When you’re hungry, you want to eat. When you’re tired, you want to sit. Neither was happening.
The evening was gearing up to be everything a restaurant experience shouldn’t be: stressful, annoying and carried out on the restaurant’s terms, not those of the paying customer. We had a reservation at Anchor & Hope, the new offering in SOMA from the guys who brought you Town Hall and Salt House. (That’s how they bill themselves on the Anchor & Hope website.) But for Anchor & Hope, our table was booked a week in advance and still the best we could get was 8:45. That’s a perfectly reasonable hour in most cases, but on this night, I was with folks who worked real jobs and started their day with the roosters–not to mention two of our party had a $15-an-hour babysitter at home. By 5:30 that afternoon, were already starving and exhausted, so we called the restaurant to see about sneaking in a little earlier.
The young woman working the phones was about as accommodating as if we’d asked to take the china home with us. “There’s really no way I can get you in before the time you were given,” she told my friend. So when we countered by asking if we just showed up maybe twenty minutes early, would they see what they could do for us? The hostess replied. “You can come in a little early, but it’s still going to be 8:45 before we can seat you.”
Fair enough, it was a Friday night in a big restaurant town. And reservations are just that, reservations. Still, I was picking up some heavy attitude. This place had better be great to warrant this level of ego. (Is it ever warranted, really?) Anchor & Hope’s pedigree is worthy enough. Expanding on the brand created by local darlings Town Hall and Salt House can only be expected and doesn’t seem to have been done in an overly rushed manner. Town Hall, while a bit full of itself, is consistently good and proved reasonably accommodating to last minute reservations when I was living in San Francisco.
We arrived at 8:30 and checked in with the hostess, who reiterated what she had told us over the phone before motioning us to the bar area. Having a drink at the bar before a meal is a wonderful way to unwind, provided there is room for you at the bar, which of course there wasn’t. What resulted was forty minutes of constantly feeling like we were in the way. At one point my friend and I were trying to hold a conversation with an enormous basket of baguettes standing between us like some golden-crusted sea urchin (more on those spiny creatures later). It was a dramatic piece of decoration. But I hoped for everyone’s sake it wasn’t functional. One sudden wet sneeze and the whole evening’s bread supply would be speckled with a phlegmy dose of head-cold. As fate would have it, a server slipped between us a few minutes later and plucked out several loaves destined for consumption. We wouldn’t be having bread that night, we decided silently. (Let’s hope the management rethinks this little misguided storage decision.)
Despite our enduring the restless shuffling and the hostess’s unnecessary coolness, everyone else on staff seemed ever so courteous and professional. We couldn’t even get up to the 35-foot long zinc bar to order because of the crowd, so the bartender made a point to recognize us and then walked around to our side to ask what we’d like to drink. It turns out there’s a great selection of interesting beers behind that long, beautiful bar that we couldn’t get close enough to touch.
It was a rainy, cold night. The only table that looked close to paying its bill was an inhospitable little outpost erected by the front door like a cruel afterthought. The four miserable people seated there clutched their coffee cups a little tighter every time the door opened and a bracing San Francisco breeze ripped through their bodies. The risk was too great. Aware that it could delay our meal even further, I approached the hostess perched imperiously behind her podium.
“I know you’re doing everything you can,” I lied, “But could we request that we not be seated at that table?”
The hostess nodded knowingly. “I understand,” she said. It was the first glimpse of humanity she’d let escape.
Mercifully, a few minutes later a better table opened up and we took our seats. Our waiter, Brady, turned out to be the general manager. And with his appearance, Anchor & Hope began to redeem itself. He apologized immediately, but more impressive, knew exactly what he was apologizing for. “Hi there. I know you folks were hungry and tried to get seated a little early, and here we are not seating you until twenty minutes past your reservation time. I’m really sorry about that. It’s been an unusually busy night, but that’s no excuse.”
Ok, so you had me at, “Hi there.” A heart-felt apology goes a long way in the customer service world, and Brady’s was no exception. All at once the stress of the last hour melted away. We had a great table. More fun beers were on the way. And some earnest words from the manager made us feel appreciated.
But Brady wasn’t done. Five minutes later he appeared with one of their signature appetizers for the table, compliments of the kitchen. But sea urchin, in any form, excites me about as much as putting on wet clothes. It’s the thought that counts, right? I folded my hands politely while my three friends dutifully and gratefully picked at the freebie.
Thanks anyway. (photo by Marcia Gagliardi, tablehopper.com)
Heavily tilted toward fish and oysters, the menu offered little that I could get excited about. Perhaps I was so hungry that seafood didn’t seem substantial enough, or perhaps the memory of the urchin had pointed me away from the ocean entirely. I opted for the pork, which was good, but nothing to blog about.
As we finished our main courses, a man came up to our table and identified himself as Dough Washington, one of the owners. He apologized for not getting to us sooner, citing an extremely busy night not only here at Anchor & Hope, but over at Salt House from where he had just come. He then apologized for the fact that we had tried to get seated early and ended being seated after our scheduled time. Brady had well briefed him; it was a nice touch. Then he offered to buy us a round of drinks. but our Midwestern Protestant upbringing waved him off. They’d done enough for us, I heard myself think. Fortunately, my Californian never-say-no-to-free-booze lushiness caught him before he walked away.
“You know, I think I’ll take you up on that.” I said. My friends didn’t need much prodding after that. Mr. Washington quickly returned with two glasses of champagne and two good local beers.
So at this point, we were content. The food was good, not great. But we had been well cared for after an initial annoyance and felt like all was right. So happy with the new restaurant were we that we even ordered dessert, something I’m genetically incapable of doing when a place has pissed me off. I just can’t.
And that’s when Brady hit the ball out of Pac Bell or AT&T or whatever-the-hell-it’s-now-called Park and plunked it into McCovey Cove.
“I know you folks were kept waiting tonight, sorry again. We brought you some appetizers. I hoped you enjoyed them, but I got the sense it wasn’t your favorite. And two of you ordered the pork, but you just didn’t seem too blown away by it. And we want you to be. So tonight, we just like to make you our guest.”
Pause. Did he just say he’s comping the whole check?
“You don’t have to do that.” Four adults said in perfect unison. But Brady was adamant. We hadn’t enjoyed our meals enough to please him and that was that. And he’d been watching.
So for watching, and for paying attention, and for trying to make things right, he earned himself a few customers for life–customers who will tell their friends about it, just like I’m doing now.
Anchor & Hope. 83 Minna St., San Francisco. Great beers. Avoid the bread, unless you’re already sick. Suggested dish: Order the pork, then act slightly, but not overly displeased. Good things might happen. Note: free stuff cannot be guaranteed.
This dispatch from San Francisco is part of an ongoing mission of the Wreckoning to explore the best and worst of other cities around the world. Coming soon…New York City.
Hope and Anchor photo by Joseph Lubushkin