A Midsummer Night’s Nightmare

I used to work in a restaurant, hostel, and camping ground in the Eastern archipelago in my youth. This was not a fancy place. Most of our food was either made in batches in our kitchen and frozen in portions to be heated up or bought pre-made, and our prices reflected that.

However, the Midsummer celebration in Sweden somehow means that every single living person goes some level of crazy in their hunt for the perfect Midsummer.

This place didn’t accept reservations for Midsummer; it was first-come-first-serve, although we never turned anyone away. People might have to wait for a table, and we occasionally ran out of dishes, but we didn’t advertise to be a high-end restaurant, and most visitors respected that.

The day before Midsummer, the kitchen phone rang and I picked it up.

Me: “[Workplace] hostel and restaurant, how may I help you?”

Customer: “Hello, are you open for Midsummer?”

Me: “Yes, we are.”

Customer: “Great! We were trying to book a table at [Fancy Place] across the strait from you, but they were full, so I guess you’ll have to do.”

Me: “Well, we don’t take reservations for Midsummer — it’s first-come-first-serve — but you’re welcome to come visit us. We’re having a traditional Midsummer celebration with dancing and children’s games.”

Customer: “Yes, yes, that sounds great. What’s your menu for the evening?”

Me: “In the restaurant, we offer seafood skewers, schnitzel, and chicken stew, among other things. We also have traditional Swedish classics like pan-fried herring with a potato purée or potato pancakes with bacon and lingonberries. On the grounds, you’ll find stands for hamburgers, hot dogs, and coal-grilled salted herring with all the trimmings.”

Customer: “All right, we’ll be there around six o’clock. Three of us will be having the seafood skewers and one will be having the coal-grilled herring. The name is [Customer].”

Me: “Oh, I’m sorry if I was unclear. We don’t accept reservations for Midsummer. You are very welcome to visit, but we can’t guarantee you a table or that we won’t be sold out of the dish you requested. Also, the coal-grilled herring isn’t served in the restaurant; you’ll need to buy that from the guy at the stand that sells it.”

Customer: “That’s fine, dear. We’ll be there around six!”

I had a bad feeling about this call, so I made sure to tell my manager and the head chef for the evening about it beforehand so they knew that I had absolutely not promised this person anything.

Midsummer rolled along. The weather was fantastic and we were absolutely slammed. In the middle of all customers who stopped by demanding food, my caller showed up. At this point, I was very busy elsewhere so I didn’t know what transpired until after the fact.

Customer: “I have a reservation for four; I called ahead yesterday. We pre-ordered three seafood skewers and one grilled herring; it should be ready for us.”

The poor teenage server was, understandably, completely panicked because she hadn’t been told about any pre-orders, so she went to the manager.

Manager: “They’re hallucinating. No one’s been taking reservations for today. Tell them to sit down and wait their turn.”

The poor server did as she’d been told and was promptly chewed out by the customer. Around this time, I got back into the kitchen with a heap of dirty plates I’d been collecting from all over the place, but I’d been in food service for a lot longer than the server, so I agreed to go talk to the customer.

Me: “Hello, what seems to be the problem?”

Customer: “We called ahead and ordered three seafood skewers and one grilled herring to be served at six o’clock, but your little girl seems unaware of that.”

Me: “Oh, no, that was me you were talking to on the phone. I told you we weren’t taking any reservations for tonight, so if you came here expecting your food to be pre-ordered, that’s on you, really. However, I’m happy to tell you that we still have the seafood skewers in stock and the guy outside has plenty of herring; you just need to go outside and buy it from him, as it’s not on the restaurant menu. We’re looking at a wait of maybe twenty-five minutes for the skewers since we’re pretty busy right now, but the herring guy can probably serve you right way.”

Customer: “Well, that’s horrible. We wanted a table at [Fancy Place]!”

Me: “Well, we’re not [Fancy Place].”

Customer: “I demand to speak to a manager!”

Me: “Sure, I’ll grab him for you.”

I grabbed the manager, who’d been busy running potato pancakes to a table of twelve.

Me: “This is the one I spoke to on the phone yesterday. They’re upset that we’re not [Fancy Place].”

Manager: “Well, you can either order here and wait for what you want, or you can go to [Fancy Place] and be turned away at the door because they’re fully booked. Your choice!”

I was very happy to see that particular group leave in a huff.