This is a most unfortunate incident however let's keep a couple of things in mind when it comes to CC's and reservations. I have lived in TV's seven years and to my knowledge I am not aware of any CC that takes lunch reservations outside of a catered or banquet event. It is unreasonable for any of us to think that such a large luncheon group of 30 or 27 in this case could reasonably be expected to be seated together during normal lunch hours. It should have occured to the caller when the call was not returned that no arrangements were in order for their arrival. And, I believe that the caller might have suspected that such a request might be out of order and therefore didn't bother to call Glenview back prior to their anticipated arrival.
Having said this, consider if you will how disturbed you would be if you walked into Glenview CC at lunch time and saw a large numbers of empty tables, but, were told that no seating was available at that time? You wouldn't like it. That's one reason why CC's don't take reservations and the other is as another responder has indicated, "they don't have to." The CC's have enough business at lunch time so that it is unnecessary to cater to a group of 30 people.
It would be a good idea if you have a group of this size, that you think carefully about where you want to plan lunch, perhaps at one of the homes of those 30 in the group. Wonder how many homes in TV's could accommodate such a number?
It just seems unreasonable to have such expectations from our CC's or to shift the blame to the manager or other staff. It's just not a smart decision to expect any place to accommodate such a large group without making certain, in advance, (and I don't mean waiting on a return call to confirm your request) that such arrangements are possible.
This, in my opinion, is an unreasonable expectation....
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