for my birthday we went to a restaurant in a 5 star hotel, which is new and in heavy competition with the other bigass options in our major city.
I sat down to a long handwritten birthday message from the staff (who were great btw). My husband never cited my name in the reservation.
The note included jokey and accurate references to two of my books, athletic interests, and work. I had been thoroughly scraped – using his last name – via the internet. Had seen this on The Bear but never expected it IRL.
The divide between privilege and anonymity now is officially nuts. I guess i should STFU and enjoy it, but . . . creepy.
Similar experience, minus the creepy. Mrs. mck414 and I spent a weekend at The Broadmoor for our 20th anniversary. We pulled into the wrong side of the resort, the parking attendant was very helpful, took some info from us and set us on the right course to get to check in. When we walked in they greeted us like we were regulars, even before I gave them my name. It seemed as if every employee we interacted with knew our names and congratulated us on 20 years.
Kind of a peek into how the how the other side of society lives I guess.
You’ve now peaked our interest! You have written books?
Sounds like a lovely dinner. My favorite restaurant here does similar. Every table gets a personalized menu and the chef visits every table during the evening.
I’m not sure this black mirror-esq appetizer would be a good way to ease in to a special dining occasion. That’s taking a personal touch way, way too far.
Welcome! Look at all these things we managed to find out about you, despite not knowing you at all. Oh by the way, here is a photo of you asleep in your bed last night. And here is your bank pin. Would you like to see the wine list?
Similar experience at a few 5 star hotels in Italy this summer. One went so far as to print out a picture of my wife and I from her social media and printed/framed it (dumbass me, I forgot to grab it when we checked out). It was cool, thoughtful and a little creepy. They figured out the trip was a celebration of our anniversary and my 50th.
And … “references to two of my books” implies strongly there are more. Most go down a rabbit hole , a book about or including 50 disgusting meals … there can’t be many books fulfilling this criteria.
When I first moved to NYC my wife played in a ski-ball league in the village. There’s was a lanky scuzzy guy there of no fixed occupation who was on a team with a couple of other Hackley grads, nice guy.
A decade later he - Will Guidara - was the co-owner of Eleven Madison Park that pioneered this hyper-personal “experience” dining. He wrote Unreasonable Hospitality which will give you an insight into just how crazy they got about this stuff if you’re interested. He is also an EP on the Bear - you can see Allen-White’s character referring to the book a couple of times and he is at the funeral dinner when Olivia Coleman’s restaurant closes.
I’d be great at the scraping — nosy + google skills — but you don’t even need those anymore. My husband chat gpt ed himself and was amazed at what came up.