“Let’s go out for Mexican food for dinner.”

We chose a newly opened, family-owned and run spot about three miles from the house, pulled on coats, and drove to the venue.

Once seated we took a view of the room. “Thoughtful” and “warm” came to mind. Dark-stained wood chairs, tables, and wall panels. Deep brown tile floor. Whiskey brown Naugahyde upholstery in the booths. Flowering plants trailing down from overhead pots (reminded me of Bougainvillea and probably wasn’t). Gentle background music. On one side of the restaurant, away from our seats, was a long bar, 20 stools, behind which were rows and rows of brightly lit spirits bottles and a large, shiny, stern-faced statue of a seated jaguar.

“Hi, sweetie!” No reply.

Our server, Santiago, was as warm and friendly as the room. After a little chit chat with him, we ordered guacamole to start (terrific – not over-mashed, lightly punctuated with chopped onion) and tortilla chips (baked, not fried, nice touch).

Our entrees, when Santiago delivered them, looked great. Mine was a pair of chicken enchiladas topped generously with melted cheese, surrounded by a small sea of salsa verde, about ¾ cup of arroz rojo, and about the same portion of slightly soupy frijoles negros.

I should say, “slightly soupy and (perhaps) slightly warmed” frijoles negros. The rice and the enchiladas were appropriately hot and the cheese nicely melted. The black beans were lukewarm to cool, at best.

As I wasn’t planning to eat the beans, I made no comment and enjoyed the rice and enchiladas.

At the end of the meal, Santiago returned to the table to ask about the dinner. I said, “Thank you for asking, would you like some feedback.”

“Of course!”, he said.

So we told him all the things that we thought had gone well, including the guacamole, which was really outstanding, and then said, “the frijoles negros were cold“.

“Oh,” he said, “yes, we’ve been having a problem with them. I’ll let the manager know.“

One of my former colleagues used to sell for a large commercial printing company. When the press room was running a job for one of her clients, she would take muffins and coffee down to the production floor, enjoy a quick snack with the press operators, and then hang out while they were running her job so she could see the output and ensure that all of it matched what she’d promised.

Santiago was our guy. I didn’t expect that he would be checking beans when scooped out of the pot or extracted from the microwave. And, maybe it wasn’t his role to check the food before it went out to guest tables. But……….. under “we’ve been having problems with them” circumstances, I just wondered as I looked up at him: Wouldn’t it have been a good idea for him or a colleague to check the beans either at the kitchen or just after they were delivered to the table to assure that the chicken, the rice, AND the beans were HOT?

Nick Miller and Clarity train banks and bankers to attract and develop deeper relationships with small businesses. Many more Sales Thoughts like this and a host of other articles and resources at https://clarityadvantage.com/knowledge-center/ .