The Invisible Patrons

You're going to buy some ready-made grub in one of the local restaurants with someone.  You already have your taste buds delight picked out.  Place is busier than hell, so you figure you'll just wait for your turn.  But it turns out that the place is busier than heaven and hell put together.  You wait and wait some more.  You don't dare walk out because you don't want the time spent waiting to go to waste.  Then you start thinking "What the F^%*, there's some cash just waiting to be spent here.  Why aren't they jumping at the opportunity to get their grubby little hands on it?  Isn't that the number one reason they are in business?"  You finally end up walking your behind out the door to drive down the street to someone that is willing to serve you and your every need in exchange for some of that moola in your pocket.

So...what's up with these establishments that have massive gold mines sitting in front of them, but fail to stake their claim?  First thought that pops into my head is that it's just busy.  Can't blame them for being overwhelmed.  Too much demand, too little goods.  Think again- you can blame them for being overwhelmed.  These busier than heaven and hell put together times roll around like clockwork.  They are very, very, very predictable.  Same time of day, every day.  Clockwork.  Predictable.  No rocket science here, just simple observation.  I say the problem lies within the management of the business.  Upper management.  Failure to please the people that keep you in business is no way to stay in business.  I can give them an A for effort in the beginning, but eventually they slip down to pulling off a D at best.  Being an armchair restaurant manager, I'm going to say that all that they need to do is to take a quick glance at this clockwork and make a simple adjustment or two in the daily routine.

Now- these horrible customer pleasing practices seem to trickle down into the lower ranks.  When someone walks into your joint and you are so busy that you can't even say "I'm sorry, we're very busy right now- it's going to be twenty to thirty minutes, do you mind waiting?"---this is a pretty good indication of the level of service your customers are going to receive if they ever do get a chance to order.  At least tell your underlings to say SOMETHING.  When you run a business with no consideration for your customers, you are going to be nothing more than a flash in the pan because your customers will just wander down to where they will at least get greeted when walking through the door.

When I walk through your door and I am treated like an invisible patron, I'm going to be just that- because I'm going to high-tail it right out of there.  To top things off, the chances of me returning anytime soon are razor thin.  When a business is run horribly, a horrible thing happens to that business- they lose business.