There is an upscale tavern on Main Street here called Fat Bellys. They serve some nice single malt scotch, good burgers, and even have salads. They do a healthy lunch and dinner business, so when a storefront became vacant directly across the street, the owners figured that this was the opportunity for them to get the morning crowd, and they opened Fat Bagels. And now the difference between strategy and implementation:
There are a dozen or so coffee shops within a half-mile on Main Street, from the thriving Dunkin’ Donuts (where the dogs get stale munchkins) to Steve’s Café (where they get fresh biscuits) to Starbucks (where they get nothing, so we don’t go there). It’s a highly competitive business, and I was eager to see what Fat Bagels was like.
As the stars converged, it so happened that the first opportunity to visit was on Friday, when I work out without my wife; when my car was being serviced so I was driving her Bentley which has no cup holders; and when the dogs were not with me.
Entering the establishment, I walked up to the register and the guy behind it totally ignored me. When I said, “How are you doing?” he replied, “Struggling with this.” A woman wandered over and looked at me. I looked back. Finally she said, “Can I get you something?” No one had yet greeted me in any manner at all.
I asked for two different types of coffee, and two flavored bagels. She took forever to get the two cups, and had to ask me twice what I wanted in each. I noticed that she didn’t seem to retrieve the right bagels, after asking me about those twice, but she assured me they were what I requested. She rang me up without a “thank you.” She brought new meaning to the word, “lethargic.”
I asked for a tray to carry the coffee.
“Tray?” she said, as if perplexed. “Joe, do we have coffee trays?” It was as if I had asked for a square circle.
Joe, the register-challenged guy, never looked up from now stocking the soft drink dispenser. “Nope.” The woman shrugged. It turns out, they also didn’t have those circular things that allow you to hold a hot cup safely, nor did they use the quality of cup that Dunkin’ uses so that you can hold it without discomfort.
I was stunned. I had two very hot cups of coffee in my hands, the bagels under my arm in a bag, and I guy who must have been the manager or owner wanders over. “Do you need help?” he asks.
“I’m not sure I can get these home,” I reply.
“How far do you have to walk to get home?” he inquires.
“Over to that car,” I point out, “and it has no cup holders.”
“Shouldn’t Bentley provide at least three cup holders in a car that expensive?” he irrelevantly asks me.
“Bentley makes driving experiences, not drinking experiences,” I helpfully explain, “but it seems you ARE in the drinking experience business. Why don’t you have trays?”
“We’ll probably be getting them,” he says, dubiously.
If I only had the dogs, I could have retrieved Koufax and created a stir. These people needed the sense of urgency that an unhappy German Shepherd can create.
I balanced the coffee on my leg in the car, burning my fingers three times, and arrived home. The coffee was pretty good, but the bagels, big surprise here, are not the ones I ordered.
How do you create a retail operation with comatose, uncaring staff, improperly supplied, and apparently clueless? This isn’t about the economy. It’s about having enough brains to either do it right or ask people who know how to do it right.
There’s nothing there for the dogs, so I probably won’t go back. Then again, there’s not much there for me, either.
© Alan Weiss 2009. All rights reserved.
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