I’ve just got back from a road trip to Napier and I want to share my experiences of buying coffee and food along the way, because if they are examples of how many of us do business, then we are seriously in trouble.

Experience one – ordering a long black coffee and a fruit muffin ‘to go’ in Tirau. The ordering was straightforward but then the person serving me wandered off to a bar in the cafe to make my coffee, leaving other customers to wait. She gave me my coffee, minus the muffin, and went to serve the other customers. So I waited. Eventually I asked about my muffin and watched it removed from the cabinet and disappear out the back. Still I waited. By now I began to think I should have ‘dined in’ as I might have got my muffin immediately with my coffee. When I did finally get my muffin it was boiling hot! I had not been asked if I wanted it heated but I got it heated. When it cooled down I knew why it had been heated – it was so stale I couldn’t eat it. The cost of my experience: one long black $3.50, one stale muffin $5.

Experience two – on my return home I opted for another cafe in Tirau in the hope of better service. Wise to the food, and still enjoying some much better Napier fare, I ordered just a mochachino and was asked if I wanted sugar. “No thank you” I replied. The person serving went to make my coffee and asked again did I want sugar. “No thank you.” But one slurp of my coffee and you guessed it, it had sugar!

While on my travels I also had someone try to talk me out of buying the more expensive fresh product for the price-reduced old stock, and I had to queue for 10 minutes at a fast food chain because only one person was serving and packing all the orders (I gave up after 10 minutes and went elsewhere).

On a good note though, I had polite and very helpful service at Hell’s Pizza in Napier and the recommended pizza was delicious. And at Jackson’s Bakery in Havelock North the service was brilliant and the food top notch, which just goes to show you can get it right if you put in the effort. And interestingly, I spent more money at the two ‘helpful’ businesses simply because their customer service encouraged me to do so.

With an expected increase in customers during the Rugby World Cup hopefully my experiences will be a warning to operators to get it right or lose your business to others who know how to provide good service.

Cynthia Daly, editor

Food & Beverage Today