French Laundry Reservation Saga Part 2

UPDATE: Check out Part 1 and Part 3.

Bottom line: we still don't have a confirmed reservation for the French Laundry between September 23 and September 27, 2002. We are still are on the waiting list for dinner on our first wedding anniversary, September 23, 2002.

More random observations and lessons:

• If you are on the waiting list, check two or three days before as well as the day of to see if somebody cancelled by calling (707) 944-2380.
• From Thursday to Saturday, I only got through twice. Well actually I got through twice today, but either I accidentally hung up or their phone system disconnected me.
• If you call before 10a.m. (today I called at 9:58 by mistake) the reservation option is disabled so you can't cheat by calling earlier!
• Today I tried calling using 3 phones simultaneously: our two cell phones and our land line. What I did was set up my cellphone to redial and manually re-dialled Barb's cellphone and our landline. I decided not to try the computer option because the minimum time between re-dialing with the computer was 5 seconds and manual re-dialing only needs a delay of about 2 seconds.
• Life can't be too bad if you have the time to do this :-) And it isn't! Even though I am still looking for employment or contract work, we are very fortunate.
• The French Laundry has done an excellent marketing job. Any restaurant that get people to book 2 months in advance had done a great job of promoting itself (and the food must be good :-). I think it can't hurt that the Thomas Keller has writen an excellent cookbook and received wonderful reviews from everybody. I think a lot of restaurants can learn from this!
• There are plenty of other great restaurants in Napa and San Francisco I hear :-) If anybody knows of any, please let us know

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