowded bar add an extra 8 unwelcome visitors. The bar is very narrow and is the only access to the main restaurant, so 10 people often seemed like 100. The bartenders flash an all too familiar ‘thanks a fucking bunch’ to Sam and I.
We grimace. Not ideal. I look at the list of big parties we had – Lily was the fourth out of four.
‘That’s at least 2 and a half hours.’ Sam observed. ‘Birthday or no birthday.’ I nod.
The night carries on. We move like ants, weaving in an out of tables like we had done a thousand times before. Busy, but doable. When the timers start to get red, that’s when we click into action. Nobody wants an angry mob at your door and tonight it was Lottie’s job to make sure she was giving realistic timings to everyone and managing expectations. After all, we can only do our best. Get as angry as you like at a 3 hour wait, we never pretended otherwise.
‘Where’s my table?’
I spin round. Lily. Here eyes are slightly unfocused. Again, I glance over to her posse sitting at the bar. They are all looking at me, none of them are smiling.
‘As I said, not quite yet. You are looking at a few hours. Why don’t you guys head to a bar so you can be a bit more comfortable? You don’t want to spend your birthday all crammed into a tiny space.’
‘Well, can you at least give us a table to wait at?’
‘I wish I could. But if I had a spare table to use I would have people eating on it.’ With that, she turns on her heel and walks back to the bar.
If by this time, you have a voice representing me in your head that is condescending and impatient, I will absolutely cop to that. Spot on at this point.
A few minutes later, I am saying goodbye to a nice couple on the way out. I am just about to answer their question about the ice cream dessert when –
‘Is it ready now?’
Before I turn around I think to myself ‘Surely this is a child asking me this. Surely it’s not a middle aged city worker with red wine stained teeth asking where her table is for the third time in 10 minutes.’
No luck. There’s our girl Lily.
By this time, other customers at the bar have noticed her behavior. As I am explaining myself once again I catch an eye of a lady at the bar, whose eyes are saying ‘really?’ to mine that are saying ‘yes really’.
This time Sam interjects ‘Is there a problem?’. Normally in times like this, whether we liked it or not, a male presence was always helpful. Seemed to diffuse a few situations. Sam was on the borderline of being a guy that looked like he could nut you at any moment but also take amazing pictures of you on his Olympus OM-10.
‘I’m just wondering why I have to wait for a table whilst you are all just standing here.’
The lady that was asking about ice cream’s mouth drops. I grit my teeth. Sam smiles.
‘We are going as fast as we can. Please return to your seat.’
Over the next 15 minutes, Lily comes over to talk to me 6 times. Six. By the 4th or 5th time all manners have gone out of the window and I am literally pleading with her to leave me alone. The timers were all pulsing red and Lottie was slowly being submerged in passive aggressive ‘I’m not being funny but I’ve waited long enough‘ Keiths and Sharons. The night was about to head south and steering the shit stained ship was our pal Lily. I had had enough.
‘Look, you are stopping me from doing my job. I have three big parties to sit before you who have waited hours longer and every minute I speak to you is another minute you and everybody else doesn’t get to eat. So sit down.’
Spoiler. She doesn’t.
My mind goes to another table of 8 that was waiting that night, out with their kids for their sons 18th. No bother, no fuss, very polite. Drinking at All Bar One next door, having fun and waiting their turn. No way in HELL was I going to sit the demons of the deep before them. That’s not how life works.
At this point I do what we hosts were not a fan of doing and that was ask for a managers help. I fly down the stairs into the manager, Darren’s office.
‘Right, not being funny but you need to come get this lady upstairs, she is being a prize dick.’
Meanwhile, Queen Lilz had turned on Sam in my absense. She had started to do impressions of him (Yes, really.) and was at the point of no return.
‘Oh, you’re all so excluuuusive! Look, we’re so busy! Look at us!’ She starts to flounce.
Instead of trying to reason with her, Sam walks away. As he goes he hisses at her the now immortal words with all the flourish of a Disney villain – ‘You are never getting a table. Ever!’
At this point the bar is completely silent, eating popcorn (a genuine bar snack, not just for dramatic effect), watching what we are going to do next. As Sam tries to sit one couple, they ask if they can wait longer so they can see how this pans out.
We had lost control of the situation. The list was ever growing as the queue grew longer, all because a woman who is probably paid more than all of us put together was hungry and wanted this particular restaurant over all the other ones. The level of rudeness and self delusion was revolutionary. We were used to shitty customers but this level of harassment was unprecedented. She would not leave us alone. Wherever we went, she followed. Lottie had made the wise decision to stop taking names until we had this little witch under control.
Darren had spoken to her and was on the way back to me.
‘Just sit her down.’
‘What?! No!’
‘Come on, I can’t be bothered with the aggro.’ He pleads with me.
‘Mate, I don’t have anywhere to SIT her. I can’t whittle a table out of thin air, I’m not a fucking magical carpenter.’
Off he goes into the crowd. A few minutes later he returns. Before he could speak again, our antagonist returns with her phrase of choice.
‘Where’s my table?’
Before I could lunge at her, Darren calmly side steps in front of me.
She slurs at him. ‘You are all doing fuck all work when you could be finding me a table, it’s just ridiculous.’
Blood is starting to seep from my ears. Darren ignores her.
‘So I have just had a look at the restaurant, and it looks like in about 30 minutes I will be able to put 4 tables of 2 together for you.’ He turns to me. ‘The twenties’.
My face goes grey. The twenties were the busiest and more importantly, the fastest moving section in the restaurant. You sit a table of 8 there and 5 other smaller tables will be coming for my throat.
‘There’s no way in hell.’ I hiss through my teeth. Darren and I had a very good relationship, he trusted me with a lot and let me run things the way I wanted to. But this time he was pulling rank, and God did I know it. Just as feel my feet start to walk towards the twenties I stop suddenly and for the first time in a while, address Lily directly.
‘You know what? No. I’m not getting you a table. Your behaviour is disgusting. You are vile.‘
She starts to laugh. It strikes me that I have never said that to anyone, ever.
‘You are NOT getting the twenties.’
I quickly realise she has no idea what this means. I turn to Darren and repeat myself in a much higher pitched, more hysterical tone.
‘She is NOT getting the twenties!’
I flounce off into the restaurant and as I pass Lily’s stone cold sober group of pals I find myself screaming in their direction – ‘Why aren’t you SAYING anything?!’
The next few hours are a bit of a blur. We go back to managing the night as usual as Darren takes control and leads Lily’s group to a downstairs table. We are all seething at the fact that her actions have been rewarded but equally relieved not to have to deal with her anymore.
We later find out that as they sit down in their private booth, Darren tells the group (whilst Lily is in the toilet) that they are all barred after tonight. He also chastises the group to not have intervened quicker when their spokesperson was clearly inhebriated and abusive. He also asked them all to apologise to the three of us before they left.
Time goes by, and our rage levels subside. Every customer that comes up the stairs we brace ourselves for. Then, after what seems like forever, she emerges.
She saunters over to us with a smile on her face. Sam stares her down.
‘Are you here to apologise?’
She smirks. ‘Why would I?’
Lottie is taking out her earrings, ready for a brawl. I nearly pass out with rage.
Lily steps forward. So close to Sam’s face they were almost touching noses. We watch on incredulously.
She raises her hand to Sam’s face and pats his cheek.
‘ N’aww… you just have So. Many. Rules…’
Pat. Pat. Pat.
I think my eyes literally go black. Like when a shark smells blood from miles away. Lottie starts laughing maniacally. Sam continues to stare her down.
‘Get out.’
And with that, she was gone.
I think about Lily a lot. She is like the ghost at the feast, always there in my mind. I have a kind of Killing Eve relationship with her… more of the killing side of things and less the sexual tension but still. It borders on obsession with how much I despise her.
I wonder if she thinks of me. Of us. She probably has no recollection of that night. I no longer work there, and, for now at least, Flat Iron isn’t open to customers and she is unable to darken it’s doors even if she wanted to.
I dedicate this story to everyone working for Flat Iron and are worried that they will ever have a job to go back to after this is all over. I look back at my time there very fondly and in these times of fear, uncertainty and worry, I hope this story of how much of an arsehole a customer once was helps takes your mind off of what is happening outside.
And Lily, if you’re reading this, I hope you and your family are healthy and doing well.
But if I ever see you again once this all dies down, it’s prison rules, bitch.
Comments