Business Lessons Gleaned from Lunch

Had lunch at a trendy new restaurant today – ten Restaurant and Wine Bar.

The restaurant is in a prime location, right at the heart of Port Credit’s thriving Harbour strip. The interior design and architecture are beautiful. When a script calls for the characters to be in a trendy restaurant populated by power-brokers, ten is what the set designers would likely try to approximate. The menu is a splash of interesting specialty dishes like Potato Skins stuffed with Lobster Thermadore, or onion stuffed with goat cheese and bacon.

The place looks like a million bucks and I wouldn’t be surprised if it actually cost two million. What a shame that the whole deal comes apart due to a waitress who’s likely making just a little over minimum wage.

After waiting several minutes at the entrance, the hostess - rather than asking the number in our party made the assumption that we weren’t all together. Arriving at our table, she was startled to see two more of us preparing to sit and so had to dash back for additional menus.

We had ordered our drinks already and were well set in our selections for lunch when our waitress suddenly ran back out with a sheet listing the specials. Shouldn’t that have come with our menus?

“Does the small serving of this combo platter come with four pieces of the flatbread pizza” one of the members at our table asked of the server. We were assured that it did, and so she ordered that.

The food was a good while in the arriving. So long that all of us had finished our drinks. We placed our order for a second round early. At the speed of things, it would be a while before the drinks came. The food finally did arrive. Too bad silverware didn’t arrive with it. We had to ask for that. The empty beer bottle and glasses sat on the table.

Oh – and it would seem that our server made a mistake. The small combo plate only came with two pieces of flat bread. One would think, upon recognizing the mistake, the server would ask the chef to throw in an extra two pieces, or unable to do that, would at least ask if we wanted to change the order. What’s more – the two pieces weren’t even what was originally ordered. Back to the kitchen for more. Maybe it’s time for a third round of drinks.

The beer bottle was finally cleared, yet strangely the empty glasses remained. By meal’s end, the only thing to arrive at the table in a timely fashion was the bill.

Maybe this isn’t typical of the service at ten – heck, maybe this isn’t even typical for the waitress. She was cheerful enough, but just didn’t seem to have her heart in the job she was doing. But that doesn’t change my first impression that ten has a great décor, pretty good food but less than stellar service. No amount of ads in the local paper or spots on the radio will change my view that ten has slow, indifferent service.

For every dollar of marketing it takes to get you in the door the first time around, it takes one hundred dollars of marketing to win me back after a bad experience. Marketing isn't just about advertising and promotions - it's how you communicate each and every day. How much attention are you putting on your front line staff? What impression do they give about you and your brand?