An Open Letter: Part 2

After my rampage on Friday night and I was cooled off enough, I headed on over to the restaurant’s website looking for an email address. Instead of an e-mail address, they provided me with a nifty, little form that helped me send my compliant right to corporate.

Below was my e-mail:
  

Good evening,

 

My family visited your restaurant at the above location tonight for dinner. After passing over various other choices, we decided on Applebees. However, we will not be making that mistake again.
First, I would like to tell you that we have no complaints when it came to our meal. Our food was quickly prepared, hot, and delicious.

My complaint is not the food. Never before have I sat in a restaurant and wanted to hide under the table from embarrassment and to hide my tears. I have two young boys {3 and 3.5 months}. My three year old is well behaved but he’s a three year old. My 3.5 old month is, again, a 3.5 month old. He’s a baby. Babies cry. And he did. We tried our best to soothe him while remaining at our table. We tried to quiet him down to not disturb the other patrons. When he wouldn’t calm down, my husband took him outside {again so we didn’t disrupt the other customers}. We were trying not to be “those” parents. But I guess we were.

Our waitress quickly shoved the bill at me “just in case you want to leave.” I am sorry that my baby was crying but we were not ready to leave. We had not finished our dinner and I had promised the 3 year old the cookie sundae {which we ate while my husband sat outside with the baby}. You can’t take that back.

Your hostess kept staring and pointing {even after my husband left the building} and made it pretty obvious that she wasn’t sitting patrons near us.

Your greeter suggested in a cutesy voice that “Momma’s shouldn’t pinch their babies.” She also suggested that Tuesday nights are family night.

And that is where you lost my patronage. You are a family establishment. You have a kid’s menu. You have a family night. You had a clown this very night at your restaurant for the kids. I am sorry that we were confused as to when we were allowed to voluntarily hand over our hard earned money for dinner. We won’t make that mistake again. You may have steak on your menu but Morton’s you aren’t. You are a family restaurant. Parents should feel that they can bring their families to your establishment, crying baby and all.

Honestly, I know you have no control over the thousands of people that you employ. But on behalf of the millions of sleep-deprived parents out there, I ask that you might consider some sensitivity training for your employees. Maybe a what not to say to parents who are already stressed out from their cranky kids and they don’t need your two cents to try and help them. A knowing smile or a nod of the head or even a “We’ve all been there” goes a long way…and wouldn’t have cost you future business.

Sincerely,
Stephanie

I honestly didn’t think I would hear back from then until sometime this week. Color me surprised when my cell phone rang on Sunday morning and it was the manager of the restaurant. My fingers “talk” a lot bigger than my mouth so I was a little worried about what he was going to say.

He couldn’t have been any nicer. He was appalled at his staff’s behavior. He won me over when he said “Momma’s shouldn’t pinch their babies? General Managers shouldn’t choke their employees.” I knew he was alright when said that.

He knew we were upset about our service and wanted to make sure that never happened again. He told me he was going to pull the staff that worked that night {as to not single anyone out} and have a refresher on how to treat customers, especially families. He agreed that families should be made to feel comfortable and welcomed when they come out to eat at his restaurant.

He also agreed that when we were told that Tuesday’s were family nights that the greeter had been out of line. For crying out loud, they had a clown that night! He said he brings in a clown every Friday night because that is their biggest family night {bigger than the night where kid’s eat free!} so he likes to have entertainment for the kids.

Even though I stated that we would no longer be giving them our business, he still offered to send us a gift card. He would really love for us to come back {of course he would} and give them another chance. And we might. We do love their food and I would hate to cross out that option for family dinners.

And, in case you were wondering, we ate at Applebee’s.