Catalina Popescu on ‘showtime’

I don’t have a lot of words to explain it. I just have this feeling. I go out into the dining area for the night and it’s full. I know exactly what kind of crowd we will have.

You can see it in people’s eyes.

A lot of times they come because they know exactly who they come to see. They really love that music.

There are other times we have Saturday night crowds. It’s their night out. So, they might know what we do or they might know the music or they might not. That kind of crowd is a lot more difficult.

Then there is the third type of crowd and they come to see and to be seen. And that’s another sort of situation ... on the side we have to deal with it. Because they try to be funny and look interested and pose into something that they’re not.

I very easily get the feel for the night from the people, from how loud they talk, how they talk, how they look. We’re not a regular kind of restaurant .... We have shows and we have times. And we very much like to serve before the show. We don’t want to disturb people. So we need to work so we can accomplish that.

I personally have had to run after a lot of people. I would go and knock on their car window and say: “Hi! One little detail. You forgot to pay the bill!’ And people were shocked to see me.

Some of them will just take off in a rush. But most of them, they would feel bad and take money out and say: ‘Oh, I’m sorry!’ ... With all due respect, I cannot believe that you go to a place and you stay three hours there and you forget to pay the bill. I’m sorry.

With the musicians, I have seen every little crazy thing that is possible on the Earth. From the kind of nuts they want -- not only nuts, but the kind of nuts they want to how much nuts they want -- to what kind of water they want, how much water they want. What kind of food they want to the weight of the food they want ... my God!

Anything you might think of, I got it.

I can understand some stuff. I know some musicians are vegetarians, so they need a little bit of protein. So we’ll do something special. Others need more water than others because they are sweating a lot when they are performing. But then we go to a little crazier thing, like the colors. That we can leave at home. You’ve got to wonder: What are you coming from? The Buckingham Palace?

But the most memorable evenings here have been about the music. When the groove was here. Everything was happening. People were on the ninth cloud. Those are the most memorable nights that I can think of.