It doesn't take a Restaurant Association to understand the concepts of the service trade and that it make sense to treat customers with a degree of respect and attention. Sadly this is sorely lacking in Armenia.. Then too you have the opposite phenomenon on certain large supermarket chains like SAS where there seems to be more sales clerks and young girls stocking the shelves than regular customers. They try to be polite and helpful but don't understand that consumers should be able to pick an item off the shelf and examine it without someone constantly looking over your shoulder and asking if you plan to purchase the item. There's got to be a happy medium.

Last summer at one of the cafes around Opera square, 4 of us sat down for a couple of drinks while we waited for the rest of our friends to arrive. When the waiter approached us we asked if it would be possible to join two tables as we were expected others to join us later. He looked a bit annoyed, mumbled something under his breath but did it anyway. When the tables were connected there was a height difference of about 5 inches so we asked if it would be ok if we swapped the new table for another so they would be the same height, at which point we were told to “Gnacek urish teg, minchev dzez spasarkem kyanks kutek!” Needless to say we were all speechless!

I agree that the waiters are not always aware of the items in menu list, the same problem could be observed in super markets (even in good ones)when the salers have no idea of products in their markets, as for the ARA initiative I am looking forward for a day we could decals some restaurants

Personally I am very glad that in Armenia there exists such kind of association that is eager to deal with such issues to improve this business and to reach European standarts.I would also like all the existing restaurants to be cheaper and more available to the society members. In this case I think it wiil prospere.

Here is one suggestion that this organization can begin instructing its own members on, as they themselves lack in these area. Demand that their waiters know the items on their own menu in all the languages it has been written in and fire any waiter that can’t learn the full menu. It’s amazing how often waiters at these same establishments that are members of “ARA” look in bewilderment or say “we don’t have that” when ordering an item that is listed on their menu but they’re not aware of. It isn’t that hard to study a simple menu and know all the items on it, and specially know it in the various languages it is written in. Even if they do not know the language that is written in, they can memorize the words to be able to perform their jobs in a normal fashion. After all many of the customers at these establishments are visitors that may not know Armenian, so ideally it would help to hire waiters that have a grasp of the English language or another important foreign language. Yerevan’s restaurants must be prepared to cater to tourists if Armenia wants to improve its tourism industry.