In the service: how good is your word?

Cheers, June, 2005 by Doug Frost

One of my kids has a toy with a disclaimer on the side; in fine print it says, "HAZARDOUS IF BROKEN." Well, duh. But we live in a litigious world, and a little self-protection is a good thing for most businesses. Sure, most people enjoy vilifying the lawyerly trade, but I prefer that to a world in which, say, people shoot each other to get even.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Disclaimers are a way of protecting your business in case the customer does something foolish or stupid with your product. So why have disclaimers been showing up on wine lists lately? One of the better restaurants in my hometown uses the back part of the wine list for "Reserve Wine," all of which are older wines. "The customer purchases these wines at their own risk," goes the disclaimer at the bottom of the page.

My hometown restaurant is not alone. I've seen numerous restaurants hide behind disclaimers such as, "Buy at your own risk."

Is the condition of the wine truly the fault of the customer? Hardly. If anyone is at fault in this situation, it's the restaurateur who has chosen a wine that may or may not be good. Why should the customer shoulder the blame?

An irritating aspect of the lust after larger and larger wine lists (fed by a nameless wine magazine) is that most of these wine lists contain wines that are clearly past their sell-by date. Pop one open, preferably to the Italian white wine page, and fantasize about the luscious character of a 1984 Orvieto. Don't laugh; I've seen it.

Do we expect our customers to pay for food that is past its prime? I hope not. Instead, we address their concerns and replace the food, knowing that it's in the establishment's best interests to guarantee the quality of the product we serve. If we don't, we'll create an angry and vocal customer.

Certainly most restaurateurs are willing to guarantee the quality of cheap wines. But many balk at accepting the loss when the bottle costs hundreds of dollars. Sure, it seems too high a price to pay. But try to imagine how the customer feels if he or she has to pay for a wine they don't like or think is bad.

Needless to say, that customer will not return. And a guarantee applies; I guarantee you that the customer will complain as loudly as possible to anyone who will listen. That sort of reputation is difficult to shake.

How different would the outcome be, if the restaurant graciously, even happily, assumed the cost of the wine? The wine cost for the month might go up by a few hundred dollars, but that customer has in all likelihood become an ambassador for the restaurant.

Imagine the message it sends to all your servers. A lot of servers are terrified by the arcane process of wine approval. What if the restaurant empowered the servers to simply accept back any wine, no matter the cost, without question? Might some of those servers feel more relaxed about recommending wines?

Server empowerment ought to be the goal of restaurant management. It makes servers and customers alike more at ease, and frees servers to sell as much food and beverage as possible. Since the restaurant guarantees everything, the servers aren't risking anything; not their tips, not their reputations, not their status in the restaurant.

Even some establishments that guarantee all wines make it hard for servers; returning an open bottle of wine requires a manager, and might require a long conversation with that manager justifying the situation on a busy night when the server's time could be better spent selling more wines.

One of the great Master Sommeliers in the business, Madeline Triffon of Detroit's Matt Prentice Restaurants, has a brilliant manner for handling returned bottles. She graciously thanks customers for pointing out the problem with the wine. And then she says, "The case from which the wine came will be isolated and returned to the vendor."

She has accomplished two goals. One is that she has thanked the customer for having the courage to complain about the wine. Most people, contrary to restaurant attitudes, don't like to complain. They like to grumble to themselves and their dining partners and then leave without saying a word. It's after they leave that they become vocal.

But the other trick in Madeline's method is to subtly prevent the customer from re-ordering the same wine. Since "the case of wine is going to be returned," she has prevented the customer from refusing the next wine simply because he or she doesn't like it.

If it turns out that the wine is actually flawed, she'll be able to remove the glasses and the bottle from the table, take it to the kitchen or side station, and discover the problem. Then she can bring a replacement bottle of the same wine, noting that this new bottle came from a different case, and no one's ego is bruised.

But there is still that little matter of the cost of the wine. If the wine is bad, most vendors will replace it. If the wine is good, a clever restaurateur will recover at least some of the cost by pouring the wine as a special wine by the glass for the evening. My own habit has been to offer glasses of the rejected wine, assuming it was actually a good wine, to my regulars in the dining room as a thank you for coming in.