the sunshine state

Last week I went to south Florida to celebrate my mother’s 92^nd. birthday together with my two sisters & their husbands, who are all happy as clams living in this so-called tropical paradise. My mother kept pointing out that I’m her only daughter who didn’t relocate to south Florida, & this made her very unhappy. But frankly, dear friends, while i'd never tell this to my mother, I’d rather die. Well maybe dying is too drastic, but maybe it’s not; my idea of hell is gated communities with foreboding guarded entrances designed to look like the great European palaces, complete with rococo fountains, formal flower gardens & finely clipped hedges, Roman statuary, everything faux, Las Vegas style, with names like The Palace of Versailles or the Gardens of Finzi Contini, the Halls of Valhalla and other evocations of royalty like that; where all the houses are grouped around an artificial lake or a golf-course; same color, same style, same false pillars & stiff grass no feet will ever touch; & judging by the 2 cars parked inside every garage the local Lexus salesman must have won every prize in the book.

Give me the big city with all its diversity & problems. I’d live in a city slum before I’d move to the Floridian suburbia my family considers paradise on earth.

Don’t get me wrong, please. I love my family. They are good people who treat me with loving kindness & respect & are entitled to love what they love. They took me in, fed me 3 meals a day & looked after me. I was happy to use the clubhouse swimming pool each day. In fact, while they are too polite to say it, I know they think living in Los Angeles is hell & that I’m crazy to live in such a horrible place. Maybe they’d rather die than live in West Hollywood. In spite of this we ignore our differences, care about each other, rally together to face life’s difficulties & to celebrate joyful occasions.

To celebrate my mother’s birthday, my sisters & I took her – and her 95 year old boyfriend – to a restaurant in Boynton Beach named DaVinci’s. Our reservation was for 6:30 PM, an unfashionable time to dine in a land where the evening meal usually begins at 2:30 in the afternoon. Nevertheless, we decided to forgo the “early-bird special” prices in favor of not dining right after lunch & having to go to bed on an empty stomach.

All but 2 of us arrived at 6:15 PM – a bit early, I admit, but not a lot either. The hostess informed us that we could not be seated until all of our party was present. “But we’ve got a 92 year old & a 95 year old with us,” protested my sister. “Can’t we sit down & wait?” We spotted our table; seven places set at an empty table. “We want to sit down now,” I demanded in support for what I thought was a reasonable request.

The hostess informed us that was against restaurant policy & refused to seat us. We asked to speak to the manager. Joe, the manager, came out of the kitchen & said he was very sorry but that was restaurant policy & it was his job to enforce it. We had to wait until the whole party was here. We explained our point of view again in a more forceful manner but Joe was adamant. The owners of the restaurant had given him strict orders: no one was to sit down without the entire table being present.

I wanted to punch Joe right in the kisser. My sister fumed; she wanted to leave & go somewhere else for dinner. My brother-in-law pointed out that we’d never find seats in another restaurant at this late hour without reservations, and by the time we got there….

My mother was shifting from one leg to another & her boyfriend looked like he would soon topple over. I asked Joe what was more important: to blindly obey rules or make his customers happy so they will return again & again & send their friends. He chose the former & offered to bring out two chairs for our elderly to sit in the entranceway of the restaurant amid the coming & going traffic of other patrons.

My sister demanded to speak to the owners, Joe took her card; he’d convey the message & ask them to call her, then he returned to the kitchen. The hostess looked down at her shoes.

My other sister & brother-in-law arrived soon after; we all sat down together, ordered & ate a fine meal that was well served. Yet we resolved never to return to this restaurant & to tell all our friends this story so they would not go either. How else can you inform a restaurant that you don’t like their service?

Two days later the owner of the restaurant called my sister & repeated that they held to their policy, insisted that the hostess & manager did the right thing -- and that was that. Then they asked if there was something they could offer to my sister & brother-in-law. “Certainly not,” said my sister, rightly refusing to be bought off, & adding, “you’ll never see us again.”

So, please don’t go to DaVinci’s restaurant in Boynton Beach Florida. Thank you.