Does great food compensate for 45-minute delivery?

I recently visited a restaurant for lunch in Glendale called Cold Beers & Cheeseburgers. I chose this restaurant because I had been so impressed with the location in Scottsdale. The restaurant is new and wasn’t getting good reviews so I wanted to check it out. We arrived around 12 noon and the restaurant was busy, the only seats available were on the patio. It was a beautiful day so we chose to sit outside. We weren’t in a hurry, however figured we would be done by 1:00 pm. We had a nice friendly server who brought our drinks in a timely manner. We ordered a Cobb Salad and a Monterey Chicken Sandwich. As we waited for our food we could see that other customers were looking around to see who was getting served. We inquired with our server about our food since it had already been 30 minutes. She indicated that the kitchen was busy and food was taking about 45 minutes, which seemed a long time for a salad and chicken sandwich at lunch time. We finally received our entrees in 45 minutes. The food was good, but I have to question whether great food compensates for that long of a wait.

The manager walked past our table when we were finished and took our plates and we had a conversation. I commented on our lengthy wait for the food and he said they have been so busy that the kitchen gets backed up. He didn’t seem to think it was a big deal. He did give me some $5 off cards for our next visit.

Would you wait 45 minutes for food if it was good?

I went back to the other Scottsdale Cold Beers & Cheeseburgers location a few weeks later for a networking mixer I was hosting there. I mentioned the long wait we had at the other location to the manager and he said they are extremely busy, but didn’t show much concern or provide any thoughts as to a resolution for the problem. I fear they won’t continue to be this busy if everyone waits 45 minutes for their food.

If your restaurant is “too busy,” it’s even more important to provide excellent food with excellent service so all of those customers will return and tell their friends!!

Solutions to this problem:

1.   Add more kitchen staff

2.   Put the restaurant on a wait at the front door until the kitchen gets caught up

3.  When the wait staff takes an order, inform customers that it may be 45 minutes for their food

4.   Better leadership and organization

If your restaurant needs a Fresh Perspective on your Customer Experiences contact Debbie Hart at The Hart Experience Debbie@theahrtexperience.com 602.717.3271 www.theharteexperience.com

Also I love comments so please feel free to give us your thoughts…