The Lost Art of Fixing Your Mistakes
My wife and I went out to dinner last night. We don't go out often and we try to patronize local restaurants over the TGI AppleMcChains. We'd had a recommendation for Lazlo's, a grill and brewery on South 192nd in Omaha. The hostess told us there would be a 30-45 minute wait, we decided to give it a shot, and took our little paging disk. In about 35 minutes we were seated with beers and menus. We ordered our appetizer and dinner and waitress zipped away. My wife and I chatted about the logistics of tax season (she's an accountant) and birthdays. Just at the point where the appetizer should show up, the manager showed up instead. Our onion ring order had gotten lost, we should have had them by now. They were sorry, they would be here in 2 minutes, and they were on the house because the kitchen had made a mistake. Two minutes later, hot, hand battered rings hit the table. 10 points for Lazlow's.

Dinner arrived shortly, but there was another problem. My "Hot Brown", an open faced turkey sandwich, had mysteriously changed into a hot roast beef. "I'm sorry, but I didn't order roast beef, I had the open-faced turkey." The server (not our waitress) immediately apologized, told me it would be fixed and headed back to the kitchen. Unlike other times I've had this happen, there was no debate, no questioning of what I ordered. It was wrong, and they were going to fix it. My correct order showed up in just a few minutes, followed shortly by the manager with an apology. The order was misread in the kitchen, this was not acceptable to them, and my sandwich was complimentary. Please do come back and try us again. Wow! Another 10 points, a blog post, and yes, a return visit.

Restaurants are going to have bad nights. What was so impressive about this experience?

• They noticed the problems before I did: I had an apology and free rings before I got irritated enough to flag down a server.
  
• They handled the problem promptly, cheerfully, and without finger pointing: When I got the wrong order, the server did not waste any time double-checking my order or complaining about the kitchen staff. They just fixed it. Fast

• They let me know they wanted my business in the future: The economy is horrible, margins are tight. Writing off a couple of items told me that Lazlo's realized there was not an endless stream of customers, They needed to do something to retain the one's they'd inconvenienced. It worked. We'll be back.

So we made sure we tipped our server for the full amount of the bill, including the items that were written off (servers shouldn't lose money on management decisions or 2 for 1 entree coupons, but that's another post) and headed out the door feeling like we'd had a very nice dinner. Everybody makes mistakes. But owning up to them and fixing them is a lost art. Lazlo's made the best of a bad night. Go see them! The food and beer are awesome. http://tinyurl.com/72ubff