Imagethief

I must preface this with two warnings. First, Imagethief is going to name names. As a PR man my instinct is often to smooth over difficulties and embarrassments, but some problems truly are best addressed in the cold and antiseptic light of public inquiry. Second, this is not going to be your typical Chinese waiter story. In fact, the waiter in this story really plays only a peripheral role, a bit player in a much larger systemic failure. But he has stuck in my memory as the living embodiment of this sorry incident.

The Fourth of July is special date for Americans. Non-Americans who believe what they read in history textbooks may believe that the Fourth of July commemorates Independence: that day in 1776 when the founding fathers of my nation cast off the yoke of royal tyranny, established the republic and embarked upon the world's greatest experiment in representative democracy. I suppose that's true, but it pales beside the true purpose of the day, which is barbecue.

America is often accused of having no culture and no cuisine. This accusation seems to be the particular province of those who refuse to rate any meal that doesn't involve filigreeing live molluscs with a scalpel, pickling nasturtium buds or fermenting the unpasteurized milk of vermin. It is ignorant and unfair and I categorically reject it, even if it is nothing more than a straw man I set up so I would have something to categorically reject.

In fact it is fairer to say that as an immigrant country America has no defining culture or cuisine (although our major culinary export, fast food, may leave an impression to the contrary). There are, however, some cuisines that span the country. Barbecue is one of them.

To those who say barbecue is not a cuisine I direct my most withering contempt. Barbecue is not only a cuisine, it is the ur-cuisine. The cuisine of our ancestors. The cuisine to which all other cuisines (except maybe vegan) can trace their ancestry. Its beauty lies in its deceptive simplicity. To make a barbecue all you really need is three things:

• Mastery of fire
• A dead animal, the larger the better
  
• Sauce

And arguably the sauce is optional.

The subtle variations and interplay of these three simple components create a constellation of carcinogenic goodness. Our pioneer ancestors conquered a continent on barbecue, and as they went they developed schools and traditions that reflected the personalities of the great pasturelands and stockyard towns that blossomed in the wakes of the wagon trains: Memphis, Texas, Carolina and Kasas City.

These groupings are the source of much debate. There are, in fact, many interpretations of the major American barbecue schools (or "churches" as I believe they should be formally known). For more analysis you may check here, here or here. Nevertheless, everyone pretty much agrees that "Texas" represents a definitive and major school (or church). Therefore as an American, even one from the effete lands of Northern California, I was pleased to learn that Shanghai has a "Texas-style" barbecue in the form of Bubba's, on Hongqiao Road, not far from the airport.

I was even more pleased when two weeks ago a good friend of mine convened a Fourth of July dinner there for a large group friends. While nothing quite duplicates the experience of hauling out the rusty, old Weber and roasting your own meat (hold your jokes) in celebration of American independence, this dinner represented a satisfying tip of the hat to tradition. Fourth of July. Texas barbecue. It's a natural connection that any American would make. You would also assume that a "Texas barbecue" restaurant would make the same connection and plan appropriately for a large crowd and large appetites by ensuring adequate supplies and adequate staffing.

However any such assumption would be catastrophically wrong.

Bubba's was definitely popping on the Fourth, even though it fell rather unfortunately on a Wednesday. Both floors were crowded, and the upstairs section was  hosting a large standing-room crowd that appeared to be doing more drinking and loud singing than eating. Our host had booked for fifteen, but twenty-one had showed up. Nevertheless, the restaruant managed to put some tables together and seat us all. That would be about the last success of the evening.

The first sign of trouble came when it took half an hour to get a waiter to take drink orders. To leave a party of twenty-one hanging dry for half an hour is a restaurateuring felony on the order of cockroach croutons. In fact, the actual wait was longer for some people who had arrived considerably before Mrs. Imagethief and I did. If nothing else, get the beer flowing. After some badgering we managed to get the waiter round to take orders. Apparently intimidated by the idea of keeping twenty-one drink orders straight (an admittedly tall task, but one I've seen managed elsewhere), he worked hard to encourage us to stay away from individual orders and simply take pitchers of beer. Most of us were willing to be persuaded on this front, despite some early enthusiasm for the heavily promoted craft beers served at the restaurant.

The next problem was getting menus, although that too was eventually managed with a combination of hand-waving and flailing from most of us and initiative from Mrs. Imagethief who went in search of menus and also cutlery for several members of our party who did not have place settings. As it would turn out, we could have left the cutlery. Most of it would never be used.

We had plenty of time to peruse the menu. About an hour by my reckoning before we managed to strong-arm the waiter into taking our order. The restaurant was obviously running a skeleton crew on the worst of all possible nights, and the waiter was under pressure. Unfortunately he did almost nothing to help himself. Although he spoke superb English, he showed both a towering lack of initiative and a singularly snarky wit. A nerdy former recipient of many schoolyard taunts, Imagethief is well acquainted with the "humor as defense mechanism" instinct. However, as a PR man I would also be the first person to say that there are times when that instinct must be suppressed at all costs. When you are serving a large, hungry and increasingly irritated holiday party at your restaurant is one of those times. Total servility laced with a hint of obsequiousness would be the attitude to strive for in those circumstances.

The waiter did not, in fact, take our orders. Instead he passed around a few pencils and slips of paper on which we wrote our own orders. Here Bubba's suffered something of the curse of barbecue restaurants everywhere, which is to enable diners to pick combinations of mains and multiple side orders. Twenty one people by ten mains by a choice of any two of six sides yields over 6,000 combinations if I do my math correctly (which I probably don't). That's a lot of room for error, and I am sure the waiter looked at the crowd, did a rapid calculation of his chances of keeping all the orders straight, and arrived at an undoubtedly correct solution of "zero". As with the forced beer order we were cooperative, although I thought to myself, "Lucky for you that you don't work in a country with tipping."

The waiter reviewed the written orders and informed us that pulled pork was out already. The tags were handed back for remedial ordering. I found myself thinking that early warning would have been useful. Nevertheless, off our orders went toward the kitchen and we settled back in anticipation of a righteous Texas feast.

In due course, appetizers arrived and we ate them. And more beer arrived. And we ordered more appetizers. And they arrived. And more beer arrived.

No main courses arrived.

We asked the waiter. He said there was a large crowd that night, which we could see and assumed the restaurant had planned for. He said the restaurant was understaffed, which we found surprising but agreed was not his fault. He said the kitchen had only two people in it, and they were working furiously. He said that we had booked for fifteen but had showed up with twenty-one.

That's where our patience began to wear thin. Blame the management, blame bad luck, blame an act of god, blame a party of heavily armed Taliban soldiers holed up in the walk-in with rocket propelled grenades. Just don't blame the customer. Our extra five people was not what pushed Bubba's over the edge that night. Our extra five people was a tiny if irritating pimple on the ass of the Fourth of July crowd. It was maybe, just possibly, a five-percent swing in the overal patronage. One of our party (not Mrs. Imagethief this time) went stomping off in search of the manager. She returned defeated a few minutes later. "They don't seem to care," she said glumly.

Shortly before ten, main courses began to arrive. Two of them, to be exact. Encouraged by this false dawn, we waited a little while longer. As ten-thirty crept closer we forced the issue.

"How long will it take for the rest of us to be served?" someone asked. There was some evasion and prevaricating. We pushed. Finally, "An hour." We asked for the manager and the waiter was reluctant to get him.

That's when we decided to walk out. We had been in the restaurant for three hours and two people out of a party of twenty one had been served their main course. Enough was enough.

And walk out we did. As I was going down the stairs a foreign man in a "Bubba's" T-shirt passed me on the way up. I presume he was the manager, on the way up to speak to our host. Most of the party assembled outside and debated if it was worth going somewhere else, perhaps to a late-night seafood place.

Our host finally emerged and said that the manager had waived the cheque for the evening and comped us the beer and appetizers. While I appreciated the gesture, I felt by the time the party was out front hailing taxis the cheque wasn't really an issue any more. The manager had also extended the invitation that anyone who wanted could still stay and have dinner, but would still have to wait. At past ten-thirty on a work night I didn't have the endurance. I felt bad for our host, a good friend of mine who deserved better than having his evening detonated by an unprepared restaurant. But I simply wasn't ready to leave the fate of my dinner in Bubba's hands any longer. Mrs. Imagethief and I headed home and at nearly eleven-thirty I finally had a Fourth of July dinner of leftovers culled from the fridge.

Imagethief wants Bubba's to succeed because the thought of Tony Roma's as the only barbecue joint in town is simply too depressing to contemplate. In fact, I have previously dined at Bubba's and found it, if not the very soul of Texas, at least serviceable. In the US I would simply vow never to return. But this is Shanghai and options are fewer and some allowances can be made for middlebrow restaurants feeling their way. (And I say "middlebrow" because as hard as I've been on Bubba's here imagine how ruthless I'd be if I'd had this experience at one of the swank "anniversary and expense account" places like T-8 where it's hard to get out for under RMB 1000 a plate.) Therefore, in the spirit of trying to keep this rant somehat constructive, I have some advice for Bubba's:

• Warn diners up front if you're slammed and service will take a while. Tell me the kitchen is blasted and all you can manage is appetizers and beers. I'll be much more likely to come back if I hear the bad news before I'm committed than two or three hours later when I am starving, impatient and tired. Even if that means I dine somewhere else that night.
  

• Have some radar. If a party of twenty-one is not being served and is getting surly, the manager needs to hear about it and address the problem sooner rather than later, even if just with some honest communication. There were about three occasions when the manager could have shown up in person, told us what was going on, offered a moderate discount or otherwise helped to smooth things over. Instead, we didn't see him until we were on the way out the door. That's too late to solve the problem and it misses several opportunities to salvage good will.
  

• Train the staff. In most restaurants in China waitering isn't quite the art form that it might be elsewhere. Part of this may be that the incentive of tipping is removed. Part of it may simply be a lack of concern with standards of service. PR people teach clients that everyone in your company is a potential representative. For a restaurant, the situation is crystal clear: waiters are the single biggest point of human interaction that most customers have with them. The dirt-cheap Chinese grease joint on the corner might be able to get away with surly or snarky service (although even in those kinds of places my patience is not what it once was -- I've been in China long enough that rudeness is no longer novel). A western-style restaurant charging western-style prices cannot. If I am going to be laying out a couple of hundred RMB per plate at the end of the night, I expect at the very least courteous, responsive service, if not the fawning obiesance of a high-end dining room.

• And most of all, if you're going to call yourself a "Texas Barbecue" restaurant, put a big, red "X" on every major American holiday in the calendar and staff up appropriately. This is especially true on the Fourth of July. I realize that Bubba's is relatively new and this is their first Fourth, so they can consider this valuable learning for their second.
  

If Bubba's thinks I am being hard on them, they should imagine what would have happened if they had actually been in Texas. As for me, come next Fourth of July I'll barbecue at home. At least then I'll have no one other than myself to blame for failure to deliver.

Update:

Bubba's has responded. Take the time to read KJ's comment below. I appreciate the candor and it makes me want to give Bubba's another shot.

 That'll learn ya to keep the barbecue comin', pardner.