Gary's Blog

          When you go to a restaurant you expect a wait, especially here in Texas and on a Sunday afternoon, Church gets out and all local restaurants are packed.  I usually find it acceptable for a 15 to 20 minute wait, and in some cases, even longer, depending on the popularity of the place.  When they tell me there will be a 15 minute wait, I am ok with waiting even 20 or so, but when I go in and wait 15 minutes, and then ask them, “how much longer?”, and they tell me, “it will be another 15 minutes because we are out of dishes and the kitchen is backed up”, I have a real problem with that.  Ok I can understand that if they are out of dishes, they don’t want to take any more orders until they get somewhat caught up, I understand that, but wait a minute, OUT OF CLEAN DISHES?  However in this case, they were clearing off table’s right and left.  They had 2 open booths from where I was sitting, in the crowded waiting area with 20 other people.  I asked, “Can’t you just sit us and let us wait at the table?” thinking the padded seats are more comfortable than the hard wooden bench we were sitting on.  I was told by a young girl, “no, besides there are 2 groups in front of you”.  At this point I am thinking; “That Was Rude!”  They couldn’t have sat those two groups, (a group of 2 and one of 4) in those two tables I could see, and then seat us in the one on the other side that they didn’t think I could see?  This was truly poor organization, partly because one of the persons doing the seating was very young and inexperienced.  But that doesn’t say much for the other one, who seemed somewhat experienced, but clearly she did not know what she was doing either, (as the restaurant got fuller and fuller).  Not to mention, this was our first visit to the Cotton Patch Cafe, (my first visit Ever), as Marisa had been a few years before.  They did not set a very good example, and I can only think of one thing that is good about this situation, they can only go up from here.  I do have to say the Fish & Chips were good, and the prices were right, (considering the amount of food).  I do admit the Fish & Chips at the Cheese Cake Factory are better tasting, but you do get less food and it is twice the price.  Overall I have to give the Cotton Patch Cafe a rating of 8 because once we did get seated, the service was first rate and the food was good.  Kind of “Home cooked goodness”, so I can’t wait to try the Chicken Fried Steak, a so called Signature Dish on the menu.

          This restaurant was fairly small, tucked in a corner location of a Target strip mall.  The total number of tables couldn’t have been more than 25 or 30.  It was unique looking, (if you have never been to a Cotton Patch Cafe), it looked like we were outside when we were in.  One would think in such a small restaurant; “how could they run out of dishes?”  I also saw a small group of 2 person booths along a wall, where no one was ever sat.  Later I noticed an employee using the removable seat as her personal locker for her purse, so that explained that.

          So here is what I would suggest they do in the future.  Seat as soon as they can, the longer people wait in the waiting area, the more chance they will leave, and how I see it, that is a dollar you will never get back.  Give them their table; let them look at the menu, and even order.  If the problem is not enough dishes, let the kitchen control that.  Any good restaurant will be able to control how fast, (or slow) the food is served, and a short wait at the door with a little longer wait for the food, I would have never known anything was wrong.  They’re handling of the situation was less than professional.  That is of course, my opinion.

          It is no doubt a popular place here in Texas.  I have never seen one in California, (I’m sure there are none), but this restaurant is known for their “Home Cooking”, and so it is more like, (in California and Texas) the Black Eyed Pea.  My mother used to take us there because it was my grandmother’s favorite place to eat.  It reminded her of her own restaurant, where you could get a “home cooked meal” for a reasonable price, and believe me, it was good food; Grandma’s place that is.

          All in all I can’t complain about the food or the service, but the hostess is the first person you come in contact with, and thus represents the business to the patrons.  If you fail at the door, chances are, you are losing business.  Some will leave during the wait; in fact we were seated second because one of the groups in front of us left.  I don’t think it will break them, but it may make the difference between a restaurant and a good restaurant, between maybe we’ll go there to, I’ve been craving their food.

Just my opinion…

           I have always admired the Nike brand.  I felt it was well made, and I also felt that this was a company that cares about it’s customers.  Well that was before.  Before the last straw, meaning the situation we found ourselves in, and we tested that loyalty to it’s customers and got the “Cold Sholder”.

We purchased some new socks from our local Khols department store.  They were packages of 6 pair, for $18.  We felt it was a little steep for even Nike brand but Khols was having a sale so we purchased 2 packages of 6 pair each and got the second bag for half off.  Still somewhat expensive, but hey, it’s Christmas time.  We purchased the socks for our teenage son, 6 pair of black socks and 6 pair of white.  They were the sport socks with the low tops.  My wife washed the black pair after having our son try on a pair to make sure they fit.  After a couple of days, I was doing the weekend laundry and so I opened the bag of white socks and dumped it into the pile of whites.  I didn’t bother counting to see if they were all there, hey this is Nike.

We always make sure we select an un-opened package, to be sure we are not shorted, or at least to be sure someone didn’t return the item or try one on, etc.  Once the laundry was done and it was time to pair up the socks, I found I was shorted 3 socks, 1 1/2 pair of the $3 a pair socks.

I thought about taking the socks back to Khols, they do have a real good return policy, however I had already washed the socks, and I also threw the bag away.  My wife and I were discussing it and she went to find the bag just to make sure I didn’t throw away 3 of the white socks.  I thought I couldn’t have done that, but it could have happened, Laundry wasn’t the only thing I was doing that morning.  But she found the bag and it was empty as we thought.  So I figired I would contact Nike about the issue, I mean they would be interested in a manufacturing error like that.  And after all, this is Nike!

It was hard to find a “Contact Us” section on their Web Site and most of the inquiries were about your online order, not one selection in the list was for a complaint.  I sent an Email anyway, selecting “Other” from the list, and I got about half way with my message and even though the box I was typing in was large, my typing stopped, but I was still typing.  That meant it was limited in the number of characters you could enter.  So I made it short and sweet, here is what I wrote;

Where do I go to complain about a purchase at a retail store?  Do I go to the store?  Or will Nike be responsible because the complaint is about the number of socks in the bag once I brought it home?  I purchased 2 bags of socks, 6 pair each from Khols in Southlake Texas.  1 black and 1 white, both were bags or 6 pair each and factory sealed.  We only found 4.5 pair in the bag of white socks.  Where do I go to complain?  Each bag was $18 for 6 pair, at $3 a pair, please explain?

I received a response within the 48 hours;

Hi Gary,

It’s great to hear you bought a six pack of white and black socks. When it comes to socks I only wear Nike.
Because you bought the socks at Khols and they didn’t come with six pairs, I would take them back to Khols. Khols should be able to return them for a full six pack.  I hope this helps and let me know if you have any other questions.

Sincerely,

Miguel
Nike

You know, I like Nike socks, but I will not go as far as saying they are the only brand I will wear.  Basically he is telling me that Nike does not stand behind their products, maybe it was because these socks were made in Mexico, or maybe they just don’t want to hastle with it.  He is saying I need to go through the hastle of packing up the 4.5 pair of socks, drive all the way back to Khols department store, explain myself to the Customer Service department, just for 3 socks.

I’m looking at it like this, this time it is my loss.  Next time it will be Nike’s loss!  Here is my response;

I appreciate your response, and suggestion, however I thought of that before writing Nike, thinking that we had opened the package and washed the socks before we realized the package was missing 3 socks, and I thought you would like to know because it is a manfacturing error, not a store error.  I don’t want to hastle with taking 9 washed socks back to the store and have to explain my situation.

 

What I will do is;

 

1. Tell all of my friends and family about your response

2. Post this E-mail response on my blog

 

and

 

3. Think twice about buying Nike products in the future

 

Thank you, and have a great day!

 

I am not expecting to see another response from Nike.  I am not expecting an offer for a couple pair of socks either.  I am no longer expecting anything from Nike, and as I state above, I will think twice, and it will be a cold day in hell before I choose a Nike brand of anything.

I wrote the original blog about Chili’s over a year ago about our experiences at Chili’s Bar and Grill in North Richland Hills, Texas.  When we go to Chili’s, we usually go there because it is the closest location to our home, we never did take Reggie up on his invitation to let him know when we came in again so he could treat us like VIP’s.  There is something about the manager knowing who you are that would just ruin my meal.  There are at least 2 more Chili’s close by, but this one is the closest.  We continue to go to Chili’s because we like the food, and even though they change things often, there are still some favorites left on the menu we can enjoy.  I do want to say that we don’t go to Chili’s nearly as often as we used to.

Discount Cards – On this visit, we took our son, Brandon with us.  We purchase these discount cards that the local High School Football Team sells every year for $20, and we had our card at this visit.  When Marisa pulled out the card, she mistakenly pulled out the old (last year’s) card, which just expired the end of the previous month (about a week before this visit), and Brandon read off the free item; “1 free Queso and chips with a purchase – a $4.50 value”.  We ordered the Queso and chips and the rest of our food and experienced the same missing waiter that we normally experience, he only came by once during our meal, so we had to do without something to drink throughout most of our meal.  What was strange is that since our experiences last year, they made some changes, one being that 2 waiters are assigned to each table.  Well, we never saw the other waiter at all, at least we didn’t remember seeing him, we don’t know what he looked like, we were just told his name, but of course we don’t remember that either.

At the end of the meal the waiter, (young and inexperienced) showed up and said, “I spoke to my manager and he said the free item is no longer the queso, but is the salsa and chips, a $2.50 value.  So I asked him, “can you deduct $2.50 from our tab instead of $4.50?  We had the new card with us also and showed him.  You could tell he was confused, he said “no”, because we didn’t order the salsa and chips originally, (although we had salsa and chips on our table).  Where do they find these people?  Needless to say, his tip was not a good one.  Later Marisa said, “all he had to do was offer us the free Salsa and Chips to go”, yea that would have worked for me.

It’s sad that Chili’s gave away the Queso and Chips last year and reduced the value to just the Salsa and chips for this year, which are free at most TexMex restaurants around here.  They used to be free at Chili’s too, I can’t remember when they stopped giving them away, it’s been many years.  But it is even sadder that when you show you have a discount card, and have used the discount card there before and the restaurant is listed on the card, the waiter refuses to let you use it because he is inexperienced and has no clue.

Another Feedback Email – I would have made a complaint at the restaurant, asking for the manager, but Marisa would rather I not make a scene, and send them an Email instead.  Of course I did send another Email, and this time I ran out of characters, they even limit you the number of characters you can use in the feedback box.  I explained as much as I could and then said; “please call me as I have more to say”.  I did receive a call within a day or so, from a female manager this time.  She apologized and said she is new and things are changing around there.  She agreed with me that the $2.50 deduction would have been the best way for the waiter to take care of us, and that we should not have had to leave the restaurant without receiving our free item, either taken off our tab or to go.  She said I should have brought it up to the manager on duty at the time.  I explained to her that my wife preferred that I not.

One thing I do want to mention.  I signed up for the Emails awhile back, thinking it will just add to my junk Emails, but just in case, I went ahead and signed up.  I mostly got “Kids Eat Free” coupons, and if they included 18 year old kids (19 now) that would have been good, however we don’t have any kids in our household that fall into that category anymore.  But one day I got a coupon; “$35 for Two, Share an appetizer, 2 entrees’, share a desert, and 2 Top Shelf Margaritas.  They normally have on their daily menu, “Dinner for Two for $20″, so the extra $15 gets you 2 margaritas and desert.  But then they topped it by sending a coupon for $35 Dinner for Two and for $1 more you can upgrade the margaritas to the Presidente’, a really good margarita that comes in a shaker, and did I mention they are really good? 

 You have to choose from a special menu, but the portions are mostly the same, except for the ribs, you only get half a rack, but hey, with an appetizer and desert, half a rack is plenty, and did I mention the Margaritas?

Chili’s like other restaurants where you normally go to sit down and eat, is in competition with many great places, and more and more are opening up creating a fierce competitive marketplace.  If you don’t like the food or service, you can always go somewhere else.  But I can tell you from experience, you will find the same issues where ever you go.  Poor to bad service, problems with the food, i.e., receiving the appetizer after the food arrives, or something else like changes in the menu.  Of course if you go to a restaurant more often, you will know about the changes to the menu.  If you go once in awhile, you may be surprised that your favorite is not only gone, but it has been gone for some time.  Bring back the Awesome Blossom!  You can get something like it at the Outback, the Bloomin Onion…

We shop where we want to and give feedback when we feel it will make our next visit somewhat better than the last, if only to last a few more visits.  If you don’t like the place to begin with, why bother, i.e., Macaroni Grill, we have not had a good experience there in several years, we just stopped going.

If you like a place, and want to continue going, then send them an Email to let them know their failures.  If the place is concerned like Chili’s, they will respond.  If the place is arrogant like Wendy’s, you may not hear back, but then again, you may not bother to send them a feedback Email.

The worst customer is one who is silent and leaves without saying a word, and never comes back, and it’s real bad if they blog about it! (See Wendy’s below)

I would like to Recommend the following;

The Olive Garden – Soup and Salad lunch * Red Lobster – Shrimp Feast – (Whatever happened to All-You-Can-Eat Crab legs?) * Joe’s Crab Shack – Crab Legs * PF Changs – Asian Food and Appetizers * El Paseo – Authentic Mexican * Chapps Restaurant - Nasty Burgers (juicy good) * Chili’s - Quesadilla Explosion Salad (hold the balsamic dressing, extra Ancho Ranch dressing) – Enjoy!

This just in – In-&-Out Burgers is opening several locations in North Texas, Dallas and Fort Worth.

My wife and I went out for a burger one evening.  We were headed to Sonic, we hadn’t had a Sonic burger in awhile and it sounded good.  We have a good choice of burgers in our town, What-a-burger and Sonic are close, McDonald’s is closer, Burger King is a ways away, but closer than Burger King is Wendy’s, of course there are other burger places, some are what I like to call “Nasty Burgers”, like you would get at Chili’s.  Out of all of the burger chains listed, Wendy’s seems to be the most expensive.

We were detoured due to a major traffic accident away from Sonic and McDonalds.  What-a-burger was in reach but we headed down the road towards Wendy’s.  Not remembering the recent advertisements about their new “Thick and Juicy” burgers, we decided to go to Wendy’s, although there was another Sonic just around the corner from the Wendy’s, we turned into Wendy’s parking lot.

We went into the restaurant because we don’t do drive thru unless we have cash and it’s just for a drink.  There are too many issues with drive thru these days.  We ordered 2 of the singles with “no cheese” and medium sized the meals.  We got 2 single burgers with cheese, and they actually argued with us saying the burgers come with cheese and until I said fairly loudly, “Can I have my burger without cheese”, he (I believe was the manager) said, “of course”.  We received the 2 burgers again, 2 medium fries and a small coke and small frosty.  We asked why the drinks were small when we ordered a medium meal.  We were told that they thought we just wanted medium fries, OMG.  I believe part of the problem is the fact that most of their workers do not speak English, and another reason is that it is a minimum wage position, so finding someone who speaks English that will stick with the job is close to impossible, at least here in Texas.  NOT!

We took our burgers, fries and drinks home  to eat.  As we ate our food, I noticed one thing about the burger.  It had little or no taste,  Wendy’s burgers were always close to taste with In-&-Out burgers, or 5 guys, meaning the burgers tasted close to home made.  But this burger had no taste, the flavor was gone.  What came to mind was that the burger was still a quarter pound patty but it was thicker and juicer, and what would make them thicker and juicer without making it more meat?  Water…

The natural fries with sea salt were fine but nothing to compare with McDonalds fries, and the attitude of the staff makes it a place we don’t really need to go back to.  I sent an Email to the corporate office, or what I thought was the corporate office and got absolutely no response.  I sent an Email to Jack-in-the-box about the smelly restrooms that was coming out into the restaurant and received a response immediately.

Wendy’s this blog is for you, for not responding to my complaint about your arrogant manager and stupid counter person, and for your new tasteless burgers and changes that makes Wendy’s worse than they were before.  It all has to do with corporate greed, and if I were Wendy, I would lose some weight before I became the spokesperson for the chain, because it looks like she lives on the burgers.  And what’s up with just offering “Cheese Burgers”?  Not everyone likes cheese on their burgers, and every burger chain offers both, but for some reason, when you go into Wendy’s you have to ask them to take off the cheese.  I hope Dave doesn’t turn over in his grave!

When the competition is as strong as it is for fast food these days, one would think that they would want to get it right the first time.  I remember when Wendy’s just about went out of business, closing most of their stores several years ago.  I think that is going to happen again to Wendy’s, and possibly this time they may not survive it.  The staff are those who see your customers face to face, and many decisions are made from the experience with the staff.

Good luck Wendy’s, we won’t be back anytime soon.  Maybe once we forget our experience, or maybe to a different location but we first have to have the urge for a tasteless meal.  When will that happen?  Panda Express here we come…

I want to add that we really miss having Carl’s Jr. around.  The nearest one is somewhere in Dallas Texas, and there are several if we want to take a 4 hour trip to San Antonio.  I don’t remember ever having a complaint about Carl’s Jr.

Back in May of 2010, Marisa was rear-ended in her BMW at 60 mph on the freeway, while she was stopped for traffic.  Her car was totaled and the worst thing was that as soon as the insurance company determined the car was totaled, they eliminated our rental, so we were down a car for over 2 weeks while we negotiated with the insurance company, (in this case State Farm), and then after we agreed on the amount, we started looking for a car and found that used car prices were up 37%.  Yet State Farm did not mention that and did not compensate us for the increase.  So if you are in an accident, and you have money coming for your car, do some homework first and shop around before you agree on an amount.

We went to many different car lots and found that each lot is very different than the next.  We went to CarMax and found they are on the upper end of the price on all cars and actually charge you to transport a car to where you are.  We know someone who has purchased cars from CarMax and they are not real happy with their purchases, (spent lots on repairs) due to no warranties.  We went to the Lexus lot, wow; did you know that Lexus are made of gold?  We went to a couple of lots where when you meet a salesman, right away the manager greets you too and follows you around like the salesman is not there.  We found a Toyota lot and Nissan lot, both had that system.  It was so irritating that we didn’t stay long.  In fact at the Nissan dealer which was in Grapevine, we test drove a Maxima and wanted to know how much because none of the cars had prices, the manager said what are you looking at spending?  I said around 20k, and he went away and came back and said the price of the Maxima was, you guessed it, $20,000.  I just looked at him and said, you’re kidding right?

We finally went to a small Honda lot, and met a salesman that was worried he couldn’t find what we were looking for because we had so many specifications.  Then all of a sudden, there it was, a 2007 Honda Accord, with low milaege, and a sticker price we could live with, and by the way, all the cars had stickers on them showing the price, OMG.  This car was sporty, powerful, had leather seats, sun roof, good sound system and a 6 CD changer to boot, it had low miles, and more.  We went inside to do the, you know, negotiations.  Not one time did we ever see or talk to a manager.  The salesman took care of the whole thing.  Of course he had to get offers approved, but he was quick to get that done, and we drove the car home that day.  No games, wow.  The car lot was Huggins Honda in North Richland Hills, Texas, and the salesman was David Diamond.  If you need a good used car, go see David.

If there is anything we hate most in life it’s looking for a car.  We have had a few good experiences but most want to play the game, and we don’t play the game.  When you go to a car lot, and meet a salesman, if you are immediately greeted by the “manager”, get out, the game is about to begin.  Also make sure you stop by the Mini Cooper lot and test drive one.  You most likely won’t buy it, unless you are looking for a toy, but you will enjoy it.  Some day Marisa will get another Beamer, but we stayed away from used BMW cars because without a warranty and maintenance plan, the cost of repairs are way high.  Marisa bought her BMW 325i new and made sure every maintenance was performed and any issues were taken care of, but not all BMW owners are like that.

Chili’s used to be my favorite place to eat out.  I was going to Chili’s at least once a week, eating a big mouth burger or salad, getting a side of chips and queso.  But lately, (within the last 2 years) it seems that Chili’s is more in competition and less in caring about their patrons.  For example, the first thing that bothered me was the elimination of the Awesome Blossom.  We didn’t eat it very often but when I got a taste for one, we would order it, but no more.  Then they changed the dressing for my favorite salad, the Casadia Explosion, without the balsamic, just the Chipotle Ranch, but then they changed it to Ancho Chili Ranch. WTF was wrong with the Chipotle?  Every visit something happens that we have to complain, the last visit they had completely changed the recipe for the Caesar Salad, my wife’s favorite salad, and before the other day she could depend on Chili’s to get a great salad.  They changed the dressing; added chunk cheese instead of shredded, and added a large amount of pepper to the top of the salad.  Most of the time they get the appetizer wrong or serve it at the same time as the meal.  One day the service was so bad the manager comp-ed the entire meal.  We don’t expect to be comp-ed on a visit, but we do expect to be given good service and a good quality meal, especially at today’s prices.  On the day the manager paid for our meal, the second waiter was so good we tipped him about $11 on a $30 meal. At every visit the price goes up and the quantity goes down, and the service just gets worse, and the menu is new.  The day we went for salad, my wife said she didn’t want the changed salad and ordered the same as I did.  The salad was more expensive, and believe me, we were charged the extra couple dollars, which we in turn took back via the tip.

On our way out we ordered a burger for Brandon, and of course, as expected, the burger he wanted was no longer on the menu.  I explained it to the waiter, he was young and seemed new to waiting.  He said he had it down, but he didn’t.  I think it was a Southern Smokehouse Bacon Burger, but the only burger close to it on the menu had Maple flavored bacon, yuk!  We got the burger home and Brandon, waiting at the door, (I guess he was hungry) said, “why didn’t you get the thick bacon on it?”  I said, “I did, I explained it to the waiter several times”.  Just another reason they should just leave their menu alone.  They have changed their menu so many times I can’t count, and what we order is the same as it was in 1998.

Is Chili’s still my favorite place to eat?  Today I have to say NO.  I really don’t have a favorite place, I like a variety of food and today we go to Chili’s maybe once every 2 to 3 months.  And we always expect a change when we go there.  I sent an Email to Chili’s corporate each time we had a bad experience, and I have received exactly “0″ responses from them.  Yes that is a zero.  We used to like TGI Friday’s also but they too started changing their menu so often that you never know what they will have that you will like, and I am sure there are more people like me that like to know where to go for a good meal, and not have to guess or take the chance that your only night out for the week will be a bad experience.

News Flash!  The latest meal mentioned above and the reason for this post was on Friday the 13th, 2010.  On Thursday the 19th, I received a call from the manager at Chili’s, the location where we ate that day, in fact I don’t think we have eaten at another Chili’s here in Texas since we moved here in 2005.  Reggie was his name, and he was telling me that he, like many managers does not agree with so many changes to the menu and believes that many popular dishes will return to the menu, although not always named the same.  He was very concerned that no one had responded to my complaints in the past, (remember the 0 above?).  He said they have had many complaints about his location and I want to make this clear, he is a new manager to that location, starting just a week before our last visit.  He invited us to come to his restaurant and he said he would make it right.  I don’t know if I really want the VIP treatment at Chili’s, but it is good to know that I can complain directly to the manager, asking for Reggie, and as long as he is still there, I can think that the chain of restaurants cares about the little guy, the individual customer.  I’m sure I am not the only one who complains, but you can also figure that for one customer that complains, there could be 5 to 10 more that feel the same but won’t complain.

AND Wow!  Look what the corporate office sent us to compensate for our bad experience.  2 $5 coupons, I hope I can use them both on the same visit, cause one will not even buy a salad.  I wonder if they give change?

I would like to recommend the following;

PF Chang’s for Asian

Animia’s for Tex-Mex

Red Robin for Burgers and fries

Hooter’s for Hot Wings