This
evening my wife and I decided to order take-out for dinner. It’s been a long
week; yesterday was Christmas, and now, stressed and exhausted, we just wanted
to enjoy some delicious food that didn’t involve the usual cooking and cleaning
of dishes, in the comfort of our own home. Being a longtime user of the online
food service Foodler, I logged on to the site and searched for what I had my
heart (and stomach) set on: fried chicken. Living in Cambridge, MA, one of the
first cities in the country to ban trans-fat, and surrounded by a bunch of
anorexic yuppies, the search was not overly fruitful. There is no equivalent of
KFC nearby, although one used to stand a block away from where I now live and
type this. The only type of fried chicken around is chicken wings; and who
doesn’t love chicken wings? Ginger Exchange has some terrific bon-chon, but the
rest of their food is decently mediocre and the wings themselves make the order
take 45 minutes. What I really wanted was a bucket of breaded, deep-fried drumsticks,
breasts, and wings… no dice.
Living in
Inman Square for almost two years now, we have always been intrigued by the
Widwest Brazilian Grill on Cambridge Street, but for some reason had not yet
tried it. They, too, offered only wings in the way of fried chicken, but I
decided to take a peek at their menu just the same. It certainly looked better
than most of the food around here; I was in the mood for barbecue and lots of
meat. The plates, for 14 bucks each, offered rice, beans, salad and fries, along
with your choice of meat: I went with the eight-piece chicken wings, and my
wife ordered the grilled lamb. I wanted to be lazy and get delivery, but my
wife insisted it was just a few blocks away, so I agreed to pick it up. I
submitted the order and waited for my confirmation email, which arrived
promptly, telling me to come pick up the food in 25 minutes. Now, it’s my fault
I suppose for using an online ordering service on the day after Christmas;
something was bound to go wrong. I knew the estimated time was very often less
than how long it actually took (especially at aforementioned Ginger Exchange, in
Inman Square.) And yet, I also knew that the confirmation meant that a human
being at the restaurant had acknowledged my order, and under the assumption that
they would at least tell the cook to start making our food, I got ready to go
out and get it, arriving at exactly the time I was told the food would be
ready. When I walked in, nobody was behind the counter, but a waitress came up
and I told her I was here for an order I had placed online. She looked around
behind the counter and found the receipt of my order from Foodler, looked at
the young cook who had suddenly materialized next to her, and read the order
off to him. I felt something was off from the get-go, but I rationalized that
she was just letting him know which order I was here for, and hoping that it
would be ready soon. The waitress told me to have a seat, giving me the
impression that it would be ready in a few minutes. I wasn’t crazy about sitting
and waiting, but assumed it would be about 5 or 10 minutes… which turned out to
be the case, the proverbial “5, 10 minutes” of the classic Seinfeld episode.
I saw the
waiter go to another part of the restaurant several times and return with
different containers of food, so I thought he was getting the order together
piecemeal, and that any moment now it would be ready to go. Then I saw another
employee taking his sweet time attempting to open a plastic bag to put some of
the containers in it. When he finally took the bag and went outside, I imagine
to make a delivery, I approached the counter to see what the hell was going on.
I had been certain that must have been my order; and yet clearly it was not.
The cook, most likely sensing my impatience, assured me that it was almost
ready. After a few minutes, he all of a sudden confessed to me that they didn’t
have any lamb when I had made my order. I didn’t really understand what he
meant, and I’m still not sure I do completely. Apparently, however, they had
had to bring out some more lamb, in order to begin cooking it…which they were
just finally doing now.
I demanded
he clarify: was he just bringing out the cooked lamb, to put in my container
that I might go home to eat with my wife, or was he just now putting the lamb in order to start cooking it?
The latter.
I asked how
long he thought it would take and he just shrugged his shoulders. I am generally
exceedingly patient in situations like these, but at this point I became
incredulous and demanded that I be given a cash refund on the spot. Why was I
told to sit down when I walked in, as if my food would be ready any minute,
when in fact they had not even begun to
cook it? If they were out of lamb, why wasn’t I given a phone call and
asked if, I dunno, maybe I would like the steak instead? There was absolutely
no communication, and I was not treated like a customer at all, although I was,
a customer who had already paid for my food. And yet they had not even begun to
make it! I told the waitress to give me back what I paid in cash, as I had
already made a credit card payment to Foodler, a third party who was paying
them for me. She went in the back and (presumably) spoke to her manager, who
she claimed told her that I had to go back on the web to cancel the order with
Foodler. Incredible! I reached over the counter and grabbed the receipt from my
order, to get Foodler’s phone number so I could call them then and there to
make sure. Foodler’s operator answered promptly and when I explained the
situation she said that she would have to call the restaurant to confirm with
them. She put me on hold and I heard the restaurant’s phone ring immediately;
however, it took a while for anyone to pick it up. After the waitress did speak
to the woman from Foodler, she told me that the order had been cancelled, but I
waited for Foodler to come back on the line with me just to make sure. I turned
and walked out the door, never to look back. After almost two years of me
living in the area, they were about to gain a potential regular customer from
right down the street; instead they lost my business before they ever got it.
Not once did a manager even come out to speak to me; the waitress told me at
one point that she was not responsible, to which I replied, observingly, that no
one seemed to know what they were doing at all…and this is forgivable, it being
the day after Christmas at all. But at least try and acknowledge your customer.
I have worked in the business of customer service for over seven years, and
this was not it at all. The cook also tried to look at the receipt (for some
reason several people kept asking for it back, but I refused to relinquish the
proof of what I had paid them until I had the order cancelled) to see what time
I made the order, self-righteously claiming that they had fifteen minutes to
get it ready…to which I replied, I waited the 25 minutes their email had told
me to, came in, was told to wait, which I did for another 20 minutes, and they
were just now preparing to cook my
food? I ended up getting Pizza Pie-er, saving thirteen bucks, and still have
leftovers!
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