She comes over. “This looks like for a delivery order,” she says, not really looking at my screen. I reply, “It doesn’t say that. It says $10 off your next $50 grocery order. This looks like a grocery order to me.” She flips a few switches, can’t find it, and finally just gives me a credit on the $9.67 item in my bag. Not $10, but close enough. That’s service in 2026.
Analysis: Whole Foods is a transactional failure: the employee doesn’t engage, and the manager doesn’t read the screen. That’s a training and staffing problem, and it’s institutional.
Tweak: Train for judgment, not scripts, so the manager looks at the screen instead of guessing it’s a delivery order. It is not the guest’s fault if the information isn’t stated clearly. Think solution, not dismissal.
I drop off a bag of these special herbal leaves I grow in my yard, Hoja Santa, to a newish place in my area, a place that prides itself on using indigenous materials for their Mexican-inspired cuisine. It’s a Michelin-noted place and reservations are a hot item. Expect to spend at least $100 per person for the handmade food. OK, I can do that. Anyway, I give the chef a bag of these leaves with my card inside and let them know I farm these less than 7 miles from the restaurant, which would qualify it as hyper-local, for anyone who cares. She seems to care and thanks me, saying she’ll be in touch. I never hear back from her. That was three months ago. The Hoja Santa season is winding down.
Another chef, on Instagram, I DM him. He was just on a podcast with a chef friend in Austin. I introduce myself and tell him I was recently in his place and we had a really nice meal. I mention the Hoja Santa again and he seems interested. He tells me he is out of town but he will get back to me when he gets back in Dallas, yes. That was six weeks ago.
Another chef, he’s building his place and was interested in some Hoja Santa plants. A couple of weekends, I said I’d be around. He was welcome to come by and pull up some plants to transplant to his new garden, no problem. That was three months ago. Again, he didn’t make it.
Analysis: The three chefs are a follow-through failure. Nobody was rude. They just never closed the loop. That one isn’t about age or the customer being king; it’s about basic reciprocity.
Tweak: Chefs, close the loop. A two-line reply to a supplier costs nothing.
Now I get it about chefs: they are torn in all kinds of directions. But if one is of the persuasion that their suppliers are their lifeline, I can’t quite figure out what the message is, other than my product isn’t a high priority. I get that from all my years in the wine business.
But I’m feeling like we’re being told one thing on the socials, and another thing is happening IRL. Some of it has to do with time management, some of it has to do with the fact that these chefs are artists in their own right, and they are riding a wave. And if you’re not out there on the waves, riding with them, it’s hard to connect.
I did it when I was selling wine. But it was my J.O.B. then. Now it’s a passion project.
How does the initial story of the otherwise unconcerned market self-checkout monitor and the story of the three chefs intersect? I’m not sure they do other than in an oblique manner. And that is, all of them are involved in the service industry. They are positioned in their livelihoods to serve their guests. One might say, responding to their suppliers (e.g., people who locally farm stuff) also serves their guests.
A few years back, right about the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, a local bánh mì shop owner, espousing a “No Assholes” policy, said on their socials, “The customer isn’t always right.” It got me to thinking.
When I was a server, in one of the restaurants I worked in, a high-end “continental” style place in California, there was a poster on the door out to the dining room. It was a picture of a lion with the words, “In our world, the customer is king.” And the manager and the owner made sure we toed the line. And we had our share of assholes, believe me.
The manager, a Greek immigrant, during my job interview, sat me down and looked me straight in the eyes and said, “We are not here for you. You are here for the guest. Your job is service. This is not a democracy inside this restaurant. It is service. Not slavery. Just the best service we can give. Period. If you cannot commit to that, don’t bother to show up.”
I spent the next five years waiting tables, sommeliering, cooking, managing and serving the guests. I paid my dues. I was talked down to, almost taken in by Immigration (now ICE) because they thought I was either Iranian or Mexican. I was tipped lousily. I was tipped greatly. I was hit on by both men and women, sometimes both at the same time. I served owners and their wives. And their mistresses. Sometimes in the same night. Thankfully, not at the same time. All the time, the Greek manager’s words resonated: “You are here for the guest, to serve Man.”
Nowadays, I get to hear the server’s life story. They interject themselves into the conversation around the table. They approach me, often, as if I’ve lived in a bubble all my life. They go into excruciating detail about the menu, talking over a decibel-loaded dining room. And it’s very dark inside.
Analysis:
· The servers who tell you their life story are a performance failure: the focus drifted from the guest to the server.
· The dark, loud room is a design failure.
Tweaks:
· Servers, read the table. Know when a guest wants conversation and when they want their evening.
· Restaurant designers, fix the room. If people can’t hear each other, no amount of good service survives.
· Restaurant owners, pay and treat people so they can afford to take the job seriously. If you are truly “here for the guest,” provide staff with the proper incentives to carry out that principle.
I once worked in a restaurant area that was so dark we called it the Foreplay Section. My younger eyes saw it all. I remember telling the cleaners to make sure they vacuumed under those tables really well, as people would be getting down under them periodically in the night’s service. Especially during prom week. It was the ’80s, after all. It was crazy.
All through this, in a tuxedo enselmble, I signed on to be the server. Whether it was a bottle of Liebfraumilch or a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, it was all the same. Actors or oilmen, millionaires or con men, all the same. Serve. Serve. Serve. Serve. Serve.
Which is why the recent experiences have me questioning where it is we have arrived at, Dorothy? I am bumfuzzled. Yeah, I’ve been on the planet a while. But I’m still pretty plugged in. I’m a good listener. I think before I speak. These days, I’m speechless. To go with my invisibility.
Thank baby Jesus I have a wonderful wine cooler filled with gems, and we are facile around the kitchen. And the music is pitched at just the right decibel level, and the lighting is spot on.
It just isn’t dining out. That concept is deader than Kelsey’s nuts.
Analysis: Society has changed. One might not like it. It may not be the way one came up in the world.
Tweak: Author, learn to pivot and become more empathetic. Imagine how crazy this world might be when you’re gone from it and the young ones are old. That is, if Claude, Musk or the Kanamits don’t destroy Earth first.
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