Power Corrupts!

Dining at a popular, fully booked, restaurant last night there was a power failure. You may be thinking, bad luck for all concerned - not for the guests as it was 10 pm and everyone had eaten their main courses at least (and we were offered extra candles!). A one off occurrence then - 'fraid not either, read on. The restaurant is in an area where power failure is not uncommon and it was established that on this occasion, the power would not be reinstated until circa 1 am ie long after the evening diners had left ............. without paying!!! The restaurant was solely reliant on the goodwill of the guests to pay the bill the following day. Food for thought? Of course, some of the guests had a little sport at the expense of the management when giving address details resulting in a little stifled laughter and a sense of unease and shifting of 'management' feet! Fortunately the reputation of the restaurant did not suffer as guests had at least eaten, however had this not been the case diners may be forgiven for thinking that the lack of contingency planning was shortsighted on the part of the restaurant and could easily have taken the view not to dine there again. The ability to recover all monies owed, the resource required to do this and the catch up in terms of tying up any additional drinks etc to electronic bills today is a 'task' that could have been avoided! Perhaps we should have ordered more champagne ....