Making Friends While Waiting for a Table

Posted by Deborah Chaddock Brown on November 21, 2008 under Customer Moments, First Impressions, Missed Moments, Training | 2 Comments to Read

I was in a hurry Tuesday night.  I had 45 minutes to grab a quick bite before heading to a meeting.  I didn’t want fast food but didn’t have time to enjoy Ruby Tuesday’s lovely menu so I opted for Eat and Park in Streetsboro.  I always wondered about the name of this chain of restaurants.  The natural progression would seem to require the name be reversed:  Park and Eat. 

And that’s just what happened to me.  I got parked at the front door waiting to be seated.

When I arrived a single customer was waiting, in fact leaning on the podium that stood by the front door.  We exchanged eye contact and then proceeded to wait in tandum.  I watched the manager through the door to the kitchen walk by and glance in our way.  “Oh here comes someone,” I thought.  I was wrong.

I watched a harried waitress in the distance as she walked briskly from the tables she served to the kitchen area.

Out came a male employee with three containers to add to the salad bar.  He didn’t look our way.

Another couple arrived to wait behind me and we all said hello.  “Much of a wait?,” the couple asked.

“Well, let’s put it this way,” the guy said that had arrived before me.  “I’ve been here long enough to notice there are two waitresses, this guy filling the salad bar and I even walked over and looked at the salad bar. Frankly I was tempted to grab a plate and help myself because I think that may be the only way I get dinner.”

The couple behind me said, “That’s this new generation.  Look at that guy filling the salad bar.  You know he can hear us and yet he is ignoring the fact that we are waiting because it isn’t his job.  Why in my day…”

I spotted the manager again through the kitchen door’s window and yet still he did nothing to take care of the new customers waiting for a meal.  He was not part of the new generation but looked to be about my age.  Don’t think it is a generational thing, but I could be wrong.

I looked at my watch.  I now had 30 minutes.

The waitress approached and said ‘I’ll be there in a minute.” She returned and said “Party of four?”

No.  Three separate parties.

The pained look on her face truly made me feel sorry for her.  It wasn’t her fault.  She was working her tail off but to ask two waitresses to handle the door and their tables was clearly not enough.

So I thought:

1. It’s the manager’s responsibility to staff appropriately so did he staff too few and decide to anger customers rather than go to the expense of having more employees scheduled in hopes of additional customers?
2. Are we raising a generation of “it’s not my job?” employees?
3. Is it possible that the employee filling the salad bar was new and hadn’t been trained to greet and seat customers?
4. Shouldn’t that be the first thing every employee learns:  how to say “hello” with a smile?
5. If local word of mouth has spread the word about the lack of service and under staffing of this Eat and Park – what will the manager need to do to turn things around?

It’s almost a chicken and the egg story.  If you staff adequate people and then don’t get the customers because the word is out that service stinks – you suffer financially.

However, if you don’t staff enough people you continue to support the local WOM that service is bad and you suffer financially.

I like Eat and Park and this was my first poor experience.  I enjoyed the conversation I had with the three other hungry guests but I took myself across the street to Bob Evans where Shandra seated me with a warm greeting, brought me water and a menu and had my order into the kitchen before I’d settled and opened my paperback novel. 

I was out the door in under 30 minutes.

As managers, are we blaming the economy for poor sales results when in fact we should look in the mirror and face the fact that perhaps we bring the problems on ourselves??

Hmmm.  what do you think?

Photo courtesy of Girl Half check out her post on service in Manhattan.