Over the weekend, I was in Columbia, MO for my son's graduation from the University of Missouri. Columbia is a city of less than 100,000 population. The University boasts nearly 30,000 students so you can imagine that graduation weekend puts a bit of a strain on the local hospitality industry.
On Friday evening, we were looking for a place to eat dinner. My son's roommate/landlord suggested a new restaurant nearby. Since they live on the western edge of the Columbia area, we guessed that they might not be as busy as something closer to the campus. We were right, but we were also wrong.
The restaurant is called the Cherry Hill Brasserie. It's a small place and it was full. On the other hand, the wait for a table was only about twenty minutes; not bad considering. We took a seat (four seats, really) at the bar and waited for our table. While we waited it was obvious that the place was "slammed" which is my former-waiter son's term for busy. My guess is that since the place is so new,this was their first graduation weekend and they weren't prepared for the crowd.
To make a long story short, or at least not so long, we were seated in about the amount of time the hostess had predicted, and the waiter took our order promptly. Then things started falling apart. We waited, and waited, and waited some more. We had no bread. We had no napkins. When the bread came, we had no bread plates. It was obvious that the place was very short-staffed and everyone was working very hard, they just couldn't keep up.
About a half an hour after we had placed our order, the waiter approached our table with kind of a deer-in-the-headlights look. "Sir, I'm so sorry for your wait. The kitchen misplaced your order and they're just starting on it now. I hope you'll be patient. We're really busy tonight. To make up for your long wait, your dinner will be on the house."
As you might guess from the name, this isn't a fast-food place. Dinner for four wasn't cheap. This was some serious damage control.
When dinner finally arrived, it was wonderful. I could cut my steak with a fork. Everyone else's meal was equally good. When we were done, the waiter suggested desert, but, because of the size of the portions, there were no takers. As we were eating, both the manager (probably the owner) and the bartender came to our table to make sure everything was OK, and to add their apologies for the delay.
The waiter had said that dinner would be on the house, so I waited for him to bring me a bar tab, since I didn't expect that to be included, especially since we ordered a round of drinks after he told us that the meal would be gratis. No, there was no charge for anything, just another apology.
I don't imagine getting a free meal after the restaurant makes a mistake is all that unusual. But, you have to understand, we walked into the restaurant about 7:00 and left about 9:30. On the Friday night before graduation in Columbia, MO, there's not a restaurant in town where we could have gotten in and out any more quickly. In fact, I would guess that 3-4 hours was more the norm.
But for this restaurant, that wasn't acceptable. They were under-staffed, they made a mistake on our order, and they apologized and made up for it. I may never go back to the restaurant, because now that Patrick has graduated, I'm not likely to be in Columbia very often. But, I have told this story to everyone I've talked to over the last three days, including several who live in Columbia. I'm telling it to you. Of course, you know where I'm going with this. Customer service, above and beyond what's expected is the stuff that legends are made of.
A free round of drinks, or free desert, or a percentage discount would have been enough to satisfy us. And a month from now, I wouldn't have been able to tell you the name of the restaurant. All I would remember is how slow they were. But, we were far more than satisfied. We were surprised and delighted. That's the kind of word-of-mouth advertising that you can't buy. You have to earn it.
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