IT COULD be viewed as a cautionary tale. How a momentary lapse caused a Nicosia restaurateur days of agonized searching for a customer he did not want to disappoint.
It was a busy day at the Abu Faysal the week before last when owner Ghazi Mroueh’s mobile phone rang. He confesses that he did not recognise the friendly voice on the other end of the line, but the caller evidently knew him, so Ghazi did not want to let on.
"`I’d like a table for four for Thursday night, I’m David from Latchi,’ the caller said. I was busy so I said `yes, yes, don’t worry, no problem,’" Ghazi told the Cyprus Mail yesterday.
It was only after he closed the phone that he realised what he’d done – the restaurant was fully booked up for a wedding party on Thursday night (February 24).
He would have to call David straight back, apologise and see if another night could be arranged.
The problem was that Ghazi’s mobile had not registered the caller’s number and he still could not place who this David was.
"I felt really bad, as he said he was coming from Latchi, all that way."
The restaurateur called all the places he could think of where David from Latchi might be known: the Cyprus Mail, the Cyprus Weekly, the Mouflon and the Solonion bookshops. But to no avail: "Nobody knew of this David," Ghazi said.
Finally he decided to place an unusual ad in the Mail on Tuesday and Wednesday last week. "DAVID, please call Abu Faysal restaurant regarding your reservation for February 24," the advert read.
There was no response from David, but the advert was certainly noticed by all of Ghazi’s friends and acquaintances.
"It became a joke. People were coming up to me saying `Oh Ghazi, I found David,’ and `Ghazi, I have a David.’"
"People were calling up, saying please could they make a reservation for David!"
By the time Thursday night came around Ghazi was ready for the worst: a customer bringing his friends down from far-away Latchi only to be turned away.
But it was to prove much, much more embarrassing.
David turned out to be a regular customer not from Latchi, Paphos, but from Britain. "I saw him and it was like `aghhh!’" Ghazi said, cringing at the recollection.
"I went up to him and gave him the bad news and he was, like, shocked."
"I said `come on David, are you not staying till tomorrow?’ He said `no we’ve just arrived from Larnaca airport by taxi, we have nothing else to do in Nicosia, we were coming to your place and then we’re off to Latchi at 8 or 9 tomorrow morning.’"
David said he had phoned from England to make the reservation – which explained why Ghazi could not track him down.
Ghazi was mortified.
He told David how hard he had searched for him: "I showed him the newspapers with the ads; He ended up comforting me."
"I was afraid they would complain, but they were lovely, his wife was smiling the whole time."
Ghazi drove them to another restaurant in Nicosia.
David, his wife and friends are booked in at the Abu Faysal for this Friday night, just before they fly back to Britain.
"I hope nothing will go wrong," Ghazi said.
