This evening, Carolyn and I went to dinner at what previously was one of our favorite restaurants. We like the menu. We like the furnishings and the mood and the comfort…and we used to like the food.
About eighteen months ago there, I got a pretty sorry plate of fish 'n' chips. I'd had it there before and enjoyed it but that night, I got bad fish and bad chips. Okay, that happens even in the best of places from time to time. I didn't hold it against the restaurant.
A few months later, we gave 'em another try. This time, I wound up with bad prime rib and bad mashed potatoes…quite a surprise since mashed potatoes are pretty difficult to ruin, and prime rib is one of the signature dishes of this establishment. On the way out, I told Carolyn, "Get a good look at the decor…it'll be a long time before I bring you back here."
This evening, I guess I was in a forgiving mood…plus, I had a certificate for $25 off. So we gave it what turned out to be its last chance and I tried the fish 'n' chips again. The chips were bland and the fish had that taste that makes something in your tummy say, "Stop sending crap like that down here!" I ate one of four pieces and not only didn't like them but started feeling queasy. My stomach has always been pretty sensitive to faulty cuisine and since I had its size reduced, it's become even more apt to go rogue on me.
The waiter took a largely-uneaten plate away and I had him instead bring me a plain baked potato…which turned out to also not be very good. How do you ruin a baked potato? In this case, I suspect, by cooking it hours ago and leaving it in some kind of warmer for way too long. Carolyn found her entree (sea bass) edible but not wonderful, and when she bravely sampled what I had in front of me, she concurred that all was not right.
The manager came over — a well-dressed man who, Carolyn said, reeked of cigarettes. I didn't smell that but things were a little blurry for me at that moment and she was closer to him than I was. He was polite and asked that we give his business another try in the future…but he seemed pretty certain that the food could not possibly be at fault. He had tasted an untouched piece from my plate, he said, and it was fine. As further proof, he noted that they get a delivery of fish every morning. Not being at my best just then, I didn't think to ask, "Is it within the realm of possibility that your supplier brought you a piece of bad fish? Or that it hasn't been properly refrigerated since this morning?" But given his manner, I'm sure he would have said, "No, that is not humanly possible." And of course, no one else has complained about anything this evening or lately.
Bottom line: I was apparently wrong that the fish tasted awful and was making me ill.
Well, that was it for one of my favorite restaurants. Had the man said, "Well, of course it's possible something went wrong in the kitchen…we'll make sure it never happens again," he might have given me a reason to think things would be different on a future visit. As it is, if I give 'em yet another try and dislike my meal, I'll feel like the biggest ninny in this hemisphere…so we'll go elsewhere. There are plenty of elsewheres out there.
I had three thoughts after we left. One was to wonder why he thought I was complaining if the meal was fine. Did he think, "This clown just doesn't know what good food tastes like"? Did he think I was trying some sort of scam to get a free dinner? I was there with that coupon, after all. It meant I was a longtime customer — so obviously, I've properly appreciated their cooking there at some point. I was also not paying much for the meal anyway.
The second thought was this: The place wasn't very crowded. When Carolyn phoned for a reservation, she was told, "You don't need one…we're practically empty." They were, and maybe that explains why the food didn't taste fresh. When the joint is full, there are probably freshly-baked potatoes coming out of the oven every few minutes. When they're only serving one or two taters an hour, I'm guessing they bake a whole batch at once and then the spuds sit around for a while and get a microwave blast just before serving.
Which brings us with Thought #3: As we all know, retailers everywhere are hurting these days. In April, the National Restaurant Association reported falling sales for the eleventh consecutive month. I'm thinking that maybe if your dining establishment is losing patrons because it's declining in quality, you might not realize that…because you'd think it was just the bad economy.