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- San Francisco, CA
- New York, NY
- Chicago, IL
- Los Angeles, CA
- San Jose, CA
- Houston, TX
- Washington, DC
- Dallas, TX
- Oakland, CA
- Philadelphia, PA
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Alcohol:
Wine / Beer |
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Smoking:
Not Permitted |
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Reservations:
Unknown |
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Accepts:
Cash
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Found 2 reviews.
Showing: 1 to 2
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Jul 17th, 2003 |
Given the business Koi Palace has been having these days, especially at weekends, I doubt that the restaurant would be too concerned about losing customers even if it paid little or no respect to some of them. Nonetheless, I think its upper management would benefit from learning the following incident as well as the observation that I made this last Sunday, July 13.
The ultimate point here is: With some improvement on the current situation, the restaurant can avoid some unanticipated safety hazards that might hold it liable for. For instance, if and when some of those huge seafood tanks (aquariums) get cracked all of a sudden, or as triggered by the kitchen helper falling off the ladder while trying to catch a fish, many more nearby customers could or would get injured. Negligence is always a big and costly issue in the United States. A well-known case in point is the incident involving a person's injury caused by a hot cup of coffee from McDonald. Another case is the recent penalty of $$$ M that a Taiwanese food company now must pay to the family of a two-year-old Boston boy who died of getting choked from eating the company's fruit jelly.
Now that I seem to have caught your attention. Let me relate to you what happened on Sunday 7/13/03. At about 11:55 AM, my wife walked up to the hostess in charge for a table for 4. My wife was then given the number 120, and was told that the wait was about 40 minutes. Thinking that it was such a long wait, my wife naturally stepped outside to wait while I was busy finding a parking space. Meanwhile, my two daughters went inside to use the restroom. As my older daughter came out of the restroom at round 12:07 AM, she heard that the hostess called for No. 120 once quickly, then jumped to the next number for another party of 4, and had that party seated by her assistant or another hostess.
Alarmed by my daughter, my wife thus quickly went back inside through the double doors and requested that our number be reconsidered. After our whole family had been staying and waiting inside for another 20 minutes, my wife spotted that No. 120 was not on the 'new' tape (list). So my wife insisted on having our number relisted. Then another 10 minutes went by, before my wife noticed that our number 120 was now on another new list but for a party of 2. Thus we began to complain and mutter helplessly, along with some other impatient parties in the same crowd. Meantime, during the long interval between noon and approximately 12:45 PM, the hostess called the few older numbers for party of 8 or 10 more than 6 or 7 times (plus a couple numbers for party of 2 or 5 or 6). Then by about 1:00 PM, the hostess called on a party of 4 who checked in at 12:20 PM. At that time, we ran out of patience and insisted on having an explanation as to why a party of 4 who checked in at 12:20 PM could be seated before us checking in at 12:00 PM first and rechecking in at 12:10 PM. Fortunately, with the help of a 'higher-up' and almost making a fool out of ourselves, we finally got seated at about 1:05 PM.
How to improve the hosting system, to be fair to the restaurant's every customer, and to minimize any unnecessary safety hazard? Well, if the double doors have to remain closed to avoid having too much cool air to escape out or too much hot air flowing in, one option is to set a microphone at the podium and have it connected to (or wirelessly related to) a speaker mounted outside near the main entrance. Otherwise, customers waiting outside simply cannot hear any call from a walkie talkie through the double doors and amid a large crowd's talking by the podium. If the use of a speaker is a violation of the noise control code, perhaps a monitor mounting outside can be another option.
In addition, to avoid any confusion or misunderstanding, try to use numbers 00 to 99 for party of 4 or fewer. For party of 5 to 7 or 8, use numbers 200 to 299; and for party of 9 or 10 and up, use numbers 400 to 499. But more importantly, be more accurate when informing the customers about the wait time; there is a significant difference between 40 minutes and 5 minutes. With the above suggested numbering system, for example, when a customer checks in for a party of 3 or 4, tell them that #85 has just been seated and the new customer's number is, say, 89. The idea here is that now both parties (the hostess and the new customer) can easily appreciate how long the wait is for 'a small table'; that is, in this case there are simply 3 numbers ahead of this new customer. The way it is now, at least 2 from a party has to wait inside for the call. When called upon, one of the two in the party has to go outside to gather the rest of the party while the other person nervously proving that they have the right number. In short, too many people are nervously as well as helplessly jamming inside and around the seafood tanks for almost nothing.
I care to write about this incident because there are just not enough grand Chinese restaurants like Koi Palace available in the Bay area.
Michael H. Dong, Dr.P.A., Ph.D.
Elk Grove, CA 95758 |
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Jul 17th, 2003 |
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Throughout the dishes I've tried at Koi Palace, overwhelmed my taste buds, but their services are unfortunately unpleasant. Needs help, inattentive and ignores the customer. |
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Found 2 reviews.
Showing: 1 to 2
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