How to please a celebrity client

(Second of two parts)

The other day, I gave restaurant owners some tips on how to deal with celebrity clients. Since I appear every Saturday on Startalk, I sometimes get extra perks when I dine in local restaurants.

About a decade ago, when Katipunan was not yet the restaurant row that it is now, I would have to drive to the Teachers’ Village area (from my home in La Vista) to eat out. One of my favorite restaurants there was Muang Thai which served excellent Thai food.

On my second visit there, I was pleasantly surprised when the waiter brought to my table a nice mango dessert – on the house. The owner, Mrs. Lopez, happened to call up the restaurant and one of the staffers must have mentioned to her that I was dining there and she promptly had the complimentary dessert sent to me.

I never met Mrs. Lopez (neither was I able to get her first name), but each time I would dine in Muang Thai (there’s another one in Baguio – in Nevada Square), I would always get a free dessert. In appreciation, I would send her a little token for Christmas (although I haven’t done that in a while). My only wish is for me to finally meet her in person and thank her for her warmth and kindness.

In another restaurant off ULTRA, there is this hole-in-wall eatery called Aysee’s that serves the best sisig this side of the planet (even better than the one in Trelli’s, which is another personal favorite). In this humble restaurant that serves really cheap beer, I always get a free dish every time I’m there – usually panga ng tuna.

Nearby, in Bo. Kapitolyo, there is a restaurant called Three Sisters that has the best pancit Malabon. Here, I get a 20 percent discount courtesy of management.

But honestly, I don’t feel comfortable about getting those freebies. Now, please don’t think that I’m such an ingrate. It’s just that business is business and it’s like I’m stealing from their profits every time I get a large discount or a freebie from an establishment. But, really, thank you to those restaurants that extend me such courtesies.

The truth is, I’m really willing to pay (but only if it is not a rip-off) and am reasonably patient to wait for my turn. I wait in line at McDonald’s counters and get a number in bakeshops whenever I have to order cakes. (The only time I look for a padrino is when I have to do transactions in government offices because the systems here are so inefficient).

But I want good service. Unfortunately, you don’t find that in all establishments.

One horrible experience happened after an awards night last May in a five-star hotel that offers half-star parking service. It was a Saturday night and, quite expectedly, the place was teeming with people. Strangely enough though, the hotel didn’t bother to add more personnel to handle valet service. Maybe the hotel people had their calendar wrong and thought that day was a Monday, when business is usually dead – I don’t know.

Even I had my own miscalculation since I decided to send my driver home (it was past 11 p.m.) and took the wheel myself – hoping I wouldn’t have any problem parking my car since there was valet service anyway. I was wrong. When I got to the hotel, I saw a long line of cars on the ramp. It was bedlam and there was not one valet parking attendant available. I pulled over on one side and waited for about 15 minutes for a parking attendant. The guard at the entrance noticed my plight and hollered over for help. There were two valet parking attendants at the entrance, all right, but they had turned deaf (maybe because the cars that were piled up at the ramp all honked at the same time). "Sir, parang walang naririnig," the guard apologized to me.

At this point, he suggested that I try the basement parking – which I did. But the first level was full and the guards on duty there were in no mood to assist me and the other motorists driving around – in the hope of finding a spot. "Marami na kaming ina-assist" was the curt reply I got when I asked one of them for help.

After 10 minutes, I was able to squeeze my car (but after careful maneuvering) into a tiny spot facing the wall – no thanks to those inutile guards on bike.

At the coffee shop where I met up with my companions, more disappointments came my way. The food I ordered was bad. Maybe I just ordered the wrong dish. Mercifully, the service was good and the company, among them, Vilma Santos, excellent.

At around 2 a.m., we all called it a night – and this was when my biggest nightmare began.

When I returned to the basement to get my car and presented my parking stub at the exit (the one where there is a pole that needs to be lifted for your vehicle to get through), I was told by the guard on duty that since it was already 2 a.m., the parking cashier had already left and that I had to settle my parking ticket at the front desk in the hotel’s ground floor lobby.

What???!!! Did he realize what I would have to go through just to be able to settle that one lousy parking stub?

Due to the hotel’s inefficiency, I had to park my car again in the tiny slots they provide, walk back that stretch in their stiffingly hot basement (this was the peak of summer) toward the ever so slow elevator, walk back another stretch to their escalator (which wasn’t working anymore because it was past 2 a.m.), walk again to their unsmiling front desk clerk, settle that little parking stub that was the cause of all my misery – and back (non-working escalator, slow elevator and that long walk in the piping hot basement). And this was all because the parking cashier decided to call it a night – never mind if there were other guests who still had their cars parked in the basement.

If that was Megamall, which charges only P10 per three hours, I wouldn’t give a hoot. But that was supposed to be a five-star hotel where everything is so pricey.

Two days later, the hotel PR called me up to apologize and invite me out for lunch at their hotel. I accepted the apology, but to go back to that hotel is something I will never do at this point in time. In fact, everytime I pass by that lousy hotel with lousy parking service, I pray for that structure to collapse before my eyes, but I think about the innocent hotel guests and I take back that ill wish.

Actually, I promised the hotel PR that I won’t go to town about this issue, but I ‘ve heard other horror stories from friends about the hotel parking and I believe something must be done and this is why I am writing about this—except that I am not naming the hotel anymore . In fact, I don’t even want to remember its name. After all, based on my horrible experience, it’s not the perfect place that its name implies.