billbenson
09-09-2010, 04:19 PM
I made a post a while back about a restaurant that serves wings, curly fries etc. It was in a shopping center with a lot of foot traffic. Particularly good if you go to the grocery store next door or one of the other stores there. Grab some wings to go or a quick lunch there. Food was good, but wings aren't rocket science. It was run by a father and his twin daughters. There is another Jamaican wing joint nearby, but they push beer more as well. I don't recall if they have booze or just jamaican beer etc.
The last time I went in the owner rang me up. It was something like $8.96. I had a pocket full of change that I wanted to get rid of. I was a penny short. I asked him if he'd take $8.95. He just replied it's 8.96 in kind of an annoyed tone of voice. So I left somewhat annoyed with my wings and a bunch of change in my pocket.
I made a post here saying that that was bad salesmanship. It doesn't take much to put a penny jar on the counter. People will even leave penny's behind for it in my experience. Why risk loosing business over a penny. His attitude wasn't great either. Some people here agreed with me, some didn't.
Fast forward 6 months. I went to the Jamaican place down the road after that. Actually better food and better beer. Had the original wing place been the only place close to me, that wouldn't have happened, but they weren't.
My wife went into the department store next to the original wing joint and the cashier told her that the wing place went out of business and had 50k in debt.
My wife also saw the owner and one of his twin daughters working in a local grocery store as cashiers yesterday. So they went from business owners to clerks at a grocery store.
While this probably didn't happen because of no penny jar, I would be willing to bet that the owner did other things either out of being cheap or non personable with customers, staff etc., that hurt his business. To me, if you have good competition in the area you try not to do anything to loose any customers (within reason).
Just thought I'd toss this out for opinion...
The last time I went in the owner rang me up. It was something like $8.96. I had a pocket full of change that I wanted to get rid of. I was a penny short. I asked him if he'd take $8.95. He just replied it's 8.96 in kind of an annoyed tone of voice. So I left somewhat annoyed with my wings and a bunch of change in my pocket.
I made a post here saying that that was bad salesmanship. It doesn't take much to put a penny jar on the counter. People will even leave penny's behind for it in my experience. Why risk loosing business over a penny. His attitude wasn't great either. Some people here agreed with me, some didn't.
Fast forward 6 months. I went to the Jamaican place down the road after that. Actually better food and better beer. Had the original wing place been the only place close to me, that wouldn't have happened, but they weren't.
My wife went into the department store next to the original wing joint and the cashier told her that the wing place went out of business and had 50k in debt.
My wife also saw the owner and one of his twin daughters working in a local grocery store as cashiers yesterday. So they went from business owners to clerks at a grocery store.
While this probably didn't happen because of no penny jar, I would be willing to bet that the owner did other things either out of being cheap or non personable with customers, staff etc., that hurt his business. To me, if you have good competition in the area you try not to do anything to loose any customers (within reason).
Just thought I'd toss this out for opinion...