TIGHTLY WRAPPED AND A NICKEL SHORT

For the sake of the lowest coin on our totem pole, the Canadian nickel, a local restaurant and its owner has lost my business.  Sounds kind of silly, doesn’t it?  BUT, and this a BIG BUT, sometimes that’s all it takes.

A nickel, you say?  How on earth does something like a nickel, a whole 5¢, not even one thin dime, make such an impact?

It all started rather ordinarily.  I had yet another birthday recently (sigh, but glad I’m around to have one) and my daughter and granddaughters are treating me to an afternoon of their wonderful company and then dinner out at a nearby restaurant.  Getting a little bored with ‘the chicken’ place where I usually chose to go, I did a little homework and finally settle on a new place to try.  My daughter is a bit dubious.  She knows me pretty well and is actually quite surprised that I’m willing to go somewhere different but I figure, “What the heck.  So many other changes have happened in my life recently, what’s one more?”  So I make the reservation, which is recommended for a Saturday night (my daughter would have gotten to it but better safe than sorry, since she’s so busy) BUT I did do my homework before deciding.  

In this day and age of our wonderful, modern technology, it’s relatively easy to research pretty much anything or anybody.  One innocuous question later, typed into the search bar of that brilliant search engine called Google, can bring you bazillions of results.  Now comes the hard part – separating the wheat from the chaff.

There are quite a number of trip/restaurant review sites, where real people (supposedly) travel and/or go out to dine and then write reviews of where they stayed and/or where they ate and what.  I find these reviews sometimes helpful but then when a Canadian investigative show like Marketplace looks into these so-called reviews, it turns out that a lot of them are actually fake.  Yep, fake.  That’s how some people make a living these days – writing glowing, bogus reviews and getting paid for them.  I’ve heard too, that it also works the opposite way – people getting paid to write crappy reviews on a competing business, by the company which is trying to drive that business, out of business.  For shame.  And it never ceases to amaze me how many people really seem to believe everything they read on the internet.  After all, if it’s on the internet, it’s got to be true, right?

I put my question in the Google search bar and press the 🔎.  Nanoseconds later, about a gazillion and a half hits show up on the results page. Sigh.  Hmmm, where to start reading?   I start at the top of the list which has been sorted (ranked?) by Google Reviews, and read with dogged interest.  One close-by restaurant seems like a really good place to go – reasonable prices, great homemade food and child-friendly staff.  I try to surf my way to the restaurant’s web site but they don’t have one and I can’t find their menu anywhere.  Hmmm, obviously not up on technology. So back to the reviews I go and was able to glean enough information to know that there is at least a couple of things which I might order (I’m pretty picky when it comes to ‘out’ food).  Some people’s reviews are quite effusive about the home-made food, the kid’s menu and how child-friendly it is there.  So off we tootle and arrive just a few minutes late for our 5:00 p.m. reservation.
   

The restaurant is small and casual but cozy and we are lead to a booth with a reserved sign on the table. We order drinks, with two of the grandkids’ beverages being included in their child-menu meals.  The menu is quite extensive and with 3 kids it takes them a while to figure out what to order.  It finally gets sorted out and the waitress, whom I suspect, from what I’ve read, is the also the owner/chef scribbles furiously in her order pad.  She has quite the no-nonsense attitude and seems just a titch impatient with the indecisiveness of my oldest granddaughter (turned 13 just a few months ago).  Finally everyone has ordered, our beverages arrive and we spend some time catching up and of course, what meal is complete if somebody doesn't spill something, especially in a public place?  It isn’t much of a spill but there aren’t any napkins on the table to mop up the small puddle.  My second-in-line to the dynasty goes up to the pass-through and waits pretty patiently to catch someone’s attention.  After a few minutes of being ignored, she starts to speak and is told abruptly, "Wait a minute."  After a few good more minutes, no one has yet to ask her what she wants or needs.  Finally the owner/chef asks her what she wants, is informed of the spillage and that there’s nothing to wipe it up with.  The owner/chef tells her to go back to the table and that she’ll be over in a minute.  She comes over some 5 or 6 or maybe 10 minutes later, bringing our tightly-wrapped-in-a-paper-napkin-silverware.

Quickly, my granddaughter unwraps the silverware, freeing it from its straight jacket and moves to wipe up the spill.  The owner/chef barks at my granddaughter, “Stop!  Don’t be using the napkin to wipe up the pop, that’s what I’ve brought the cloth for.  Napkins cost money.”   My granddaughter being the inquisitive sort, asks, “How much does a napkin cost?”  The owner/chef seems to be a little taken aback by the query and then says, “It probably costs about 5¢.”  Hmmm, sounds a little high to me.  It’s not much of a napkin – plain white with no design on it and is of normal size.  I think the owner/chef must either be overpaying for her paper goods or she’s stretching the truth a bit to downplay the whole weird scenario.  She may be even more tightly wrapped than her silverware.

Of course, being an inquisitive sort myself (the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree now does it), a few days later I check out the price of paper napkins in Ontario.  The average is 1¢ to 3¢ per piece, for similar ones, in our local ‘discount department store’.  Hmmm, so much for 5¢ per piece.

The whole sad, sorry incident has left a bad taste in my mouth and has taken a bit of the shine off my birthday dinner.  I know that it might sound silly to let this kind of incident affect my evening but when you only go out a few times a year to enjoy a sit down dinner, which you don’t have to pay for or clean up after, then the occasions are extra special and the owner/chef took some of that lustre off, all for the sake of a nickel and not even a nickel, maybe just 1-3¢.  

I will never go back there again, nor will I recommend that place to anyone I know, or online when someone asks for a recommendation in one of my social media groups.  I try to be fair, especially in this day and age of modern technology and know that a bad review can sink a place, especially a restaurant.  Apparently, around 60% of new restaurants fail within the first year and nearly 80% close before their fifth anniversary.  Since this place has, apparently, only been open for a couple of years (March 2015), unless their ‘front of house’ staff improves, this restaurant, in my opinion, will not be around to celebrate their 5th anniversary.  All because of a nickel.

© 2017 Phyllis Mahon -  COPYRIGHTED BY PHYLLIS MAHON AND IS PROTECTED AND REGISTERED .  IT'S  UNLAWFUL TO TO REPOST, COPY OR PUBLISH CONTENT AND/OR IMAGES  FROM THIS WEBSITE WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION