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| - So here's my story. I've lived in the area for many years and for many years, our area has been greatly under served so I was happy to see a local burger joint pop up and give some variance to our few local offerings. I want to support small business especially in our community, perhaps that's why I gave an extra star for this visit.
We went on a weekday, close to their rather early close time of 8:00 pm, we got there at 7:30. There were 3 other tables and we had friends who met us shortly after. My wife and I ordered a couple burgers, sweet potato fries and drinks, about $25 said and done. Not cheap but not expensive. We were asked of the burgers, pink or no pink. Then we sat and waited for our food to arrive.
I did notice some dirty tables but being the end of the night and after "dinner rush", it wasn't a huge deal, however Im a restaurant industry guy and in my world that would have been unacceptable but didn't affect my experience as much as made them look less than clean. Our friends arrived shortly after and ordered the same as we had.
The time is now around 7:40 and the front counter lady begins stacking and moving chairs across the floor, basically closing shop around us. As mentioned, I'm a restaurant guy, was for years in operations. There's few things that bothered me more than the feeling of rushing guests out. By no means did anyone there ask us to wrap it up but stacking furniture around your still dining tables doesn't send a polite message. I realize the desire to get home and keep labor costs down but shouldn't be at the expense of your guests experience.
When I saw them doing this, after shuddering, I said to our friends, just watch, people are still going to come in and they'll turn them away. And guess what happened, 2 more couples came in and both groups were told, sorry, our kitchen is closed. Now, this is a neighborhood restaurant, meaning, virtually every person coming in is a potential long term customer. Also, the people in this neighborhood are most likely the only customers you (Aioli's) will have, our little community are your guests, for the most part, your only guests. So a couple things here, closing at 8:00 is a bit early, if it must be 8:00, then close at 8:00 and not 15 minutes early. Don't rush out your guests while they eat or send a message as such by making noise and stacking, cleaning around them and for the love of God, don't turn people away who are attempting to give you their business! None of them will come back and give you another chance. You absolutely blew your chance of making those people your customers and they'll tell everyone about what happened. In my day, management would be fired for doing what I saw done, and happily. That's not guest service, that's being self serving.
Final operational failures were we, all 4 of us were all asked of our burgers, pink or no pink. We all ordered pink, NONE received pink. My wife and I both ordered sweet potato fries. When the guy brought out our food, he had both my and my wife's basket, I could see his eyes glancing back and forth between our baskets, he stopped walking for a second as though pondering something then continued and dropped off our food and walked away without a word.. I saw what I think he was looking at, my wife's sweet potato fries were a pretty golden orange color, mine were more black than orange, burned. I didn't send them back but come on. He definitely saw them and sent them out anyway, No one checked on our table until we were near ready to pay. It wasn't a big deal enough for me to stop their closing procedures to remake my fries but it was an obvious reflection of their priorities.
To sum it up, we split 2 burgers, one was good, the other was so-so at best. My wife's fries were good, mine terrible. The service was, seemingly, over being there that night, that was the impression I can guarantee a dozen different patrons received. I know opening a restaurant is tough especially with certain days and hours being slower than others. However, this is the business and location you chose. If you plan on gaining our communities support, then I suggest each day you and your stafff are reminded of what you are there to do and who to do it for. One of the mantras of the very successful restaurant group I worked for, for over a decade was, "we are only as good as our last meal". It's a good way of keeping your priorities in check and assuring you don't drop the ball. May I suggest you adopt the same mantra, you are only as good as your last meal! It wasn't good. Best of luck Aiolis.
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