Celebrity chef and restaurateur Tom Colicchio explains how much it frustrates him when customers wait until they leave a restaurant to complain about a bad meal.
Colicchio founded Crafted Hospitality, is the head judge on reality show “Top Chef,” and is a spokesperson for Arnold Bread and America’s Better Sandwich.
Following is a transcript of the video.
TOM COLICCHIO: Well, what really bothers me as an owner is if someone is having a bad time – they get a dish, they don’t like it. It happens. Don’t go home and go on Twitter, and start complaining, because there’s nothing I can do at that point.
Find a manager, call him over and say, “I’m not enjoying this.”
If you’re in my restaurant, someone’s going to say, “Order something else. We’d be happy to cook something else for you. We’re not going to charge you for that dish.”
But, don’t sit there and fume and be mad and then go home and lash out on social media, because I can’t help you at that point.
I’ve had people in the restaurant use social media. Say, “I’m at Craft and my entrée is taking 30 minutes to come out.” And I’ve seen this online, if they tag me, I’ll see it, call my manager and go, “Get to that table, make sure everything’s okay. Tell them I saw them post this online.”
And people are like, “Oh my God, that’s great service.”
So, if you’re in the restaurant, and there’s something that you don’t like, you have to let us know, ’cause that’s the only way that we can turn that around and make you happy. It’s very hard to do that if you leave the restaurant.
This nonsense where, “I’m afraid if I send something back, they’re going to spit in my food.” That’s crazy. It’s not going to happen.
‘Cause that’s also, I think, the mark of a good restaurant, is how they actually take care of problems. If there’s no problem, no drama, restaurant’s great. But how does a restaurant take care of a problem? Can they turn it around? Can they make you feel that you’re on their side because now their problem is now your problem and you’re going to fix it.
