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Thursday, April 13, 2006

Don't Make Me Think in Your Restaurant

I think some of my biggest frustrations this week have been related to the service I've received in restaurants.

First, there was Buffalo Wild Wings in Fayetteville. Their daily special on Wednesdays is 50 cent drumsticks, which is pretty cool, if only for the novelty. At our office, we've really been enjoying eating lunch there on Wednesdays. We could each pick out the right number of drumsticks for our stomachs (ranging from 2 to 8 most days), and whatever assortment of their excellent sauces each of us wanted, then round it out with some potato wedges or appetizers.

That got screwed up this week, though, when we were informed that their new policy is that you have to order a minimum of four drumsticks per sauce flavor. Huh?! I could understand a minimum order of four drums, since it's got to be a hassle to make just one, but four per flavor? I don't think so. My orders typically consisted of 4 or 6 drumsticks, split evenly between two -- or occasionally three -- flavors, since I like a little variety. That's about average for our group.

Now, if I want two different flavors, it's a minimum of 8 drumsticks. Three means 12. Granted, if we all pool our orders, we can still get the right numbers and varieties, and maybe that's what they expect. I think they'll be sorely disappointed, though.

Why? Because that's a lot of thinking. When we go out to lunch, we really don't want to have to figure out who's combining orders with whom, how many legs everyone gets of which flavors, or how to divide up the bill. Don't make me think during my lunch, dang it!

The net result for the restaurant will be fewer of us going, and those who do ordering less food than we previously did. Nice plan.

The other restaurant lesson, from a completely different establishment, is that if you close at 8pm, and I come in at 7:55pm, I'm going to be really disappointed if you don't want to sell me food. I'll get over it, though. However, if I come in at 7:50, and wait around 5 minutes for service only to be told that you've just closed, then I'm going to be really ticked.

Not ticked enough to stop eating there, but frustrated enough (and uncertain enough) to no longer plan on late suppers there.

Honestly, I'm really not neurotic enough to lay awake at night worrying about this stuff, and after this post, I'm probably done thinking about it at all, but it probably wouldn't have bothered me if I hadn't already reached my annoyance and frustration threshold at the office. Oh, well.

It's nearly bedtime, and sleep is good.

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