I like to go out to eat as much as the next guy. Maybe even more so. When I was working full-time, my husband and I used to have dinner out 5-6 times a week. That tapered off a bit over the years, especially after I started freelancing and was no longer dragging home after a lousy commute, and especially-especially after Jim became ill. We still managed to eat out regularly - the first day of chemo, when you're pumped up on steroids, is a surprisingly good day for having a nice meal in a restaurant - just not as often.
Since Jim's death - at least up until COVID - I probably ate out once or twice a week, lunch or dinner. With COVID, dining out screeched to a halt. When I really didn't want to cook or otherwise throw something together for a meal, I did take-out.
I'm now happy to be doing a bit more eating out/dining in. So far, I've been back to a few old favorites, and on last weekend's jaunt to Vermont, explored some surprisingly good spots. Had my first ever Roman-Jewish fried artichokes - to die for - at a sploshy resort spot, and an excellent veggie burger with yummy fries at a farm-to-table hamburger stand in a converted gas station.
The eating situation in Vermont was tight. We were in a resort area (Stratton) where many places were still not opened back up. (A number had been open during the high skiing season, but hadn't re-opened for the summer yet.) We had a couple of long-ish waits at places that were having a hard time finding staff. Which I guess is what happens when a kabillion restaurants try to restart all at once and a lot of their potential hires found other (better) jobs while they were on hiatus.
Back in Boston, I tried to make a Saturday night rez at a local neighborhood favorite and couldn't get one until mid-August.
So I know the disappointment of not being able to get fully back into the dining out swing.
But I guess it's worse if you're in The Hamptons and you're used to seeing, being seen, and getting whatever your little heart desires. Or so I saw in a recent story in the Daily Mail with the headline that irresistibly began Boiling Point! Desperate Hampton Diners...
Now, I've never been to The Hamptons, and a visit there is not on my bucket list. (Good thing.) But I've read plenty of articles about goings on there, and seen plenty of movies and TV shows set there. Plus I have been to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. So I think I get the zeitgeist. Lots of celebrities and other uber-rich folks in mansion-level "beach houses". Lots of ye olde quaint towns with pricey shops and restaurants.
Who are the celebs? I did a quick google, and the roster includes Alec Baldwin, Anderson Cooper, Robert De Niro,
Beyoncé & Jay Z, Julianna Moore, Anthony Scaramucci (hah!), Kelly Ripa, Louis CK (ugh!), Calvin Klein, and Ina Garten. Colson Whitehead lives there; Truman Capote used to. As did Bernie Madoff.
The Daily Mail item was scooped up from The New York Post, so I decided to go to the ur-source. And what an ur-source it was. Lots of delicious little bits in there.
One regular told The Post she was at Le Bilboquet in Sag Harbor last weekend and overheard a manager discussing how he had taken a mini-voyage on a customer’s yacht and spent an afternoon at the man’s golf club.
“Suddenly the $100 tip we gave him didn’t seem very impressive,” the regular admitted. (Source: NY Post)
Hundred dollar tip, huh? Chump change!
Especially when you have 1,200 names on the list to get on the reservation list - none of which were going to make it off the reservation-to-get-a-reservation list and onto the actual Bilboquet reservation list.
Desperate Hampton diners are offering NASCAR tickets, helicopter rides, concert tickets, envelopes stuffed with cash.
Andrew Tobin is the GM of Tutto Il Giorno, another popular Southampton boîte.
“The calls usually start with, ‘We’d like to invite you to something’ — and then it’s, ‘Oh, by the way, can we get a table?’ ” he said with a laugh. “The [diners’] assistants who call have become very aggressive.”
In real life, in the before times, I doubt these rich folks would be inviting restaurant managers to anything. Chef owners maybe. The help? Nah! Yet desperate times call for desperate measures.
Prospective diners are offering thousands of dollars in, well, is there any other word for it other than "bribes"? Not that I've never tipped a maitre d'. (Actually I haven't, but I've been in the company of my husband when he has. Lemme tell you, twenty bucks used to be worth something.)
Sometimes you don't need to bribe. You just need to be a good customer.
How good?
One guy spent $25K - yes, you read that correctly: twenty-five thousand dollars - at Southampton's 75 Main the other weekend. That enabled him to secure a table for the Glorious Fourth. Another fellow bought "his" table for the season, with a five-figure down payment that "doesn't even go toward food credit."
There are still folks who are worming their way into tables the old-fashioned way.
Mitch Modell is the former CEO of Modell Sporting Goods. Even after pressing $100 bills into the hands of everyone who looked like an employee of 75 Main, he wasn't able to secure a table. He saw two women finishing up their meal at a table for two. He asked them if, in return for picking up their tab, he and his friends - all five of them - could join them. Why not? Modell and Company squeezed in over dessert. No table problem solved! Except for the waiter who'd have to serve six folks at a table built for two. And the hapless yokel who had been waiting for that table to free up:
“We all crowded in to their little table and one guy [who was waiting] started flipping out, yelling that it was supposed to be his,” Modell recalled. “It was a little cramped and the tables around us were staring, but you have to do what you have to do and we were hungry.”Money talks, alright. So do yacht rides and NASCAR tickets, envelopes full of loot and a $25K tab that the restaurant hopes gets repeated. But sometimes, you do need to resort to good old fashioned d-baggery to get what you want and feel you're entitled to.
The Hamptons? Not on my bucket list to begin with. Not going on there now.
I did see that Ina Garten has a place in the Hamptons. Maybe for $25K you could get her to come over to your place and whip up a meal. Not a see and be seen kind of thing, but certainly some bragging rights involved. Might be worth giving Ina a ring. (Does she make Roman-Jewish artichokes? If so, please invite me along. Or maybe I could put on some black pants and a white shirt and wait on you while Ina cooked...)
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