Reflecting on Reviews
One recent television series, The Bear, has found a way to portray the world of restaurants in quite a realistic way. It follows a restaurant owner attempting to build a fine dining restaurant from his family's sandwich shop. In the most recent season, the long-awaited "review" of the opening of the fine dining restaurant drives the story of whether this business will be seen as a success or not.
I've never considered Butter Bakery Cafe to be in the category of fine dining, nor had any aspirations to become one. We have always been a coffee shop, a bakery, and yes, a breakfast/lunch cafe, but hardly a "restaurant." And as such, restaurant reviews just don't play into how I think about this cafe. We have had stories about the shop show up in papers, mostly about our mission and about the effort to move to our new space on Nicollet Avenue. When there are mentions about food, it's as much about the bakery items as about a menu item - which almost exclusively has been about the biscuit sandwich that holds down the menu. But this past week, a customer review, on a social media platform found a kernal of truth that brought a bit of humility. Like the character on The Bear, I feel totally, personally responsible for the cafe. I felt this one.
I appreciate shout outs from the press, they're reminders that we still exist, trudging along day after day, year after year, because reviews and stories about restaurants are almost exclusively about openings and something new. It's easy to get forgotten in the ever-newness of another restaurant opening. It's also a sad reminder that most of those openings are following the closing of restaurant that used to be located there, and just got forgotten over time. Since Butter has not been a place that is in the habit of reinventing itself (the bakery case map of where the scones and biscuits and eclairs will be each day has not changed for nearly 18 years) we've relied on just being here on the corner, as consistently as we can, to serve our neighbors day by day.
I usually read the reviews that show up on social media channels about the restaurant as one of three options: gushers, loyalists or the disappointed. The gush: somebody has visited us and found something they loved and just had to share this with others. These are mostly folks who find something to love anywhere they are and we just happened to be the spot for that day. Our luck to have been that place on that day, but the review itself doesn't say much. Appreciated, yes, useful, not so much.
There are also the loyalists: every now and then one of our long-timers or regular customers comes across a comment from someone else and just has to stick up for a place they've come to know and love. Their relationship to the cafe gives them some credence for being able to speak knowledgably about a mistaken judgement, about an unseen core principle, about a longer - overall arc to the activity of the cafe that might have been missed in a "one time only" visit. I find it heartening to not have to be my own ambassador for the cafe, as the loyalists tell the story for me.
And there will always be a few of the disappointed. Many of these reviews seem to only be an effort to draw out a refund from me (which I gladly offer and would have, even without the printed review, if they had only approached me with the issue). Others come from a set of unrealistic expectations or a hope for something that really wasn't possible. I do find these reviews helpful for training efforts since we are training space at our heart. Mostly though, these events are the oddities, the one-off's, the "holiday crowd crunch" breakdowns, or the flags that one of my staff have had a really bad day. Life happens. Apologies are necessary, then we move on.
It was one of these disappointment reviews this week that hit pretty close to my own heart, for it was about my own actions as the owner/operator of Butter Bakery Cafe. Yes, it may have been more of a one-off event (a remark about how quiet it was on a Saturday morning would have not been true just the week before when the tables were full). However, the recognition that there had been many reductions and corners being cut since the 2020 pandemic began, is of course, accurate and one that pains me daily. I have made those cuts and I take this failure personally, even when I know there are so many other factors at work that have led to the deep reduction in overall customer traffic we experience now after the world-changing events of 2020. It probably didn't help that I was, at that very time the review was being written, trying to recover from my first bout with Covid and had been away from the cafe for four days.
Yes, there's a plan in place for an occasion like this, but no, we weren't able to put it into best use. Yes, many of the day-to-day regulars were certainly aware that I wasn't around to manage the flow, but no, there isn't a back-up for filling that missing piece. And while larger restaurant operations can leverage resources to prop up a struggling part of their whole, most single owner/operator (ma & pa) places like mine, do not have that leverage or the resources to begin with. Just to be open and serve our neighbors on days like this is a testament to hard working staff trying to do their best. Things take a little longer? Presentation looks a little different? Mistakes happen? Yes, yes, and yes. And while that's disappointing to me, it also does, point out places to learn and grow, as well as the limitations life puts upon us.
Do I believe that the neighborhood has given up on us as the reviewer would imply? No.
Do I believe we can do better, as the reviewer has urged? Yes.
Has Covid had a major impact on who we are and how we do what we do? Most certainly, and this week, Covid definitely changed the way the business operated, whether we're in the middle of a declared pandemic or not.
As I lay in the basement room of my house trying to exile myself from my wife, I anticipated a "review" popping up because of my time away, they tend to show up during times I'm not around. I worried, yes, and I feared what I wasn't being told by staff who just wanted to give me the time to rest and recover. But, unlike the make-or-break review of the fictional tv restaurant, I know, this review, like all the rest, will mark a certain time in the history of the cafe and give me one more reference point to look back on while we try to keep serving our neighbors day after day.
Your daily thank you's and check ins, those are the reviews that count for me. Those keep us true to our mission to be a place for training, welcome, and support. Your walk alongside me is what keeps me on this path and keeps me willing to get up out of bed and put another foot forward and open the door.
May we continue to walk this green path, step by step, in health and in sickness.