🔥 Bonji Hot Takes: Volume 49 🔥
Hi all, welcome back to the Bonji Hot Takes! We hope your week has been filled with success and happiness. The weekend is near, but we hope to offer some value before this week closes and you are enjoying the time off. Why does it always seem like restaurants are bashed more than any other business, at least on a daily basis? I can personally say I've ridiculed restaurants plenty of times, honestly, probably at least once a week I get mad at some food establishment. However, it's rather insane to get mad about food taking an extra ten minutes. Restaurants have so much going on behind the scenes; they have a business plan, a supply chain, and management, but we rarely think about the business side of them. Today, we wanted to take a moment to appreciate restaurants as businesses and make it clear that your salad being delayed, isn't the end of the world.
Why Does Nobody Realize What it Takes To Run a Restaurant? Say you work in finance in New York City and go on your lunch break. You only have thirty minutes or so before you have to be back in the office. So you walk down the block and pick a restaurant to order your lunch. As you patiently wait, someone in the kitchen announces that they ran out of frozen pineapples for the smoothies. Then, the phone starts to ring nonstop. You see Doordash drivers sprinting in and out, grabbing meals off the takeout shelf. All the while, you are thinking about getting back to the office in a timely manner. Every five minutes that go by you check the time and get anxious about making it back in time. You start getting frustrated with the restaurant and after all that waiting, you pay $20 for a meal that left you unsatisfied. All of this leads up to heading to Yelp and writing a negative review. This story happens every day for millions of people across America. However, nobody ever realizes that the restaurant is a business, just like that finance company. There are supply chain mishaps, increasing costs, labor shortages, busy hours, poor inventory management, and so many other factors that can cause delays or problems that can lead to the customer. How many times have you been on the phone with a bank or some other business and have gotten mad? Probably countless amounts of times, at least I know I have. Yet, heading online to write a negative review won't lead to anything happening to that business. But for restaurants, negative reviews can kill their business. No business gets treated as poorly as restaurants. People have meltdowns in the building because their food isn't ready in ten minutes, they write harsh critiques, and they choose not to tip. In the background, restaurant owners are doing everything in their power to ensure customers are happy and their bottom line is healthy. Yeah, that's right, restaurant owners care about money too. It may not seem like it, especially because there are so many massive chains that are fine with losing out on a few bucks, but restaurants need money coming in just like the rest of the businesses in town. Nonetheless, we want to show some appreciation for restaurant owners. They are tasked with so many things that customers rarely, if ever, get to see. Just like that finance job or any other business, they are worried about what money is coming in and what money is being lost. It's an interesting thing, people seem to just think the restaurant is there to make food and that's it. In reality, restaurants struggle through the days, months, and seasons just like everyone else. Keep it in mind the next time you are in a restaurant (probably not a chain like Chipotle, go ahead and let the corporation hear it) and your food is taking a little extra time.
