I apologize for this being a bit long, but hope most of you won't mind.

While planning for a small reception following our civil union ceremony, I contacted three of the bigger restaurants here in town. The ceremony is at three so we were looking for someplace that started serving dinner around four.

Two of the three places did, but the manager on duty at one of them didn't know if the banquet area was booked and would have the banquet manager call me back. The other one (Olive Garden) had a private room, no charge for the room and was available at that time. I asked both restaurants if they served sparkling cider or something like that. They both didn't and I asked if we could bring some with us. The first one wasn't sure, but the manager of the OG said it wouldn't be a problem.

The next day the first restaurant called back and I was told it was booked for an event at two and therefore wouldn't be able to accommodate us at four. I then called the Olive Garden to book the room. I asked again about the sparkling cider and was surprised when the manager (day) said no, it was against corporate policy. Booked the room anyway, but was a bit annoyed at getting conflicting information. So I looked up the number for Corporate Headquarters and called them. I explained to the Customer Service Rep (who couldn't have been nicer) about receiving the conflicting information and could he clarify the policy. He said it is policy not to allow outside food or beverage to be brought in and that he'd contact the restaurant to make sure this didn't happen again. He said they'd send me a complimentary coupon and apologized profusely for having received incorrect information.

No more then ten minutes had passed when I received a call from the Evening manager that I had previously spoken with telling me that we could indeed bring the sparkling cider with us and he was seeing to it personally that the staff knew we'd be bring it even though he wouldn't be there when we arrived.

So in addition to be able to have some non-alcoholic bubbly, we get a 10 to 15% discount coupon for our next meal.

It certainly paid to not just accept conflicting statements and to contact the corporate headquarters. I learned this a long time ago when we had a problem with Macaroni Grill and the customer service rep thanked for calling to let them know what happened. All too often, something goes wrong and then people bad mouth the place without notifying higher ups.

I'm certainly impressed!