Next time you’re in a restaurant with your friends or your family, think of this..
Restaurants used to employ “real” qualified chefs who studied the art of cooking, for years. They worked their way up the culinary food chain by preparing food from scratch for hours on end. Restaurants had teams of 5-10 or more, hotels had brigades, some 100 plus. It was their duty to look for the best quality, from the best resources and it was in their passion to create a meal that did not require the immediate dashing of salt and pepper when placed on the table (which had a tablecloth). They provided the best service. Servers were dressed like professionals and tips were not taken for granted. The better the service the higher the tip. Restaurateurs provided all of these services to us in order to gain our trust, our repeat business and our money.
Today it’s all about the best deal. Quality is out the window. In many cases someone who knows nothing about the industry bought a restaurant and thought it was a great idea. They hire Timmy because Timmy needs a job to pay for his hobby, he’s working the grill. Boil in the bag pre-prepared and already grill-marked burgers are coming off the truck right into the freezer because Timmy doesn’t know how to prepare a meat patty let alone grill one properly. Timmy probably doesn’t even care and neither does the owner. The servers got their job because they’re pretty or they know a friend of a friend who knows the owner and they already have yoga pants and a white shirt. Usually, they are sitting around talking about who knows what while you’re trying to get anyone’s attention to place your order. In the end they don’t care because you’re going to leave a minimum of 10 percent as a tip whether they deserve it or not.
In the time it took for you to decide where to go, get there, park the car, find a seat, place an order, eat, talk, pay, leave and go home, you could have made a better meal, a healthier meal and a much cheaper meal in the comfort of your own kitchen.
Don’t get me wrong, not all restaurants are bad, but most are. We should make dining out the experience that it once was and let the owner demonstrate why we should give them our money and keep coming back again.
