The customer is not always right

So often restaurants are criticized for their failures, but too often the problem is not with restaurants as much as it is with their customers. Two cases in point: I was sitting on a restaurant patio recently with three other people, all of them the kinds of customers any restaurant would want. They know and understand food and spend a lot of money on wine and other beverages. It was the kind of evening that should have been special because the weather and surroundings were perfect. And it would have been a perfect evening if not for three jerks sitting at a nearby table.

First, all three were smoking cigars, and there’s nothing that can ruin a meal more than a barrage of cigar smoke hitting you in the face and covering your food. If the smoke wasn’t enough, the men were intoxicated, foul-mouthed creeps loudly spitting out the f-word and commenting on the anatomy of passing female pedestrians. They also spoke loudly about their friendship with the chef/owner of the restaurant.

Confronting people like this directly can often escalate a bad situation into a much worse situation. So, one in our group got up from the table to kindly discuss with the restaurant manager our dissatisfaction. But before that could happen, the manager walked onto the patio. Good, we thought, she’s come out to set these guys straight. No such luck. Instead, she sat down at their table and the smoking and swearing continued.

That was the breaking point for another in our group, who walked over and asked them to quiet down. One of the guys began to get abusive, but the manager quickly shut him down and apologized to us. By then it was too late. Tension filled the air as the creeps kept glaring at our table long after the manager left them.

Here’s another example, this one from Jeremy Grandon, the chef/owner of Jeremy Restaurant & Bar in Keego Harbor, MI. Twelve customers came to his restaurant for a retirement party. Without informing the restaurant, they brought in a celebratory cake to have after dinner. Their server informed them that there would be a $4 per person fee to have the cake at the restaurant. This upset everyone at the table and they left disgruntled, choosing to take the cake home with them.

This is a tough situation, explained Grandon. You have a dozen customers who can potentially do great damage to the restaurant’s reputation because they believe they’ve been wronged. Never mind that they never called ahead to let the restaurant know they were bringing a cake or to find out if the restaurant can make a cake for them (which it can).

So, here’s the deal: How would you have handled the first scenario with the loud, obnoxious customers and how would you repair the damage done to your abused good customers? Also, what is your take on the second scenario? Was Grandon’s response to his cake-toting customers right or wrong? How do you handle a situation like that? Email me your comments on either or both.

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Twitter: @MikeSansonRH