My dad happened to be a renegade in the business profession. He would take me aside and preach to me about what it took to be a success as an entrepreneur.
In his opinion, the customer wasn’t always right. And far from it.
“Regardless of what other people tell you, don’t listen to them,” he cautioned. “You run a business the way you think it should operate.”
The guy had a point. Later in life, I equated his sentiments to the world of journalism. If you want to know how to run a successful paper, ask the readers. They’re full of opinions.
Dad ran a coffee shop with my mother. It was your typical mom and pop luncheonette that catered to neighborhood types. Being from the old school, the guy had a mind of his own and no one—customer or otherwise—was about to change his mood.
If a customer had one too many—coffees that is—he’d speak his piece.
“All that caffeine in your system isn’t exactly the healthiest,” he’d tell you. “Better off with a juice.”
The guy called himself “Joe” and I’d swear, he had coffee for a name. He would take his seat on a stool and order “a cup of Joe.” One mug would turn into two and before you knew it, he was on his 10th refill.
He’d talk you blue in the face and drink coffee until it flowed from his ears. Much as Dad tried to change his ways, it was futile. He literally drank himself into a hospital bed and eventually to the here after.
If someone complained about the price, Dad would attach a surcharge out of spite. An older teen looking to buy a pack of butts was given the skyhook.
“Not in my store,” he would profess. “You wanna smoke, go somewhere else.”
If somebody wanted their eggs sunny side up, they usually got them with the yokes broken. A rare burger often meant well done, only because he lost himself in conversion with another patron.
A lot of his chutzpah rubbed off on me. Later in life when he stepped aside and my brother and I took over the venture, the customer was seldom right. Only because they were wrong most of the time.
And rather than getting into a debate, I became a chip off the old block. A stubborn one at that. I had no tolerance to become a restaurateur.
“The only business worth minding is your own,” he used to say. “If you don’t, another will.”
Sound philosophy.
Dad started his business on a shoestring when everyone else was wearing shoes, much like other immigrants to this country.
They ran the shop right into the ground after 32 years and not because of attitude; urban renewal came along, the changing face of neighborhood lifestyles, and dad was forced to close.
There was a better side to him than proprietorship, however. When the man died at the tender age of 66, he left behind a lifetime of memories and a cache of IOU slips from indigent customers who ran up a tab. Nobody went hungry in Dad’s place, whether you had money or not.
I look at business today with somewhat of a jaundiced eye. The personal touch is missing. You walk into a place and it’s like the outer galaxy. Not your friendly Cheers bar.
Go buy a car and the sales pitch is one-sided. The salesman’s. My insurance agent is never wrong. He claims I can never have enough insurance. I beg to differ.
“Don’t let me frighten you into making a hasty decision,” he says. “Sleep on it tonight and if you wake up tomorrow, let me know.”
Just the other day, we walked into a restaurant in Maine and waited to be seated. And waited. Finally, on came the only employee on the floor who was busier than an owl at a mouse convention.
“I’ll be with you in a moment,” she said, juggling orders like an acrobat. She seemed hassled. Her moment and my moment were separated by a good 30 minutes. So what if it was Valentine’s Day and there was a shortage of help. Why should I suffer?
“Might I try the chicken pot pie?” I asked her.
“Don’t let me change your mind but a better choice would be the pot roast,” she interjected. “It’s one of our specials and the house specialty.”
Agreed. Which made the wait seem all the more tolerable, given the dire circumstances. But the scenario went a little deeper than just another meal. The customer in this case was far from being right.
Tom Vartabedian
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