Feb
7
Lyle’s Steakhouse, Part IV
February 7, 2007 in Life of Brian
Back at the internet marketing conference one speaker after another spoke about customer service, building relationships with your customers, and getting referrals. And as a cosmic juxtaposition of contrasting business models, just fifty feet away is the Atrium Cafe.
Jim Lodwig and I run into Paul Forcey and invite him to lunch at the cafe. We’re given paper menus and I order tuna again, Paul orders a cheeseburger and Jim orders another club. When the bill comes, it’s for $30 or so and I give the waitress two twenties. “Would you like change?” she asks thinking she must be the head waitress at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse and I’m a drunk shoe salesman ready to be rolled. “Yes, please,” I respond as I probably rolled my eyes.
Well, the joke was on me, Mr. Shoe Salesman, because we sat there for another ten minutes and no one came back with any change and all the staff was in the kitchen so I couldn’t ask for service. We left without getting change… specifically, I left without getting any change.
A day later we found ourselves back at the cafe.
This time we are given proper menus (must have been because of that 33% “tip” she got the day before). “Wow,” I said, “real menus!”
“Oh! Uh, oh… those aren’t for you,” the waitress said as she took back our laminated menus. “Here, use these,” and then handed us the paper menus again.
I order tuna, Paul orders a club and Jim orders chicken fingers.
“How many chicken fingers do I get?” he asked the waitress. Paul says something about chickens not having fingers, I say five, unless they are cartoon fingers and then there are only four. Jim giggles. And the waitress looks like she is trying to do Chinese arithmetic.
“Never mind, doll,” says Jim. “Just give me the fingers and fries.”
“But it doesn’t come with fries.”
“So all you get are chicken fingers? No fries, no coleslaw, no nothing? The other dishes come with sides.”
“Sorry, that’s it.”
“Well, that’s ridiculous,” says Jim. “I’ll have the club instead.”
Then there was silence.
“A club and chicken fingers? And you still want a club, right? (pointing at me). And you want what? (asking Paul).”
Within seconds Jim, Paul and I are privy to a one-person remake of Abbot and Costello’s “Who’s On First” sketch.
“No,” says Paul. “I want a club, Jim wants a club, and Brian wants tuna.”
“What about the chicken fingers?”
“No. No one wants chicken fingers. Jim wanted some but since they don’t come with fries, he wants a club.”
“Another club?”
“NO! Two clubs, one tuna. That’s it.”
“And what will you other two gentlemen have?”
“NO! That was the entire order! Two clubs, one tuna, that’s it.”
I looked at her, daring her to say, “Six clubs, three tunas, that’s it for all of you?…” but she let me down and finally got the order correct.
Sigh.
(Continue on to Lyle’s Steakhouse, Part V)
Tags: Atrium Suites, Customer Service, Paul Forcey
Comments
Want More Tips?
Like what you see? (Sheesh! You're easy to please!) Then subscribe to my list and get all this and more!
Highly Recommended
- SEO Backlinks—how to consistently average over 15,000 visitors to your websites per day.
- Domain Manager—trouble being a master of all your domains?
- Traffic Words—discover a website traffic machine that generates visitors for weeks, months or even years without spending a dime.
- Discover Secret Keywords—find the exact words to earn an extra $8,265 from Google Adwords.
- Generate Unique Articles—improve the effectiveness of your website promotion by over 1875% while saving valuable time—guaranteed!
- Spank Your Competition—this top secret underground tracking and testing tool helps improves your existing site by 100%!
- Make Sense of Adsense—discover this step-by-step blueprint for making $19,156 per month.
- Push Button Headlines—test and create high-converting headlines with the push of a button.