While visiting Quebec City, we ate dinner at a restaurant known for its incredible shepherd’s pie.
The shepherd’s pie was excellent. It was exactly the way my mother made it.
However, when placing our orders, Clara — who has food sensitivities related to her autism and is in therapy to expand her menu options — asked if the chef could prepare her a grilled cheese.
She really couldn’t eat anything else on the menu.
The server said no, which I found extremely annoying.
Yes, it would be excellent if my daughter could find something to eat on the menu.
Yes, it would be impossible to begin cooking meals not on the menu to accommodate every guest.
‘But if a kid asks for the grilled cheese, you have a choice:
- Make the damn grilled cheese, which will take all of three minutes, and for which you absolutely have the necessary ingredients.
- Refuse the child’s request and make the meal far less enjoyable for her and probably everyone else at the table.
This restaurant chose the latter, and that is exactly what happened. Clara ordered a cheese platter and found some of the cheese and crackers to be tasty, but the experience created unnecessary stress and consternation for her and us.
And had an adult requested the grilled cheese?
Sure, say no. Adults can fend for themselves, but this was a kid, on vacation, looking for something that she could enjoy, and given her limited options at the moment through no fault of her own, an accommodation could have been made.
When I managed McDonald’s, we were occasionally asked to make a grilled cheese or “Cheese Delight,” and yes, it was annoying to insert a non-menu item into the production cycle, but it was worth the minor annoyance to make a customer happy.
Had the customer asked for shrimp scampi or blueberry pancakes, I would have explained that these things were beyond our ability to achieve, but a simple grilled cheese?
Toasted bread and cheese?
You need to be a pretty pathetic or an incredibly snobby chef to refuse that request.
Of all the restaurants we ate at while on vacation — and it was a lot — our shepherd’s pie restaurant could have been one of the best. The food was fantastic, the service was otherwise excellent, and the restaurant offered a few delightful moments to make the meal and experience special.
But my daughter couldn’t eat much because of a lack of flexibility, which struck me as a stupid decision.
When a business has the chance to do something small to make a customer very happy, they are foolish not to. The restaurant business isn’t easy. Profit margins are slim, employee turnover is high, and the state of the economy can wreak havoc on your sales.
Small acts of kindness go a long way to building loyalty, establishing goodwill, and making a customer believe that they are paying for a service delivered by people who care.
This can be the difference between a business staying in business and being forced to close its doors.
A grilled cheese is a tiny ask in the restaurant world, especially when that request is made by a young person.
Refusing it was a mistake.
