After our review of Bonnie Lu's Cafe

After we posted the review of Bonnie Lu’s Café, we received a response from Jenny, the owner. Oue review illustrated many problems with the staff and service at Bonnie Lu’s Café and it was even more evident with the prevailing attitude of Jennie’s response which was mean-spirited, immature and terribly unprofessional.  Personally, we both feel that as a business owner, especially in today’s shitty economy, one would choose one’s words very carefully so their business is not negatively impacted by their temper but hey—everyone is different.

Gary & I both responded, offering our reasons as to why we wrote what we did and pointed out that if you have a problem, the objective should be to correct it, not get ugly with the people who are pointing out that a problem exists. We gave her the option of re-writing her e-mail but have not yet heard from her. We both feel very strongly that posting her malicious e-mail would do more harm than good and if she wants to shoot herself in the foot, she’ll have to use her own gun; we’re not going to let her use ours! What we will offer you are our responses to her e-mail and you’ll get a pretty good idea of what she wrote.

Gary’s response:

Hi Jenny,

I am sorry you didn't like what we wrote and as you will notice, we both have different opinions of what we experienced. I did not find your restaurant that bad, in fact, I thought it was good and as you will read in my side of the story that I was willing to give your manager the benefit of the doubt. The rating is based on a total experience. Not just the food, not just the service, not just the coffee but its total effect on the dining experience. We do this review for bikers, like us, who are just looking for really good food, service and a smile on their face. While you were full of smiles and very nice, your waitress/manager was not that sharp in the service area, which she admitted to us. The other waitress with the, 'I don't want to be here' attitude can affect your customers. She apparently affected Hope's experience which she honestly wrote about. Just because we didn't have the best experience this time, we would certainly be willing to try your restaurant again and revise what we have said. Everyone has an off day, it could have been you or it could have been us. Your steady customers surely disagree with us which is fine. You probably treat them differently and you should, they are your bread and butter. But remember, if we are to recommend your restaurant to bikers like us, I don't want them coming in there and expecting something that didn't happen to us. That would be unfair to them. Let me just ask you this. What would have happened on this day if 20 of us walked in? What would have happened if your ' I don't want to be here' waitress was to serve them? Probably not a good experience. I could be wrong but from that particular day, I don't think I would be.  You must remember also, that the bar is held very high by our previous experiences at a couple of other places, namely Pete's Breakfast House and Allison's which are exceptional restaurants. Anyway, Jenny, I will sign off by saying, if you can convince your staff to be as you were that day our experience would have been totally different.

I wish you the best in your business and hopefully someday we can try your place again and have a different opinion.

Gary

Hope’s response:

Wow! Talk about wanting to shoot the messengers! I guess not everyone deals with criticism in a mature manner.

Most importantly, we have no incentive or motive to give a bad review versus a good review. We have no advertisers, no sponsors, and absolutely no reason to offer false information. After all, these reviews are read by our friends!

The food, service, and dining experience are what they are and speak for themselves. Again, we have no motive or gain by offering untrue information.

Human nature being what it is, we have learned that when most people are confronted with a truth they would much rather not hear, their first impression is to get angry. Very angry. They want to lash out and hurt the person(s) who are pointing out their flaws and touching on their sensitivities and insecurities. They resort to (what we call) bad behavior and it most often includes mud-slinging and our favorite, name calling. This is a classic example of misplaced anger; not being able to change the “problem,” and projecting all those “yucky” feelings on the other person(s).

Sad, but true…

Moving on, you can either stay stuck in the problem or use this experience as a learning tool to improve the quality of customer service at your establishment. That gives you a few choices...

1. I can post your awful e-mail to our blog, which will most likely draw negative attention to you and your restaurant. Everyone knows that staff has bad days and good days. However, an owner who goes out of her way to write and send the type of message you did can only do more damage than good. In turn, I would also post the responses offered by Gary and myself. 

or

2. You can re-write your e-mail, perhaps keeping in mind the power of the written word and the attention, either positive or negative, it can draw to your restaurant and we can post that. Perhaps you would consider apologizing for our dining experience and acknowledging that we should have received better service (perhaps you were understaffed or just too busy to pay the attention you would have under normal circumstances). You could even extend a complimentary invitation for a return visit so we could offer another review. (On a side note, we discussed our impressions in great detail with Kim and she informed us that the 'waitress without a smile' was a relative and greatly resented the fact that she had to work, compounded by the fact that she was not getting paid. That in of itself speaks volumes. Kim also apologized to us for 'disappearing' when we first arrived, acknowledging the lapse in customer service, so one would believe this is not an isolated event). 

The choice is yours...

Sincerely,

Hope-Carolyn