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January 09, 2007
Kelly's and the Universal Blog Waiting-Tables Marketing Analogy
Tom Kane of the Legal Marketing Blog recently posted Do Clients Wish You Were Like a Good Waiter?, commenting on a Seth Godin piece "What Waiters Can Teach Marketers". Godin's of course has done some innovative, noteworthy and interesting work--but like most gurus, he is over-quoted and over-sucked up to (by the non-Tom Kanes) whether the last post sent into cyberspace was brilliant or not. Gurus deserve respect, and to be read, usually, but they are not perfect. So what I want to know is what Tom Kane, who many of us also admire, thinks that the waiter experience teaches us about marketing. While Tom is thinking about that, I'll weigh in on waiting tables, and try hard to sound like a dang guru.
In 1980, I briefly waited tables--we preferred the term "waitron" to waiter--at a Capitol Hill bar (the one where in 1986 I had my last drink). Kelly's Irish Times was then in its infancy--a noisy, demented paradise, with demanding, obnoxious drunken customers 7 nights, and mornings, a week. The bar's staff was also to die for, and Just Like Me: Young, Irish and Drunk. And I was a waiter, and a very bad one, technically. But I worked hard, and the customers could see that, as clumsy and dazed as I often was, I was really into doing my job. Still, I never got anyone's order right the first time, was late with my orders, broke/spilled things, and mixed things up. I didn't listen to people well under fire. ("Ah, Danny! Mother of God...We need good Bushmills, not Jamesons, yuh sad simple creature...ah, Jesus...")
I drank and smoked heavily (a big perk, which I abused) while I worked. I mouthed off freely and expertly as I could to customers I clashed with. The Dublin-born owner, a city boy like me, was a friend of mine--but I could have cared less anyway if a patron with a unintelligible off-the-boat brogue said, "yuh know, Danny, oh, Jesus...we haven't seen yuh, lad, for, like, over an hour-and-a-half...take it out of yer meager wages..." or some other uncalled-for, insensitive country, County Cork remark from one of Hughie Kelly's new best friends. I frequently talked back.
But I was tipped, and tipped heavily, night after night. I became the "star" waiter/waitron, even with the other Irish guys and womenfolk who weren't thrilled with my nightly service. Why? How? Because night after night, I talked to, sat down with, drank with, smoked with, joked with and generally engaged and had real conversations with the customers about things they wanted to talk about. Kelly's Irish Times was about fun--not perfect service, food or drink. And having fun with the customer was about all I had to offer as a Kelly's "O'waitron".
Two nights ago I had dinner at a place called The Ivy, a much nicer and more expensive restaurant than Kelly's, and with actual and real food, in Santa Monica, California. Our waitron, an aspiring actress from the Midwest, and not anyone's "type" at our table, was new to LA, and probably just as new to waiting tables. In fact, she was pretty bad. But she was totally immersed in what she was doing, eager to please and totally immersed in us, at her table.
We tipped our LA waitron big time.
Posted by JD Hull at January 9, 2007 11:04 PM
Comments
I was there too! 1982. Six months, four nights a week, six p.m. to somewhere past midnight, then up at 7:00 for my day job. When a band was playing the place jumped and shivered with humanity. And we zipped through with our trays of brimming pints. In the morning I could hardly remember actually having heard the jig music. I had shut my mind to it. What About Customers? Besides, my hope was for ballads.
Once someone with a crowd yelled, "Kate!" Yet another male friend, good old what's-his-name. Bothering me while I was working. What an idiot he turned out to be. Anyway, startled, I glanced, blinked back face forward, and the pint to the bow of the tray teetered. It was one of four or more, all full to the brim with those delicate libations. You remember the Guiness and half & halfs. OMG I snatched it straight. What reflexes. But. A slurp escaped down the back of the pants of a man standing, his back to me, momentarily immobilized in the crowd as I was.
He was tall. Very tall. His belt was proximate to my chin, and I was holding those pints high. The music, talk, roars and laughter in the background were all pandemonium. He looked around, behind, and down. I gave a little shrug and smirk which I hoped looked apologetic and which were all I thought I could do. I was very sorry about the inch or so of some other customer's beer slipping down the back of his pants. But I did not think he could have heard me say it. I heard him though. "That's okay, baby, it felt good!" Hee.
Posted by: Kathleen Casey at October 10, 2009 09:05 AM