Post #15990 by floratina on Wed, Dec 11, 2002 1:56 AM

I do believe that we all had a great time. Twowheelin Tiki! I am glad that you could make it there - I didn't get to meet you, though. Maybe tomorrow night at the Lava Lounge. We imbibed happily and were even treated to the musical stylings of Iuka Grogg and King Kukulele. I even got to meet Dr. Z's mom!

Pardon my kvetch here, but I have to vent. Although we may love Trader Vic's, some of us have had issues with them for some reason or other before and here's one:

If you recall, in one of the threads there was a post that quoted an email from the assistant to Sven Koch and Hans Richter in the head office. He stated that Emeryville was planning on offering Mai Tais for a dollar and that he was going to notify all 22 TVs about the Traders birthday, in case they might want to have a drink special or something to commemorate.

I then approached the GM of the BH TV and asked him if he got the "memo". He said yes. I asked him if he was going to offer the Mai Tais for 100 cents. He said yes. I handed him printouts of both Tiki Central threads, so he could read the same thing I did and there would be no misunderstanding. I even sent an email to confirm (again mentioning the 100-cent mai tais).

When I arrived at the restaurant, I discovered that they were not a dollar, but instead half-price. When I asked the manager about this, he was surprised that I thought they would be a dollar. Huh?

He called Emeryville and spoke to Sven Koch and was told that they weren't doing the dollar Mai Tais either! The special was ten dollars for a Mai Tai and appetizer together. He said he could do that, too. He even gave us 4 appetizers on the house. They were like, 19.00 apiece normally. That was really cool of him to do.

I don't want to sound ungrateful. The Mai Tai/appetizer deal he offered is a great deal. A REALLY GREAT deal. If he had offered that up front, I would have been thrilled. It was very generous. I just hated that everyone came there thinking that is was only going to cost a dollar for a Mai Tai.

Happy Birthday Trader Vic. It was nice to experience a real Mai Tai. There are so many imposters out there.

[ Edited by: floratina on 2002-12-11 12:01 ]