During the years that my wife and I toiled at our restaurant, her indoor/outdoor cats fended for themselves from nine in the morning until after midnight. To compensate, she left a smorgasbord of cat food out for all five of the ungrateful little bastards. Our kitchen floor was a minefield of cat food bowls.
A cat had only to whimper, and the next sound would be the can opener grinding out a new feline culinary offering. Suzie only wanted shrimp. Shrimp? Sylvester only ate crunchy dry food which none of the others would touch. Rhett Butler preferred canned food but would eat another brand of crunches. Merry liked an occasional raw egg, which made cooking breakfast difficult with her under foot.
They all were offended if tiny sacks of “treats” were not regularly offered. I have no idea what controlled substance was in those treats, but it kept Kay’s cuties strung-out and begging for more. That cat food came from minuscule cans with $0.50 price tags meant nothing to these furry little reprobates. Something reaches the darkest part of me when I see one of the little adorables approach a freshly opened expensive can of cat food, take one whiff, turn around and start trying to cover the food up like it had just relieved itself. But the urge to drop kick the persnickety little darling soon passes.
Television at that time was awash with cat food ads assuring all cat lovers that pussycats would break down brick walls to get to their brand. One of the most offensive of these ads showed a housewife, dressed in a cat suit, up on her roof with a bowl of food trying to entice tabby to dinner. I looked everywhere for a cat suit for Kay, my wife, for Mother’s Day to no avail.
I chose Mother’s Day, because Kay and I have no children, and the cats fill the void for her. My two lovely daughters satisfied my urge for progeny. So every time I file a cat complaint, Kay reminds me that cats don’t require orthodontia or college educations. I’ve consoled myself with that thought over the course of our marriage.
Then comes the question of what do these fuzzy little despots do with what they eat and drink. I hoped since they were indoor/outdoor cats that they would have the decency to do their business outside, preferably in the neighbors’ yards. But these little dears would tear down the backdoor to come in and befoul the house. It still is amazing how creative the charmers are at hiding their droppings in our house. Dropping a load in a cat box takes no talent at all. Hiding one where the odor becomes so intense that I selflessly call in a nuclear strike to save mankind, takes some doing.
Let’s not forget the hair - cat hair everywhere. It starts as air pollution after their interminable licking and scratching, then settles as a fine dust over everything we own. Other times huge balls of fur roll around like tumbleweeds. These hairballs were ripped out during the nightly catfights that fell my lot to referee.
You’ve probably guessed that I am not some simpering, soggy cat lover who does third person baby talk to these creatures. I can build a pretty strong case for feline extinction. I also hold the hope that the person who first invited one of these animals into his abode is spending eternity neck deep in them.
From all of Kay’s cats, there was, however, one sterling example of what any self-respecting cat should be. His name was Pussy. Pussy was a gelding, a condition that could produce psychological trauma in other toms whose load had been lightened. Not Pussy. He was totally self reliant and fearless.
A neighbor had a tomcat named Peter, and the two cats were bitter enemies. One night a howling cat fight broke out in our backyard that awoke both Kay and myself. She went to the window, returned to bed, and announced, “It’s just Peter fighting Pussy.” Kay went to sleep while I lay in bed for two hours bursting out laughing at the semantics of the occasion.
On another occasion I saw a large German Shepard mistakenly enter Pussy’s front yard domain. From ambush, Pussy landed on the dog’s back launching a diminutive version of a circus dog-and-pony act. Nearing the street, Pussy jumped behind the dog swiping him across his rear, and literally, as they say, “Tore him a new one.”
Pussy had two other completely endearing qualities. First, he ate anything that didn’t eat him first. His favorites were the leftover treats Kay brought home from our restaurant. The more haute the better the cuisine for Pussy. Second, I never saw where he did his business. I’m talking about near feline perfection here.
Pussy waited ever so stoically in the driveway each evening for our return home. He leapt into the car with the door in mid-swing, and dispensed just enough loving to insure the continuation of the ritual. He then proceeded to the business at hand - exploring Kay’s ever present brown bag containing his evening treat personally delivered from our restaurant.
He definitely was a different kind of cat. I could appreciate his love for good food, and he had no bad habits. He was not hyper like most cats when they relate to humans and to their own kind. Constantly in control and always completely confident of Kay and me, his serenity and composure were ever intact.
His most endearing trait; however, was his passion for being outside where the action was. A cat that only comes around for short periods of time is something that a non-cat lover can really appreciate. Pussy and I had years of enjoyable détente.
When Pussy died a victim of feline leukemia, we asked the vet to save his remains. Somehow it just didn’t seem right for an old friend to end in a plastic sack in a garbage can.
Kay asked me to bury him in our backyard so he would be close. I think also she felt two hours of digging in the limestone infested Texas Hill Country would keep me from continuing to wish for the early demise of her other four cats.
Befittingly, we buried Pussy in a Chateau Trottevieille St. Emilion wooden wine crate. As I lowered him into the ground, I noticed the Chateau’s quality designation branded into the wooden box end - “1er Premier Grand Cru Classe.”
Yeah, that was old Pussy.
]]>A complete history of the Sazerac Cocktail written by Chuck Taggart and published in http://www.gumbopages.com/ is worth the read. I have confirmed the history from several other sources: the sum of which research leads me to the conclusion that the Sazerac is the oldest cocktail in America. In the early1800’s Antoine Amadie Peychaud, a New Orleans apothecary, made a drink using his medicinal Peychaud Bitters in a cognac and Absinthe drink called a “coquertier.†This French word was Americanized to “Cocktail.â€
Mr. Taylor, owner of the Sazerac Coffeehouse, bestowed the name “Sazerac†in 1853 by announcing the drink to hence forth be made solely from the Cognac brand, Sazerac-du-Forge et Fills. The Sazerac Coffeehouse changed owners in 1870 and with it, the basic Sazerac ingredient, Cognac, to American Rye Whiskey for reasons of availability and cost.
My personal introduction to the Sazerac was not as a libation, but in a story told to me by Marcelle Bienvenue, author of the cookbook Who’s Your Mama, Are You Catholic & Can You Make a Roux, wherein she once reluctantly shared her Sazerac and oysters with Tennessee Williams in New Orleans’ Acme Oyster Bar. The story so filled me with wonder, that I launched solo into the New Orleans night determined to find the best Sazerac in the Crescent City.
This “hands on†research project lasted well into the following morning. About all I can meaningfully report is that I survived – with an unrequited appetite for Sazeracs and fresh oysters.
I need some disclaimers here as regards “well made†Sazeracs. If you’re trying for the “World’s Best,†wait until you have the right ingredients. Everyone knows the original Absinth made with wormwood, a substance then determined to be deleterious to your health, was banned in the USA. That concept now is being challenged, and you can scout the Internet and again find Absinth available. I have not tried this as a substitute for Pernod. The New Orleans liqueur, Herbsaint, is used almost exclusively in its hometown, but I still prefer Pernod. You could substitute Canadian Rye, Bourbon or Cognac for American Rye, but I wouldn’t. Last but not least, there is always Angostura Bitters for the Peychaud Bitters, but why?
The World’s Best Pairing of Food and Drink
Ingredients:
2 – 3 ½ ounce Old Fashion Cocktail Glasses
5 – drops Pernod
1 – Sugar cube (Ok, Ok – you could substitute a teaspoon of sugar or bar syrup)
2 – Drops Peychaud Bitters
1 ½ to 2 – Ounces of Old Overholt American Rye Whiskey (Come on! Go out and buy a bottle)
Finely crushed ice
1 – Large lemon twist (Make sure it’s big enough to drip a little lemon oil)
12 – Each ultra fresh Blue Point oysters
Preparation:
Sazerac:
Fill glass No. 1 with ice to cool
Place two drops of Peychaud Bitters on the sugar cube and drop into glass No.2
Add Old Overholt whiskey and mull the sugar cube until it is completely crushed
Add ice and stir or shake until the sugar is totally dissolved.
Remove the ice from glass No.1 and dry.
Add 5 drops of Pernod to Glass No 1, rolling it around until all surfaces are covered.
Fling the excess Pernod out with a snap of the wrist (It’s all in the wrist action)
Strain glass No. 2 into glass No.1
Twist lemon peel until oil drops, then ad as garnish.
Oysters
Open, cut loose from shell, and display on bed of ice.
Go to Heaven! The warmth of the Sazerac has layers of complexity including spice honey and anise with the aroma of lemon oil. A balance of sweetness and pungency that combines with the oysters in a manner that makes you yearn for solitude where you can moan with pleasure without someone saying, “I want what she’s having.â€
Granted, not all Gotham Martini bars and restaurants are infested with this Martini madness, but if you end up “where it’s hap-pa-nin,” then bring lots of Alexander Hamilton’s to the party.
There still are sanctuaries in the Outlands where a person can tipple a toddy for less than the price of a pair of shoes. If Martini prices were graphed from the East Coast to the West Coast, they would decline steadily from the lofty $18.00 range bottoming out at about $8.00 in the Four Corners Region just west of the Rockies and gradually climb again to max out at about $12.00 on the California Coast. So it’s obvious a bar or restaurant can charge about anything they want for a Martini.
Let’s run the numbers. Every state has its own distribution laws and alcohol tax laws, so we can only speak in generalities. If we assume that the $18.00 Martini monger is pouring the very best (most expensive) brand of booze, they still are hard pressed to pay more than $1.00 per ounce for either gin or vodka. Add in a very fancy cocktail pick at about three cents and a couple of olives at a nickel each, and the raw materials for a two-ounce Martini come to $2.13 total. That gives a $15.87 gross profit per drink. Assume the state and city want about 15% tax off the top (not all states/cities tax in this fashion), and the net profit drops to $13.35, or over 600% profit - 745% without tax.
So why would we pay someone a 700% profit for a bar drink? I can only think of two reasons:
1) We are either stupid or have taken leave of our senses.
2) We feel it’s worth it to be “where it’s hap-pa-nin.”
Google “$18.00 Martini,” and you find that $18.00 buys a “Martini Girl Tank Top” (http://www.cafepress.com/); one Olin Stubek Martini Glass (http://www.artglass-pottery.com/); a “Dotty Red Martini Pitcher” (http://www.martinimartini.com/), or what might be the salvation of all cheapskates yearning to be “where it’s hap-pa-nin.”
It makes no sense to be “where it’s hap-pa-nin’” and bottom feed on a brewski - that just won’t do. But for $18.00 we can buy a “replica drink” at http://www.leeleescreations.shoppingcartsplus.com/ (made from plastic) that looks totally real. Now we just smuggle this faux fixture into the hottest bars and restaurants around and know our image is secure while we toke all night on our $18.00 plastic Martini. When we get thirsty, we can buy a beer and swill it down out of sight in the restroom, while our “$18.00 Martini” holds our seat back at the bar/table. There’s always a way, right?
]]>Picture three attendees of the very first “Wine Spectator Wine Experience” seated in a nice corner booth in New York’s famous old, Le Circ Restaurant. The captain approaches to take a drink order. One of the guests wishing to be respectful and call the captain by name says, “You’re not wearing a name tag, so I don’t know you name.”
The Captain replies very contemptuously, “This is not a factory.”
The guest pauses for a moment, produces a newspaper reporter’s notebook in which he had written a day of wine notes, makes certain the captain sees the newspapers’ name on the cover, opens it and begins writing.
The Captain looks nervous. “What are you writing?”
“I’m writing ‘This is not a factory’.” The guest smiles up at the captain.
“You can’t write that.” The captain squirms.
“Of course I can write it.” The guest continues to smile. “It’s a direct quotation. Right, guys?” His friends nod their affirmation.
“Yes, but . . .”
“Hey, it’s what you said, right?”
“Yes, but you shouldn’t write that in a newspaper.” The captain looks a little frazzled.
The guest puts down his pen, smiles broadly and holds out his hand. “Maybe we got off to a bad start. My name is Sam. What’s yours?”
The relieved captain pumps the guest’s hand. “Carl, sir. My name is Carl.”
“Carl, I need to ask you a very important question.”
“Anything, sir.”
“Are you going to be part of the problem tonight, or part of the solution?”
Old Carl does everything but a soft shoe dance while juggling soufflés. The bad attitude is cured - at least for that night.
But what about the rest of us average folks, your regular customers, who lack the props and leverage of the wine writer just discussed. How do we cure your restaurant’s negative attitude? Sadly, we don’t.
Instead, we eat our meals and leave. We forget about how hard you work and how much money you spend making your restaurant look inviting and wonderful. That incredible meal your kitchen staff prepared for us: we forget that too. But that bad attitude gnaws at us until we tell our experience to about a dozen other potential customers. Then we forget your restaurant.
We understand that an employee with a bad attitude can victimize the most dedicated, customer-oriented owner/manager. What we don’t understand is why this person is still an employee. That makes us suspicious from where the attitude originated. Did the person pick it up from other employees or maybe from the restaurant management? It seems to us that restaurant owners or managers need to hold a mirror up and not see themselves, but rather see their attitude as it reflects in their employees. We’ve all held jobs, some even in restaurants, and we know how employees magnify the tiniest management negativity.
In the end we really don’t care from where your restaurant’s bad attitude originated, we just don’t want to be around it. We’re your customers - just simple folk who want to be appreciated not aggravated.
]]>Years ago a sales meeting was called in New York, and the group of twenty-four attended a Broadway musical as a perk. A dinner was arranged at Sardi’s Restaurant because even rubes from the outlands (like us) knew the Sardi’s tradition of after-show dining. Two captains took our individual orders since the group was large. We had cocktails before the show, and now after the show, we were well into the wine. Frivolity reigned.
Suddenly a phalanx of waiters, carrying two plates each, bursts out of the kitchen and begins whirling around our table shouting out Italian dishes (properly pronounced: a problem of communication with outlanders). On their second march around the table a waiter finally scored a home for a plate. The clamoring was deafening, and we still had to switch several plates after the dust all settled. This group regularly entertained in fine dining restaurants, and the unpleasant Sardi’s scene is still remembered by some decades later.
You say the pressure of getting all of your tables served makes remembering what each diner ordered impossible. Hogwash! It can’t be that difficult.
What if you number the seats of each table on your order pad starting with No. 1 as the seat closest to the kitchen; then continue numbering clockwise around the table? Better still why doesn’t the restaurant provide you with numbered order pads?
Try to start the ordering from seat No.1 and take the orders in succession around the table, but that’s probably not going to work. For one thing, some restaurants have as their practice (even in the age of feminism) taking all the women’s orders first. A further complication arises when one or more of us still is undecided on our order, or wants to see what someone else is ordering. Not to worry, your order pad it numbered by seat, right? You can take orders randomly, writing them into the correct seat number slot.
When you return with the food, just set the proper plate in front of the proper seat number, and smile. At that point you’ve graduated from Bowling Ball No.2 to Professional No.1 - now you’re worth a much bigger tip.
]]>A “chicken or egg” argument can be made for you guys calling us by our names and our becoming your restaurant regulars vs. our becoming restaurant regulars thereby forcing you to call us by our names. We vote for argument No. 1, because there is nothing we love hearing more than our own names - unless it’s the five o’clock whistle. We don’t have a resident psychologist to explain it to you, but let’s have a try anyway. How about: it makes us feel welcome and important.
Consider the sad day the corner drugstore closed, succumbing to the pressures of national chain and supermarket pharmacy competition. Frank, the owner/pharmacist who knew each family member’s name, would have a cup of coffee with us, time permitting.
With the closing, his customers were forced, mostly out of convenience, to switch to the supermarket pharmacy. It’s interesting how little employee turnover this pharmacy has, but for twelve years, every time we pickup a prescription they still ask for our names.
We understand the difference between actually knowing us as customers and calling us by name. But we’re telling you the best way to know us, is to call us by name. You will not be able to know everyone’s name if we show as a group. But hearing you call one of our groups’ name, makes us feel you might use our name when we come back on our own.
You say it’s too difficult learning and using names when you’re running hot and heavy. You already have a seating chart and a customer waitlist and/or a reservation book, right? If you don’t, it takes about thirty minutes to make them. Why not buy a pad of 3 M Post-it Notes while you’re at it (get a color close to your table or tablecloth’s), and then you’re ready to go.
If you take reservations, you already know our name. Write it on a 3M Post-It along with the table number. If you don’t take reservations, ask for our last name even if there is no waitlist. Again write our name and table number on the Post-it, and hand it to the seating person who then says, “Mr. Jones, right this way.” The seating person hands the Post-It to the waitperson who sticks it on their order pad and says, “Good evening, Mr. Jones, I’m Ralph, and I’m going to take good care of you tonight.” Pretty simple way to get us to tip better, huh?
There could be a lot of variations to this including just sticking the Post-It on the edge of the table (the reason for the Post-It color) if the waitperson is not easily found. This approach “flags” you or your floor manager that our table has not yet been greeted. Ever wonder why high-end restaurants are so good about using our name? They take reservations and seat us with a waitperson’s order ticket on which our name is written.
The sense of belonging that hearing our name engenders is very powerful medicine indeed. Ask anyone (even those too young to have watched the original broadcasts) what the last phrase of the “Cheers” sitcom theme song is, and a majority will reel off, “Where everybody knows your name.”
]]>Count these: 1) County of Origin, 2) Producer, 3) Vintage date, 4) Appellation, 5) Variety of Grape, 6) Vineyard, and 7) season the grapes were picked (Ice Wine, Late Harvest, etc.). That’s right, seven items of information must be catalogued and understood to give us a chance at knowing what a wine tastes like when reading your traditional wine list. Keep six of these, change the seventh, and all bets are off on how the wine will taste. We get as confused as a blind dog in a meat house.
If you hear a lot of us saying, “Just give me a glass of your house white,” you have a wine list problem. Hey, we’re not too cheap to buy a bottle of wine; we just don’t want to make a sizeable investment in a bottle we may not like. So why keep us in the dark, trying to decipher your wine list code? Why not tell us how the wine tastes, and we’ll pop for a bottle or two.
Expensive restaurants once solved this problem with a sommelier whose job it was to discern our taste preference, analyze the menu we’ve ordered, and recommend a wine we would enjoy with our meal. There are precious few qualified sommeliers around these days, especially in affordable restaurants. When your wait staff recommends, it’s usually wines they like.
The only thing worse than a traditional wine list is one filled with “winese” puffery descriptions. Example: “This wine has hints of dark tree fruit, root vegetable, autumn leaves, pears, berries and vanilla, with a strong finish of cigar box.” Amazing! Do you have something that tastes like wine?
In January of 1980, Grey Moss Inn in Grey Forrest, Texas, implemented the “Customer Friendly Wine List.” Customers could order wines by the way they taste for the first time ever. The wine list was divided into categories:
1) Slightly Sweet, Light, Soft
2) Light, Crisp, Fruity
3) Fuller, Rounded, Dry
4) Elegance, Finesse
5) Robust, Complex, Full Flavored
6) After Dinner Sweet
Red, white and rose wines all appeared in most categories. Some wines like Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon appeared under as many as three categories. As customers, we knew that by staying within a category we could be experimental ordering wine and still enjoy our selection.
Jill Goolden published the book, The Taste of Wine, around 1900, and about a decade later Fiona Beckett published Wines by Style. The thesis of these books is to classify wine by how it tastes, rather than the seven criteria above. These books led to a rash of wine lists offering up their contents by taste profile - but these glimmering lights seem to be flickering out.
If you lack the confidence to develop a wine list for your restaurant that lets us order wines by the way they taste, hire a qualified wine consultant, or work closely with your vendors to achieve your goal. Then watch your wines sales grow from glasses to bottles, as we feel comfortable ordering from your list.
]]>There are thousands of attempts at barstool design – meaning no barstool designer has yet gotten it right. Barstool design is a classic case of function forgotten by form. It is obvious to us, just by inspection (even more so by imperiling our posteriors), that barstools are designed and selected for appearance – not for our comfort. Somewhere there has to be an annual international competition for “The World’s Most Uncomfortable Barstool.†Judges would sit designers in their own creations and observe their pained expressions to establish each barstool’s discomfort index. A perennial winner must to be the grape-pattern cast iron barstool: cast iron legs, cast iron seat, cast iron arms and cast iron back. It takes two people to move one of these horrors, and the discomfort index is just below “The Iron Maiden†used in the Spanish Inquisition.
Some importance has to be attached to the type of bar you operate. All bars can be lumped into three categories: 1) drinking bars, including those that serve some food; 2) holding-tanks for restaurant diners waiting to be seated; 3) body shops whose denizens prowl for companionship.
Body shop barstools require the least comfort. Sitting too long in a body shop might be construed negatively and be self defeating in our quest for Mr. or Ms. Goodbar. Hence, we must mingle – not stake a bar claim. An uncomfortable barstool is a reminder to move out into the melee.
Comfortable barstools offer commercial opportunity for restaurant holding-tank bars. Given a comfy spot to cozy up to your bar, some of us might migrate to and nest in your operation during happy hour and when there is no restaurant wait. This extra income might pay for comfortable barstools.
We insist on comfortable barstools in drinking bars. Without delving into the psychological manifestations, your drinking bar exists so we can escape from whatever is bugging us. We come to you for relief. Whether the relief comes from a bottle, from companionship, or from solitude – escaping reality is impossible when your barstool keeps hounding our heinies back into real time.
Since designers have yet to produce the perfect barstool, we will give you a shopping list of features for you as a bar operator to look for when replacing your barstools.
1) Large, soft padded seat – essential! A real positive for the plentiful posterior.
2) Soft padded back – prevents back pain. Don’t bother with a barstool back unless it’s comfortable.
3) Swivel seat – prevents neck pain when talking to or ogling the person next to us.
4) Arms – nice, but optional. They take up room and might debilitate another bar patron if we swivel suddenly.
5) Adjustable footrest – prevents leg cramps while dangling in midair.
6) Roller casters – make it easy to pull ourselves up to the bar. Also useful for wheeling overly relaxed patrons out to a cab.
Then of course, there is the one style barstool as yet not attempted – The Recliner! The first bar with reclining barstools will become a tourist attraction.
]]>Not all of us making these comments are older and visually challenged. There is a rising tide of sentiment within our ranks that we want to feel like we’re “someplace†when we dine out. You know, where it’s happening. Here in your place we feel like we’re in some mausoleum. Don’t accuse our romance of flooding from our souls, leaving only a dry husk of what has been. We might be hittin’ up on you right now if we could see you.
The low lights concept must have originated in nightclubs and supper clubs where the ambience caters to the noir side of human nature. If we go out to prowl in the dark, entering a place of glaring light is self-defeating – hence the low light concept. But sitting in a dark nightclub or bar requires only that we elevate our glass from the table or bar to our lips without incident: plus a keen sense of smell to know if we’re talking to a male or female.
Your fine dining establishment requires much more of us. We came to your high-end establishment because the chances of getting a good meal are enhanced. “A good meal†are the operative words here because the food and drink are the entertainment and the catalyst for sparkling conversation. To craft a good meal requires that we read and understand the menu in which you have exploited every possible means to confound us. Then we must plow through a wine list that should be published in hardback edition to select the perfect wines to make our menu selections soar like the eagle. I hate to break your bubble, but with 20/20 vision we can’t do this in the dark: unless you provide military night-vision goggles – or (God forbid) a flashlight. Just remember that the classic old shrines to fine dining like Antoine’s and Galatois’ in New Orleans and Jack’s in San Francisco were or are all high-light ambience.
Are we asking for high lights all around? No. We just want to be able to read the information you hand to us. Yeah, yeah – we see the charmingly romantic candle on the table, and, yes, we know our women are more beautiful by candlelight. Some of us look better in the dark, for that matter. Sorry, the candle doesn’t cut it, and it’s a constant fire hazard when we hold our menus up to the flame, trying to read them.
There is absolutely no reason for this problem to exist in your or any other restaurant in this age of halogen lighting. We really don’t care about the ambient light level in the dining room, unless we trip over another patron on our way to the restroom. We just want some light on our table. Lose the candle and replace it with a battery powered or hard wired (preferably rheostat controlled) halogen table lamp. Now we can dial up the light level most comfortable for us.
You just gotta have the candles, right? Not a problem. String overhead halogen wiring with drops and spotlight bulbs that light just the table surface. You can do this yourself, as the wiring is only 12 volts. Dial up the halogens until we can read the menus, and then we’ll stop complaining.
]]>Drive-thru operations with talking menu boards existed long before we put men on the moon. We have no problem talking to the men on the moon. Law enforcement agencies beam a listening device at our living room window from the next block and hear us whispering. But talking to your drive-thru order taker 100 feet away seems beyond current technology.
Probably after a monumental operational study and several Board of Director’s meetings, Jack decided to add a “pre-ordering†menu board to the Jack in the Box drive-thru. Imagine the loss of self-esteem suffered by us drive-thru customers shouting at this mute piece of plastic, especially when the yardman tells us that around the drive-thru corner, hidden behind some bushes, is an identical menu board with a squawk box. Then discovering that we can’t understand a word it says, anyway. We leave, broken shells of our former selves, holding a white paper bag containing God knows what.
This is a common drive-thru conversation (Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.)
“Welcometobicsbetterbur(static)homeoftheflam(someone shouting)chick(cash register ringing)edsteakâ€
“What?â€
“welcometobicsbett(scratchy sound)burgersmay(cough)akeur(cash register ringing)der.
“Do you want my order?â€
“goheadplezâ€
“Go where?â€
“What-would-you-like-to-order?â€
“Wow! You speak English great.â€
“Eight what?â€
“Never mind, just give me: 2 – #1’s, 1 – #2, and 3 – #4’sâ€
“Ok, that’s: a #1, a #2, a #3, and a #4. frieslawbeansurtots?â€
And so it goes.
Not all the drive-thru communication problems are the result of cheap, faulty audio systems. Many drive-thru operations that pay their order takers a whopping $7.00 to $9.00 per hour, feel these minions should multitask to earn their lofty wage. They are fitted with a wireless headset (an endemic source of communication mayhem), freeing them to fill drink orders and sack orders, while taking orders, cashing out orders, and handing the orders through the delivery window. Five for one: not a bad deal – if the operator discounts our frustration when the overtaxed person just can’t keep your drive-thru moving along smoothly.
It would be an interesting study to determine the cost/return ratio of putting a real live, smiling, happy person in the drive-thru line for three hours each at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That’s nine hours daily of personal contact with us, your drive-thru customers: greeting us; taking our orders; selling us lots of extra stuff; keeping us satisfied and streamlining the whole operation to process more orders in less time. The increased sales could be shocking.
Since that idea is way too radical for most operators, then how about trying these solutions to help us out:
Bill Miller Bar-B-Q, a South Texas chain with over 60 stores, opted for all three above. Their audio system is good, and their order takers are not overtaxed and usually are comprehensible. Here’s the big difference. Immediately next to their backlighted piece of plastic, they placed a pylon containing an LCD screen that shows our order as it’s punched into the cash register. What a sense of accomplishment, just knowing that our order is correct.
In a survey of your drive-thru customers, most would vote for the real, live person. If you feel you can’t do this, then any of #1, #2 or #3 above would help us. Or follow Bill Miller’s lead and do all three, and we’ll keep on driving-thru.
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