Thursday, February 3, 2011
The Snob Scene: Atlanta Restaurants
Being a server is like being in sales, everyone should do it at some point in their life just so they know what it’s like. I was a server much of my high school and college career, it was a perfect job for that time in my life and I enjoyed it immensely. I made good money, great friends, and took home some pretty funny stories from the casual non-corporate lifestyle- which usually compensated for the late night hours, lack of benefits, and the occasional rude customer. Rude customers were always the worst- people with no patience or idea of how the process works that truly enjoyed putting you down for whatever reasons they had. Luckily, I moved on to something I, personally, felt was a little more fitting to my lifestyle.
Strangely, now that I’m a patron when I’m in a restaurant, I still find myself on the low end of the totem pole- and particularly referring to restaurants in the metro Atlanta area. I had heard about top chef contestant Richard Blais opening up a restaurant called Flip Burger Boutique in Atlanta, an upscale burger joint known for their unique shakes, and was excited to try it out. I figured it was a perfect place to have my birthday dinner, the Howell Mill location is close to one of my favorite bars, Ormsby's, and it was a good size for the 15 or so friends I had joining. It was a Friday night and they were pretty busy, so the waiter took his time to get to us initially. But the liquor was flowing, and we were all catching up and enjoying our drinks so we didn’t mind too much. Several toasts and cheers later we received our food, and we all thought it was pretty good despite a few forgotten items by the waiter. Having all been in the industry before we weren’t too alarmed, and were actually thankful after realizing our eyes were bigger than our stomachs during ordering time. Just as everyone finished their last bites and last sips, the waiter brings over the check. That’s right, THE check, as if one person was going to pay for all. And proceeds to tell us he can’t split the check because our party is too large. Computer system problems? Nope, just their “policy”. Maybe if we had known before hand we could’ve asked for paper and pencil to keep a tally on how many drinks each of us had, give me a break..
We pay a premium price for cocktails that have twice the ice and mixer than alcohol. We pay the same premiums for the half forgotten, half cold food that would’ve been just as good made at home, and all so that we can end our pricey experience with breaking up our own bills, adding our part of the tax, and I don’t even remember ever seeing a calculator. Welcome to the Atlanta restaurant industry, where arrogant restaurant staff can do whatever they want because they’ll add their own 20% gratuity anyway. While we all waited drinkless and annoyed for our neighbor to pass us the barely-legible-through-cross-outs-and-math-equations bill, my friend Jimmy pulled out his iPhone to write a less than pleasant review via his yelp account. Maybe if this happens enough they’ll address the problem.
Flip burger isn’t the only place with the arrogant ‘tude, the list is endless. I’ve had similar bad experiences at Pozole, and HobNob and others as well. The worst part about it is all of these restaurants have good food and great locations, but the one thing they do best is aggravate customers. If you want a good restaurant experience, I’d recommend asking for Gregory at Cantina in Buckhead :-)
Labels:
atlanta restaurant industry,
Buckhead,
Flip Burger Boutique,
Gregory Cantina,
HobNob Atlanta,
Ormsby's,
Pozole Atlanta,
Richard Blais
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1 comments
Monday, January 10, 2011
The New Advertising
Someone once asked me, what is it you’re passionate about? It was a vague question, but it really got me thinking. When you’re passionate about so many things, how do you do decide what takes precedence? And what exactly differentiates a passion from something you simply enjoy doing? I won’t get into my passions, or what I think differentiates a passion from a preference because, well, this isn’t about me. It’s about you. It’s about my wheels turning which makes your wheels turn, which elicits conversation, and so begins the domino effect of social media. People don’t respond to personal journal entries that ramble on about meaningless daily activities and self discovery. People respond to opinions they strongly agree or disagree with, controversial topics and convictions that turn their wheels. So I guess if I want to encourage some responses, I have to start a conversation with you all, rather than with myself.
Here’s a topic that recently got some wheels turning: Is advertising dead?
Here’s my take on it..
If advertising strictly referred to television commercials, I’d say yes. TV is no longer given to us. We take it. We stream it, we watch it on demand, we download it. Commercials don’t have the same reach they used to. There are more media outlets for us to choose from, and impressions on one media vehicle don’t have the impact they could. Advertisements in general don’t touch the consumer in the way they were always intended to because we fast forward through them, we read our news online, we research on the validity of controversial documentaries, or we create them ourselves and post them to Youtube. The world is more educated now- the new generation of consumers don’t believe the empty promises of infomercials, the car salesmen screaming 0% APR just annoys us, we wouldn’t even want to buy something that requires “no money down”. So is advertising doomed? Is the power in the complete control of the consumer? Do you throw in the towel and relinquish all control to PR companies that do your damage control and help you establish a twitter presence? I’m going to make a bold statement directed to all companies when I say, don’t let the consumer win that easily. You can try to cross this huge obstacle, or you can take a new route.
I think it is Jeff Jarvis I’m quoting when I say “customer service is the new marketing”. There is an entire new way of thinking that wins the consumer over, and I think Google’s credo sets the best example: “Don’t be evil”. It sums up the new model perfectly- Don’t trick us, don’t sell us a lemon, and we won’t blog about your company and create horrible word of mouth marketing that spreads quicker than it ever could before. Actually, we might help you out. We might do the advertising for you, so all 1,568 of our Facebook friends and 982 of our followers on twitter can see your brand on our personal profile. The college girl that you treated so poorly at your business could have provided you with a prime piece of real estate for your ad, and at no cost to you. Advertising isn’t dead, it’s changing. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought that was pretty obvious. So my question to you, reader, is what do you think the future of advertising looks like?
Thursday, January 6, 2011
The Case For New Years Resolutions
This blog=my new years resolution. How cliche of me! At least I didn’t jump on the crazy diet bandwagon. Last year my new years resolution was to stop making new years resolutions. But hey- it’s a new year now- new years resolutions are only supposed to last for one year, right?
The whole point of quitting new years resolutions wasn’t because I couldn’t keep them. Nope, I'm not a part of the 80% of Americans that can’t keep resolutions. I’ve always been creative enough to make my new years resolutions things that I actually wanted and enjoyed doing. The point was that I didn’t agree with having only one day a year to make decisions on life-bettering behaviors. Whoever officially invented the new years Resolution was on the right track, but why limit the act to being an annual thing? Why not monthly or quarterly? So since then I’ve decided to take the tradition into my own hands, and it’s been pretty successful! In February I decided to floss twice a day, March was the month of the seatbelt, summer was “always do what I say I’m going to do”, December was the month I decided to take more risks..
I’ve realized reaching my full potential is more of a constant effort, always changing and innovating to achieve as much as possible. Which is why I’ve decided to create a perpetual list of resolutions, and it has nothing to do with August’s resolution to make more lists... :-)
The whole point of quitting new years resolutions wasn’t because I couldn’t keep them. Nope, I'm not a part of the 80% of Americans that can’t keep resolutions. I’ve always been creative enough to make my new years resolutions things that I actually wanted and enjoyed doing. The point was that I didn’t agree with having only one day a year to make decisions on life-bettering behaviors. Whoever officially invented the new years Resolution was on the right track, but why limit the act to being an annual thing? Why not monthly or quarterly? So since then I’ve decided to take the tradition into my own hands, and it’s been pretty successful! In February I decided to floss twice a day, March was the month of the seatbelt, summer was “always do what I say I’m going to do”, December was the month I decided to take more risks..
I’ve realized reaching my full potential is more of a constant effort, always changing and innovating to achieve as much as possible. Which is why I’ve decided to create a perpetual list of resolutions, and it has nothing to do with August’s resolution to make more lists... :-)
Monday, January 3, 2011
Hello World!
Seems to be the most appropriate title for my first blog, now that I got that out of my system I’ll try not to let the tech nerd in me seep out again. No one wants to read about someones first attempt at learning a new programming language, so I’ll try not to bore you. I have been talking about starting a blog a lot lately, it was actually my 2011 New Years resolution (we’ll get to that later). And when I sat down to finally do it, I realized the first step was to name it. I was already stumped. It seemed the right side of my brain was a little rusty from lack of use over the last few months, and I needed to oil it up. A few hours walking around Midtown did just the trick, and voila! We’re off to blogful start to 2011. Window shopping in a few modern furniture stores not only made me want new bedding, it got my creativity flowing as well. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t name it so because I love sleeping, but because I love dreaming (and not just when I’m asleep). Here’s to making all of those dreams come true...
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