The Restaurant Revisited

 

Earlier, I had written about a restaurant and its owner who was struggling to cope up with plummeted sales due to Covid crisis. I was touched and had offered optimism that things would change after Diwali. That indeed came true as customers flocked to his restaurant after Diwali.

I visited the restaurant a couple of times recently. The place was totally packed, and the restaurant owner was on his toes both times. It was difficult to get a vacant table now. And when I got my order, I was shocked to find that both quality and quantity had reduced drastically!

When a restaurant is overcrowded, it is expected that the service quality would reduce. But in this case, he had hired a new guy to cater to increased customer footfalls and hence service quality had become better. The new waiter was giving menu cards to customers, which no one did earlier. The restaurant owner was now giving receipts to people and also serving home delivery orders. But the food quantity had reduced for the same price. And even food was prepared in a rushed manner and was not enjoyable like before. It seemed as if the restaurant owner was now trying to cover all the losses he had made in past months by reducing the quality and quantity both. Since customers were flocking to his restaurant, sales was no longer a challenge and hence he could afford to cut a few corners this way to make some extra bucks.

The other day I saw a guy coming up to talk to the cook directly; and the restaurant owner asked him not to approach the cook directly. The guy took offense and simply walked out. Perhaps he had got used to seeing vacant restaurant and hence had developed a habit of directly talking to the cook. Now that the restaurant was packed, his extra movements looked wrong and hence the restaurant owner would have objected to his ways, even at the cost of losing the customer.

Due to the problem with food, I could not feel as happy about the complete turnaround of the restaurant as I would have felt otherwise. I remembered the old times till a few months ago when the restaurant was almost vacant and hence it felt good to sit and enjoy the food in a quite environment. The food was also better since the cooks were not in a rush. I could also have a chat with the restaurant owner, or observe things around the restaurant, because things were at a slow pace. 

Now that the restaurant was minting money, my whole customer experience became a run through the crowd and hence I have been avoiding visiting the restaurant in the recent past. And that is unfortunate because I really liked the restaurant.

And today, when I looked at the restaurant owner and smiled, he did not even acknowledge me. Perhaps he did not notice me; or perhaps in the changed scenario, I had become just a part of the crowd for him. And that was like life making a full circle, and tragic in its own insignificant way. 

- Rahul Tiwary