I have led a Council retreat for 24 years in the Charleston area. We end the retreat inviting spouses to join us for dinner on the last evening. In 24 years I have never, until last evening, had couples leave because of a delay in being seated. Reservations were made at Wasabi for a 5pm seating on December 21st and were later confirmed. Despite being told by the hostesses on our arrival that our table was being cleaned and we would be seated shortly (this assurance was repeated several times during our wait), we were not led to our table until 6:30 pm. The service at table was excellent, the chef very personable and entertaining, the food was good. It is a shame that our evening was marred with a portion of our party choosing to leave during the long wait … choosing to eat at other restaurants; it is unfortunate that our plans of celebrating the end of a busy day together, were disrupted by a poor reservation and communication system. .