Customer Service: One Way Or Two Ways...

met up with Sonny for dinner at Wheelock Place...
Sonny had his tooth extracted in the afternoon and could only have soupy food...
as usual, Sun With Moon was crowded (even on a Thursday) with 25 to 30 minutes of waiting time...
even Sakae had a queue which surprised us...
came across this new restaurant The Pasta Shop (which is run by Sakae) a few shops away...
decided to give it a try since it was rather empty...

the concept is similar to Pasta de Waraku, except they do not serve pizzas...
we ordered a potato salad, wet pasta with scallops and spinach (for they ran out of asparagus) and pasta cabonara with bacon and egg...
besides being a little too salty, the food was not too bad...

unfortunately, the service sucks BIG time...
most, if not all, the waiters and waitresses were young school boys and girls...
and my sense is they were never trained on customer service...

1. we were standing at the entrance for a while but no one came to greet us... they were all busy running around for whatever reasons...
2. they did not smile at the customers... first i thought it was only us, but later i found out they generally do not smile at all...
3. we had to ask for our iced water...
4. the guy who served our potato salad did not bring us any cutlery... and we had to ask from another waiter...
5. the food took a long time to arrive... by the time they served my cabonara, Sonny had finished his pasta...
6. it was only at the entrance, after we have paid, that the waitress smiled at us with a “See you again”...

the two guys at the table next to us had a worse time...
his pasta was still not served despite after he reminded the staff twice...
but when the pasta finally arrived, he angrily (and bitchily) told the waiter that he did not want it anymore...
which left the waiter in a shocked blank “what-the-fuck” look...
the customer then walked to the cashier, paid and left...

i do believe that good customer service works both ways...
it won’t work if only the service staff is doing all the work...
the customer has to reciprocate accordingly...
just like any relationship...
the fact that the customer is paying the 10% service charge should not make any difference...