racism??

i try really hard to see the best in people, to imagine their best intentions, but try as i may it's very hard to ignore something that can be construed as racism.  and, to be honest, i'm becoming painfully aware of it in my new (predominantly caucasian) city of residence.  

i'm filling in at my husband's place of work for someone while they're on vacation.  my official job is working in the restaurant's wine shop, but i also share hostess duties when it gets busy. so, last night was my first busy night, and i got a front seat view of how the hostess and management treat their guests.  

it's no surprise that people up here routinely run late for their reservations (they take the 'laid back' california lifestyle to a whole new level...).  so, a lot of parties arrived all at once, forcing people's reservations to be pushed back by 10-15 minutes.  realizing we were running late, one of the managers who had been working the hostess station all night offered to buy drinks for several parties as soon as they arrived.  there was one party, though, that did not get get this offer (and had to wait a full 20 minutes past their reservation time for their table, at least five minutes longer than anyone else...open table's detailed 'arrival' and 'seated' time supports this finding).

the party that missed out on a comped round of drinks was asian.  and, all the other waiting parties (with free cocktails in hand) were caucasian.  i hate it when people say asian people are 'the other white meat' as if we never face any kind of discrimination.  to make matters worse, the asian party's table was cleared minutes after they arrived.  apparently, the manager and hostess (both caucasian) were waiting for the table to be set before seating them.  i realize i don't have a lot of foh experience, but i have worked in the hospitality industry long enough to know:

a.  it's not nice to keep people waiting, especially when they have a reservation

b.  if you must keep them waiting, offer them something...anything

c.  if they do have to wait, then what they're waiting for better be worth it

d. if you're a manager, then you should manage.  the manager should have made sure the table was set up asap by one of her floor staff, and if for some reason they were all busy, then she should have taken the task upon herself (honestly, she had the time...and if they had been 'vip', i'm sure she would have).

132 people dined last night.  several more were turned away at the door due to lack of available tables.  of all these people, only two parties were asian (both with reservations).  the rest were caucasian.  the first asian party had early reservations, so seating them wasn't an issue.  the second party arrived 5 minutes early and ended up waiting 20 minutes past their reservation time.  

i thought about this all last night, double checking the open table time stats, trying to figure out why this asian party was made to wait without any commendations offered for their long wait. try as i may to find another explanation (though i suppose i can't be totally objective), my mind keeps coming back to the r word - racism...