The problem with telling a customer, “no problem”

It was as good a lunch as one could remember. If Virginia Woolf is known for saying, “One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if…

Spirited conversation, with cherry on top

“I’ll have an old fashioned with George Dickel, orange and angostura bitters and maraschino liqueur,” she said authoritively. “With an orange twist and a cherry on…

It all looks good until it doesn’t

He had been coming in a lot as of late. If they say time heals all wounds, then it would be safe to say his were…

Familiarity doesn’t always breed contempt

The light flickered just slightly in the little bar. Not enough for everyone to notice, but enough for the bartender to. He flicked the little light…

Call it Easter or call it complicated

We sat in our little group around the large round restaurant table — a journalist, a master gardener, a Realtor, a law student and a poet.…

Caring is key to good service

To say it had been a bad day would be an understatement.

There’s one in every crowd

I had just delivered a birthday cake complete with its sputtering candle to a delighted couple at the end of the bar, cleaned up the post-prandial…

You can be right or you can be happy

The sun had been shining and the birds were still chirping; only winter in Northern California can look like this. Seventy-six degrees when the sun goes…

Getting right to the Point

“Where are you guys?” I said into my cellphone as I sat in my car just outside the Presidio Social Club, in San Francisco’s Presidio. “Do…

Mixing sex with dollars is risky business indeed

“How’s it going girlfriend,” said the girl’s friend in that strange intonation that usually accompanies just such a statement. “It’s going,” said the new arrival. The…