Mamacita says: We used to be big fans of Noble Roman’s Pizza. We’d drive thirty miles to the nearest city, just to eat there. We felt this way for many years.
Then one day we drove up there to Noble Roman’s, and when our pizza arrived, we discovered that somebody in corporate had decided to change the recipe for the pizza sauce. We went back once more to make sure, and the sauce was still nasty. We never went back.
Over the years, we’ve stopped going to certain restaurants and stopped buying certain products because of what we now call “negative improvement.” In other words, somebody in charge of something besides customer satisfaction decided to save money by cheapening the ingredients or changing the recipe for a product that people liked, into something people decided wasn’t worth shelling out the gas and dining out money for. Somebody got a big raise for “saving the company money,” and the customers stopped coming around. Everybody knew why, too, but nobody “up there” believed it.
We went to Steak & Shake tonight. Their menus were new and different, and many items were missing. They no longer offer “platters,” and all the sandwiches come with fries. If you don’t want fries, you have to order your sandwich from the a la carte list on the back of the menu and pay more money for any extras.
I’m sure there was a good reason for this change – other than money, I mean – but nothing comes to mind. Except money.
I’m not a person who resists change, but I do look down my nose on change for change’s sake.
We go to certain restaurants for certain types of atmosphere, and we don’t appreciate cutesy attempts to transform an established atmosphere into some other kind of atmosphere. If we wanted some other kind of atmosphere, we’d go someplace else.
And, of course, it all boils down to the almighty dollar. Then again, if corporate pisses off enough people, we’ll take our almighty dollars elsewhere, won’t we. Well, I will, anyway.
It’s enough to make a person just stay home and cook. Almost.
If you liked my post, feel free to subscribe to my rss feeds
BlogoSquare
7 Comments so far (Add 1 more)