Tag Archives: John Cleese

Many of you who read the post agree: Nothing much has changed with restaurant wine service in 42 years

Last week’s post, featuring the infamous Fawlty Towers restaurant wine service scene, elicited not just huge traffic but a variety of comments and emails from visitors.

So my friends in the restaurant business need to do some soul searching. Why does a 42-year-old video where John Cleese opens a wine bottle by holding it between his knees, and where he doesn’t get all of the cork out on the first try, and where he refuses to acknowledge that the wine – an expensive red Burgundy – is flawed, still matter?

Yes, some of it is because John Cleese is funny. Yes, some it is because this a well-designed website that deftly uses Google’s search algorithm to attract traffic.

But the real reason? Because this stuff still happens – four decades after Cleese made fun of it. And how frustrating is that? Consider that:

• The Big Guy reported last week from Bar Harbor, Maine – hardly a shot and beer kind of town – that the waiter left half of the cork in a bottle of pricey white Burgundy. He had to finish taking the cork out of a bottle of wine, which is inexcusable.

• A regular blog visitor from Texas emailed to say that not only did a waiter try to open the bottle between her knees, but couldn’t do it even then. She had to run to the bar to get it opened. Which is also inexcusable.

• A blog visitor from Califormia emailed that Cleese left out one other restaurant wine service aggravation: “Six people sit down in a restaurant, are given menus and one drinks or wine list. First words out of the server’s mouth, “Would anyone like something to drink?’ ”

We pay three and four times retail in restaurants for what are often crappy wines. What does it say about how little they care about our money that they can’t even give us decent service to go with the overpriced wine?