Inhospitable at what cost?

This is an industry that has, at its heart, hospitality and many years ago, the National Restaurant Association had as a slogan, “We’re glad you’re here.”

Somewhere along the way, that spirit got a bit dampened. Not that the industry is no longer hospitable, by and large. But somehow, in the flush years, some began to be less focused on being glad the guest was there and more focused on reaping the benefits of the visit.

And so it was that this summer, a woman with a barefoot baby, shoeless child was made to leave a Burger King St. Louis, a friend recounted to me recently. “Imagine how they must’ve felt,” he declared with empathy.

While the local health code was behind the ejection, there’s a certain coldness that even Burger King came to recognize it had shown, and later apologized, offering the family a free meal.

The incident led my friend to recall a visit he’d made to a much acclaimed New England resort a few years back when a server spilled wine on his jacket during dinner service.

“They made a big fuss because of the stain on the jacket and insisted I put on another one, and just made me feel like a second class citizen,” he said, the memory of that embarrassment still sharp in his mind.
It seems the restaurant found the guest to be at fault here, for wearing a wine-stained jacket, even though its server was responsible the stain.

What’s wrong with this picture? Somewhere along the way, both operations forgot their real reason for being there in the first place – to serve the guest.

What does that mean – to serve the guest? We looked it up in our trusty Roget’s Thesauraus. Service means to aid, assist, benefit, and perhaps most to the point, succor.

A restaurant is in the business of being there for its diners, of providing sustenance and succor.

When codes, laws, etc. become more important than the comfort and enjoyment of the guest, the experience is changed in a fundamental way.

We all want to be acknowledged and treated well when we go out to eat, whether it’s in a quick-service restaurant for a burger and fries or a Relais & Chateaux property for a multi-course meal with paired wines.

We’ve heard some operators this year who say the customer is not always right because they will ‘take advantage.’ It’s sad to see that kind of cynicism change the equation between host and guest.

It’s also understandable in this economy when codes, laws or the bottom line pushes operators into a corner where the equation becomes blurry. But as we see it, a total abandonment of the industry’s reason for being – service and hospitality - is more than unfortunate. It’s inexcusable.

Whatever happened to ‘We’re glad you’re here’? What do you think?