Today with Patty

Today With Patty: A Pretty Good Marketing Ploy

by Patty

I ended up spending the whole weekend working. I just hate that.

My husband and I did go to The Umstead Hotel and Spa umstead.com/dining for dinner on Saturday night, and the food was very good. But, I do have two observations for them.

One is I called a week ago for the reservation and asked for a 7:30 p.m. reservation, and they were completely booked. I was finally able to secure a 6:45 p.m. reservation. So we show up at 6:45 p.m., and they seat us at a nice little corner booth. We were there until probably 9 p.m. What was interesting was the fact that no more than 20-25 percent of the restaurant was occupied at that time. It is actually a pretty good marketing ploy, as it implies that you can’t get a seat because they are so booked.

My Whine About The Wine

The other thing that was disappointing was that we ordered a bottle of white wine when we sat down. They apparently did not have the wine cold. Here’s a tip: White wine is served chilled, so you may want to do that ahead of time.

In any event, they could not seem to get that wine iced down — no matter how hard they tried. They put the bottle in a bucket of ice, thinking that would do it. Then we suggested that they add water. And, finally, by the time our entrée arrives, we still don’t have a glass of wine. … And you know that I get pretty ugly if I can’t have my glass of wine.

So, finally someone figured out that if they put salt in the ice water, it would get cold. What annoyed me was the fact that they didn’t offer to get us another bottle of wine which was chilled or give us a glass of wine to enjoy with our appetizer and salad while we were waiting for the wine to cool down — just a thought for the future.

All Dolled Up

Today I came in looking pretty much like a bag of dirt. But, I’m all dolled up now. Why you ask? It is because I have a photo shoot for a magazine cover. So after spending a fortune on a new outfit, having my hair and make-up done, I am looking about as good as I’m going to get.

Now, I just need to lose 100 pounds between now and 5 p.m. Wish me luck.

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