Week 2 EOC: Greatest Restaurant Experience

One of the greatest restaurant experiences I've had was not at some high end luxury steakhouse or some luxurious 5 course meal, but it was at a middle class family restaurant. At the Blueberry Hill restaurant where my family and I always frequently visit, either for breakfast or dinner. The meals there always feel like home cooked meals so that is why we always visit. We also have created relationships with the servers and even the manager of the place since they see us and attend to us all the time. This particular time would have to be the best visit yet. We go in for dinner for my mothers birthday, we walk in and there is the manager greeting everyone that comes in with a smile. He asks us how we are doing and I tell him that we have come to celebrate my mothers birthday. He continues conversation and we are then escorted and seated at our favorite table as the manager knows. Our server comes and takes our order, very friendly and makes us laugh. We order desert and when we finally get ready to pay the bill the server comes to us and says "it's been taken care of". My father, mother and I all look at each other in shock. The manager waived the dinner cost. He said it was the least he can do.

"Hospitality managers working in restaurants and hotels simply must be able to accurately predict the number of guests they will serve as well as when those guests will arrive" (PG 353)

Now, for everyone free dinner would make any restaurant experience a great one. But this one in particular was great because of the care and one on one relationship that the manager and the servers have with the customers is a special one.

"Hospitality can be defined as the friendly and charitable reception and entertainment of guests or strangers." (PG 4 )

Anyone can take your order and bring out your food but there is that special passion one has to have to make an experience a great one. Blueberry Hill restaurants are the average family walk in diner type of restaurants but what makes it great is the attitude of the people working there.

"When hospitality is defined as the lodging and food services industries, it can include a variety of managers in related fields." (PG 5)

You can feel the warm friendly environment right when you walk in.