Austin Eatery Manager Goes Full Ag...

[Watson]

Glad poster's wife is ok.

Manager of Reds should've had the class to give the customer best wishes for poster's wife, and written the order off to an unfortunate circumstance. Guy probably has other issues behind his overreaction.

I sympathize with the poster's crisis and the fact that he was being confronted by outrageous behavior. But once the crises had passed, the poster should have had enough class to bite his lip and honor an order he placed for perishable food. Going on the internet with this stupid incident over $30 further reduces the poster's position.

 

[leeroy jenkins]

As a former restaurant owner, I find blame on both sides. The way that the manager handled it is inexcusable. Bad orders are a part of the business, and to put that much effort into making someone pay for an order doesn't make sense. All it does is cost you a future customer and waste resources. He should have comped the order to his crew. There's always someone at work that's hungry or has hungry friends/relatives at home, so that's a good way to generate a positive out of a negative. Both sides could have been a little more understanding. Not questioning the OP, but everyone is the hero in their own story. At the very least, he could have apologized for canceling the order and been a little more sympathetic towards the restaurant. It doesn't appear that there was anything but rudeness on both sides.

 

[POCKEY]

Force majeure.

This would be correct unless it was Johnny's wife's fault the wreck procured in th first place. But then the manager should not even be allowed to enterprit that occurrence. He should have just assumed she met with an unfortunate accident then moved on, even offering to comp th meal an the meal of the attending officers. Gret pub opprtunity gone awry.

Glad she is OK.

Don't worry about tht idoit. He will self destruct. It has already begun.

 

[Hoekem]

Have a question. So, the manager takes the time to go to the man's house to get $30...who was in control of the restaurant? If I owned a restaurant and did a drop by and the unmanaged staff told me what had happened, I would go to the man's house and fire my manager.

 

[mesoHorny]

Customer should have offered to pay food costs. Restaurant should have dropped it when they realized customer was not concerned about the consequences to the business.

 

[UTPhil2006]

FYI OP is not the person in the story. Heath Till, whomever that may be, is.

 

[Blue Horn]

For all those putting this guy down think about this. I doubt he had a problem paying the bill. It seems that he was being harassed while he was in the trying to take care of an emergency. How would you react after the 3rd harassing phone call? Who knows maybe he would have gone by the next day and paid.

If I was a manager and had a customer was in a wreck, I would tell them to not worry about the order that they had more serious issues to worry about and wish them well. If I had some psycho employee harassing them, they would be fired.

 

[Conch Horn]

Here's how one local Austin establishment handled a situation a few years ago... My wife, daughter, and I were at Uncle Billy's Brew & Que on Barton Springs Road one afternoon and my wife began exhibiting symptoms of a stroke while we were seated at a table. She slid onto the floor with no muscle function on her left side and I had my daughter immediately find the manager while I called 911. The manager calmly cleared the room where we were while waiting for the ambulance. Luckily, not too many folks there, save one smartass college-aged group that was laughing at my wife and calling her a "drunk bitch" and such. The manager snapped at them to shut up and leave the area. We had only ordered a couple of drinks and were getting ready to order food when the stroke hit, so I gave the manager my credit card to take care of any charges we had incurred. He handed it right back and said, "No, sir. It's taken care of." The EMS folks arrived, got my wife stabilized, and we followed the ambulance to Brackenridge Hospital. While I was in my wife's ER area, I was paged by a woman at the ER waiting room desk and was informed that someone was there that wanted to talk to me. She pointed to a young lady that I recognized from Uncle Billy's, wearing one of their company shirts. She had 4 large paper bags full of barbecue from Uncle Billy's, ribs, brisket, sausage, you name it, and a bunch of side dishes. She handed them to me, asked how my wife was doing, (fortunately, the EMTs and doctors got her on an anti-stroke med immediately and she was doing well) and then told me that I had beers waiting whenever I had the chance to return.

I'll never forget that act of kindness by those folks at Uncle Billy's and have tried to repay them as often as possible with many return visits. That's the way to handle a crisis involving a customer... I live just around the corner from Red's and now I have even less of a reason to give them a try.

 

[TexasSasquatch]

Poor way to grow your business....matter of fact I hope this has an impact and people stop going.

 

[Lord Vader]

I shouldn't have posted this from a phone. No one reads the first part where it says its via someone else.

yeah I posted it on OB, who cares......

Looks like this thing went viral overnight. Good for the guy.

 

[HookemDTX]

yeah I posted it on OB, who cares......

Like the commercials on DirecTV. If you don't want bad things to happen to people, don't post on OB. Lol

 

[Lord Vader]

Second only to the Rivals Main Board for danger.

 

[MPAhorn14]

Ha I read this story on here this morning, and then I was walking through west campus this afternoon and heard a lady relaying this story on the phone. What a case of deja vu

 

[UTK66]

@Johnny, thanks for posting this here. I also read it on urbanspoon. It certainly makes that Red's place look like a damn joke, which it should. True customer service is a lost art in this country. Too many people think it's about themselves and to hell with everyone else.

 

[Hoekem]

The most used, not over used word in the 21st century is entitlement and I mean by a long ways.

And not in a good way...maybe it should be a synonym of bum.

 

[Lord Vader]

The food doesnt look all that good either. I lived over that way for awhile and even the fast food joints were above board as compared to the ones out here in the land of the poors.

 

[BevoBlake]

Their reputation on Yelp has been more or less destroyed.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/reds-fresh-food-austin

Deservedly so.