The Pain of Joy

A letter I emailed to "In Jerusalem" magazine today (part of the Jerusalem Post; if anyone spots it in the paper, please let me know!):

Editor:
On Sunday morning, April 16, we made our reservation at Joy on Emek Refaim for a ten-person table at 7:30 PM. At 6:50 PM, the restaurant called us and said that they made a mistake. They overbooked and didn't have room for us.

We telephoned when the restaurant didn't call back as promised. We talked to various people, including the one who took our reservation in the morning. Joy's new offer of a table at 8:30 was unavailable in a matter of minutes; presumably, they were taking other reservations while we were on hold. Their offer of a table outside was rejected because of the rain. Their final offer of a table at 10 PM was rejected as ridiculous.

Joy had effectively thrown into the streets a road-weary and hungry family in the middle of Pesach vacation dinner rush. After 40 minutes of calls we got a table elsewhere at 9:30. I decline to mention the name of the "savior" restaurant because they engage in the inexplicably greedy yet common practice of raising the price of every menu item during Pesach.

I urge everyone to avoid the restaurant Joy, especially when it is expected to be crowded. They don't know the importance of details, they can't be trusted for service, and they don't respect frequent customers.