The $200 You’re Spending (And Why Your Server Hates Valentines Day)
Valentine’s Day restaurant chaos turns romantic plans into service nightmares nobody admits. You’re spending $199.78 average per person if you’re celebrating. You booked weeks ago. You’re dressed up. You might be planning a proposal. You expect perfect intimate service. The restaurant wedged in extra tables because February is slow and they need to maximize this one profitable night. Your server is handling more customers under worse conditions. Crouse worked restaurants for years and identifies the pattern: Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Eve, Mother’s Day are “truly awful to work” because people arrive with “very high expectations, higher than normal” while service capacity is strained beyond normal.

Topics: Valentine’s Day restaurant stress, holiday spending statistics, service industry experience, Roman fertility festival, commercial pressure

Booze & Reviews: The Movie So Grim It Ended the Date Before Drinks
Valentine’s Day movie recommendations split between romance celebration and relationship devastation. You’re deciding what to watch tonight. You’re among the minority actually observing the holiday, staying home instead of fighting restaurant chaos. The Big Sick adapts real love story where Emily’s mysterious illness makes casual boyfriend Kumail realize his emptiness without her. When Harry Met Sally delivers 40-year-old Billy Crystal-Meg Ryan friendship-to-love story with quotable dialogue feeling absolutely timeless today. Casablanca provides Bogart-Bergman screen-melting chemistry choosing duty over personal happiness, mature selfless love bigger than romance itself.

Pair viewing with classic cocktails. Pink Lady traces to 1913 with gin, Applejack, lemon juice, grenadine, egg white creating fruity sophisticated elegance. Clover Club pre-prohibition Philadelphia recipe uses gin, raspberry syrup, lemon, egg white for delicate pink foam, labeled “ladies drink” in 1900s bars with strict beverage gender rules. Rose from 1920s Paris combines dry vermouth, cherry brandy, raspberry syrup. French 75 most romantic option layers gin, sugar, lemon, champagne.

Topics: Valentine’s movie classics, anti-romantic films, classic cocktail history, prohibition-era drinks, relationship cinema

GUEST: Richard Crouse | | Richard Crouse

SEG 1 RUNDOWN: Film critic Richard Crouse explains why restaurant workers call Valentine’s Day “truly awful” despite customers spending average $199.78 per person and traces the holiday from Roman goat-blood whipping rituals to modern $29.1 billion spending spree.

SEG 2 RUNDOWN: Entertainment critic Richard Crouse recommends Valentine’s viewing including War of the Roses which was so grim about relationships it ended his first date before drinks, plus shares classic cocktail recipes dating back to pre-prohibition 1900s.