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Lancemountain
Active member
Pretty awesome! 
A little back story: tldr warning
The focus of my collection if you don't know, is Utley. Love his style of play, followed him up through the system and he's obviously a great player. I moved my season ticket seats into right field row 3 just for the Utley Howard home run balls I'm working on getting every Topps and Bowman card of his ever, and am about 40% done. needless too say, big fan.
So I work for a company that has several upscale restaurants, a few high end prepared food stores, two home goods stores and an artisan chocolate/cheese charcuterie shop. All in Philly and privately owned. I'm the owner's right hand man so to speak....bills, payroll, advertising, hiring, firing, paperwork, legal, tons and tons of BS. Boring office ***** that I'm sure some of you can commiserate with :x
Here and there I work as Maître d' in our busiest space when the owner or regular guy can't do the bookings and I fill in. It's an important part of the company as it represents about 30% of our yearly sales so the owner takes the place very seriously. And Friday was one of those days.....
Slammed, people out the door, huge long wait for a table. I walk up to the door, see a gaggle of people and think, Jesus that guy looks just like Utley :lol: . (he was wearing a winter hat and dressed way down, and I keep the dining room lights really low so it was hard to really tell) He says party of three and I tell the guy, it'll be 1 and 1/2 hours for a table (that was the wait for a table at that point) His wife, Jen (aside, she's very recognizable in philly, big into dog shelters and animal rights, everyone knows her) says "Are you serious?!"
I lookup at her and think, "That's Utley's wife." Then I think to myself, "Well *******, that means that guy you thought was Utley is Utley" I started to kinda laugh and I think at that point they saw that I recognized him :lol: :lol: ::facepalm:: My favorite baseball player is a foot away from me and I tell him it'll be an hour and a half :lol:
Of course I usher them right in, the only open table. Kinda patted him on the back and told him to enjoy. Pulled the entire front of the house staff into the back and told them that table 31A gets whatever they want or everyone gets fired ( j/k of course) The floor staff is almost all women or gay guys so no one has any idea who the hell he is, and I try to keep it that way. Chef hooks it up, the entire room doesn't recognize him. They have a lovely meal. I left them alone, didn't stare....no one bothers them.
During desert one of the waitresses goes up to him, basically says the manager (me) is a big fan, made a big deal with the staff, blah blah. Totally blowing up my, at that point, very professional manner. His entire table turns and looks at me laughing. Totally embarrassed.
Comped the hell out of his tab. He tips his server awesome, and on his way out (at this point everyone in there knows he's there, people taking pictures with their cell phones, girls squealing...ect) he comes right up to me. Pretty cool. Looks me right in the eye, shakes my hand, thanks me for being a fan, a great meal. Very sincere, no ********. I said something like "great season, thanks, glad you enjoyed your meal, you're welcome back whenever..."
Total class act. Didn't call ahead asking for anything. Didn't want anything special. Sat cheek to jowl with everyone else. (we pack em in) Awesome guy, and his wife was a very nice lady, too.
It was awesome
A little back story: tldr warning
The focus of my collection if you don't know, is Utley. Love his style of play, followed him up through the system and he's obviously a great player. I moved my season ticket seats into right field row 3 just for the Utley Howard home run balls
I'm working on getting every Topps and Bowman card of his ever, and am about 40% done. needless too say, big fan.So I work for a company that has several upscale restaurants, a few high end prepared food stores, two home goods stores and an artisan chocolate/cheese charcuterie shop. All in Philly and privately owned. I'm the owner's right hand man so to speak....bills, payroll, advertising, hiring, firing, paperwork, legal, tons and tons of BS. Boring office ***** that I'm sure some of you can commiserate with :x
Here and there I work as Maître d' in our busiest space when the owner or regular guy can't do the bookings and I fill in. It's an important part of the company as it represents about 30% of our yearly sales so the owner takes the place very seriously. And Friday was one of those days.....
Slammed, people out the door, huge long wait for a table. I walk up to the door, see a gaggle of people and think, Jesus that guy looks just like Utley :lol: . (he was wearing a winter hat and dressed way down, and I keep the dining room lights really low so it was hard to really tell) He says party of three and I tell the guy, it'll be 1 and 1/2 hours for a table
(that was the wait for a table at that point) His wife, Jen (aside, she's very recognizable in philly, big into dog shelters and animal rights, everyone knows her) says "Are you serious?!"I lookup at her and think, "That's Utley's wife." Then I think to myself, "Well *******, that means that guy you thought was Utley is Utley" I started to kinda laugh and I think at that point they saw that I recognized him :lol:
:lol: ::facepalm:: My favorite baseball player is a foot away from me and I tell him it'll be an hour and a half :lol: Of course I usher them right in, the only open table. Kinda patted him on the back and told him to enjoy. Pulled the entire front of the house staff into the back and told them that table 31A gets whatever they want or everyone gets fired
( j/k of course) The floor staff is almost all women or gay guys so no one has any idea who the hell he is, and I try to keep it that way. Chef hooks it up, the entire room doesn't recognize him. They have a lovely meal. I left them alone, didn't stare....no one bothers them.During desert one of the waitresses goes up to him, basically says the manager (me) is a big fan, made a big deal with the staff, blah blah. Totally blowing up my, at that point, very professional manner. His entire table turns and looks at me laughing. Totally embarrassed.
Comped the hell out of his tab. He tips his server awesome, and on his way out (at this point everyone in there knows he's there, people taking pictures with their cell phones, girls squealing...ect) he comes right up to me. Pretty cool. Looks me right in the eye, shakes my hand, thanks me for being a fan, a great meal. Very sincere, no ********. I said something like "great season, thanks, glad you enjoyed your meal, you're welcome back whenever..."
Total class act. Didn't call ahead asking for anything. Didn't want anything special. Sat cheek to jowl with everyone else. (we pack em in) Awesome guy, and his wife was a very nice lady, too.
It was awesome
