Our motto for our restaurant was Difficult to Find but Impossible to Forget. We were slightly off the beaten track but our customers enjoyed the challenge of finding us and once they visited, they invariably booked again. We only opened on Friday and Saturday and served a six course meal, changing the menu every month. During this period, we kept a visitors book. It was always a good way to collect addresses from customers and then send them a new menu every month. The internet was in it’s infancy in those days so emails were virtually unknown and as for mobile phones – they were the size of a brick! So the visitors book was a useful tool and customers would add comments, which were generally very complimentary, funny and helpful.

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It was the era of the YUPPIES (young upwardly-mobile professionals – who had more money than sense and usually spent it as quickly as they earned it) and on one very hot August night, we had a group of these young people – very sure of themselves and making sarcastic comments with each new dish we presented to them. Moaning about the brand of fizzy water we served and so on and so on. Let’s call them the Brentwood 6.

That evening I had called in my brother Paul and his girlfriend Rosie to help with serving. We are all part of a huge Irish family and Rosie fitted in perfectly, coming from another large Irish family.

As the long hot evening wore on, several minor incidents occurred. Paul accidentally spilled a tiny amount of sauce down the jacket of one of the Brentwood 6. He was a snotty young man, very self-opinionated and made a big fuss. I walked through to the dining room, charmed him with my smile and took his jacket away to the kitchen. The spot came out without a trace and I returned it to him, still smiling. I also offered to have it cleaned should there be any residue left. He inspected it closely and begrudgingly accepted there was no damage.

I went back to the kitchen and continued cooking and melting in the heat.

The Brentwood 6 continued their meal and afterwards ordered Irish coffees. Ed came through to the kitchen for the cream and returned to their table. He told them the drinks were on us as an apology for any inconvenience they may have had. Ed poured the cream on the back of a spoon into the coffee, but try as he may, the cream curdled every time. The heat that evening meant the cream had separated and just would not sit on the drink. After several attempts, Ed took the coffees away and offered them something else. They all ordered the most expensive drinks we had.

Things were getting very hot in the kitchen.

Towards the end of the evening, Ed left the visitors book for one of the customers who then passed it on to the next table. Eventually it ended up with the Yuppies. Ed brought the book back to the kitchen and I started to read the comments. When I got to the Brentwood 6 I exploded! They had written “LOVELY MEAL – SHAME ABOUT THE IRISH”. I marched into the dining room and headed to the snotty little creep whose jacket I had just cleaned.

“Excuse me – your comment about the Irish – do you realise that this restaurant is run by Irish people? It’s because we’re Irish that everybody feels so welcome here. This is not only a restaurant – this is our home and just because you got a tiny spot of sauce on your jacket, doesn’t mean you have to be so rude!!”

I was seething.

His jaw dropped and he look extremely uncomfortable

“Actually, I meant shame about the Irish coffees – not anything else, the food and the restaurant is fabulous”

“Right. Right. OK. Thank you. Sorry. Thank you”

I walked back to the kitchen and poured a drink – And in the words of Neil Diamond it really was A HOT AUGUST NIGHT!