Part I: The Modern Maitre d'
January 26, 2006
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In 1966, my prom date and I had dinner at the Tack Room, then the most formidable four-star restaurant in Tucson and now just a venerable memory. I had been there once or twice before on very special occasions with my family; in the years that would come, I probably was back less than a dozen times, the last being when Jack Brown, of Brown and Bain (also, sadly, a venerable memory now), hosted a dinner for me in celebration of my escape from the Star.
My Tack Room memory chip includes images of the big concrete cowboy boot on Sabino, marking the entrance; the low ranch-style hacienda dining room; a wondrous display of wines; the kind of ornately bound and voluminous menu which has mostly disappeared in our post-Atkins world; and a table setting that almost required the Junior Assembly training with which I'd been blessed/cursed.
But most of all, there was Charles Kerr. Gracious, looming, impeccably befitted in suit and tie, thoroughly in command and totally at service, Charles was for years so much more than the maitre d' at the Tack Room. He was the very definition of all that a restaurateur could possibly be: director, set designer, choreographer, master of ceremonies, ultimate ombudsman.
Flash forward perhaps a decade: I come back from a summer of theater in Connecticut to find a special invitation to a preview of a new restaurant about to open. "Charles," created in the old Pond mansion which is now the Mountain Oyster Club (east, off Wilmot Road, though I am tempted to say if you need to ask "where," you shouldn't be going--yeah, it's THAT sorta place), would open after Labor Day, and I was invited to tour and sample. How special an invitation it was, I came to realize on the appointed night when there were only two guests--Tom Brown, of Burr-Brown, and li'l ol' me--and a full front- and back-of-the-house staff. Charles, never a shy type, wanted to show off what he and his better half, Katherine, had brought into being with the backing of some very generous investors. He lined the staff up--from hostess to waiter to busboy to chef to dishwasher--and went right down the line asking questions and answering questions. He then sent them off to do their job: serving his two guests that night.
Sound a little ... hmmm ... focused, if not weird? Here's the best part: We didn't order; Charles had determined our dinner for the night. And for mine, he'd prepared exactly the meal I'd had with my prom date 10 years before! Jumbo fresh shrimp, a Caesar salad made tableside (and using raw eggs, thank you very much), sautéed spinach with garlic, a golden-crusted Chateaubriand, potatoes diane, bananas foster for dessert. He remembered it! He had the most prodigious memory of anyone I have ever known.
Charles' future was never so luminous as it was in those days, and when he passed, we lost a great, if complex and sometimes difficult, mind. In later years, as a waiter at the Palomino, he was older but equally dexterous in memory and spirit. I've been privileged to know some great waiters and restaurateurs, and I like a great many others besides, but Charles Kerr was rara avis--the kind of host who knew what you wanted before you expressed it and had it ready when you needed it ... a vanishing breed.
Now, flash forward several decades and meet OpenTable.com, a software-package-cum-management-and-customer-service tool that is surprisingly captivating. I was introduced to it last week by Maya and Michael Luria of Terra Cotta, and while it will never quite replace the amazing humanity of a Charles Kerr, it promises a bright and comfortable future for those of us who value feeling at home in our restaurants.
OpenTable.com has, fundamentally, three parts to it: online reservations, database management and table maintenance. Participating member restaurants are featured on its Web site (Tucson has nine, Phoenix 38, and the system is nationwide and operates, at this point, in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and six other countries as well), and by logging on, you can make reservations through it. And, more than reservations--you can request a particular location, indicate if it's a special event and note a variety of things. Michael Luria says that the service is adding roughly 300 new restaurants a month to its participating base. Terra Cotta has been affiliated with it for less than a month, and he is an enthusiast.
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