Tom Vlahakis: Restaurant Menu Printing Consultant

I have been consulting restaurants on their menu design and production for over 40 years, long before there were inkjet and laser printers, and the opportunity of producing them in-house.

That opportunity was as good as it was bad. Good because it allowed for the changing of the menu as food trends changed , and operating costs rose. And it was bad because operators were putting their menus on regular thin white sheets of paper not realizing that was the first impression of their food and showed the diner that it was good enough and cheap enough not realizing the customer said to them selves “If they are this cheap and cutting corners on this what about the food?”

What I have learned in the 40+ years I have been doing this, is

“It is so hard to get a new customer and so easy to lose them, but it’s also possible to save one”

A perfect instance of this mantra

My wife and I had dined at a restaurant in Greenwich Village we were served an item that we had there before and loved it so much returned because of it. On this visit It was served and was extremely tough and almost un-chewable. I had mentioned this to the waiter and he said “well thats how it is sometimes” so we left the plate untouched on the table and ordered something else.

By the way everything else we had was amazing. The replacement dish we ordered took almost 25 minutes so again I asked the waiter “whats up” his answer

“Well thats what happens when you order late”

So we asked for the check, he did not remove the returned item off the check and left.

When I got home I emailed the restaurant management and explained what had happened. I did not go on yelp and give them a bad review. They responded saying they apologized for the experience and said the waiter was an ass. They offered to credit the whole check of $180.00. I told them if you want to credit us just credit the returned item. They said no and credited the whole amount and hoped we would visit them again.

Of course we will

I can only offer you my experience. The rest is up to you. Remember, in any business death comes without execution.