ebseller015

A great Sunday at Bourbon St., Nyack, Ny

I am writing this to share my experience at Bourbon St., on 10/14/2012. It was a nice Sunday afternoon, I happened to be in Nyack conducting business. I had in mind to go to Bourbon subsequently, and watch football with colleagues. It has been a while since I have stepped foot into the New Orleans designed restaurant. I was a former “regular” and was present faithfully on football Sundays, to take advantage of their 25 cent wings. The atmosphere was vibrant. On the 14th of October I walked into bourbon with my colleagues and when I walked out my impression of Bourbon transformed.
We were greeted by a completely new staff. Our waitress was polite and was wearing a Giants shirt. We were seated in the back by the biggest TV in the restaurant. We all ordered our wings without any issues. Halfway through my wings the waitress approached me with the bill stating that she would leave it there until we were ready. In less than a minute she comes back to the table, grabs the bill, and returns after realizing that we had not even regarded the bill yet. She put it down and returned within 5 minutes to get the bill. I looked at her and showed her that my fingers were covered with BBQ sauce. Please give us a second. By this time it was nearing the start of the Giants 4:30 game. The TV we were watching was switched to baseball. We asked our waitress if she could change the channel back to football, as the giants were going to play soon. She brushed it off and told us that we would have to speak to the woman in charge. Come to find out, the woman in charge was the bartender. There was no manager, supervisor, or owner around. We approached the bartender politely and asked her to change the channel. She refused and said that she was busy. We approached her again, and again she refused but this time she was rude. She told us that her regulars wanted to watch baseball on that TV. Excuse me! How rude of her. She sent an obvious message to us that she did not care about our business or what we wanted. A family of five walks in and sits adjacent to us. They are pumped about the Giants game as well. The Father asks us if the Giants game is playing on the TV in front of us. We told him to express his needs to the boss (bartender) because she did not care about ours. He made his way over to the bar. By that time my colleague was already at the bar asking the bartender if she could please change it back to football. After all, it is football Sunday. We love the Yankees but today it was time for the Giants. They only play once a week. Ten of your customers are requesting it. The Boss’s response was “I can do whatever I want so get the f**k out of here”. All right! You’re the boss you can do whatever you want including being rude and disrespectful to your customers. Another waitress saw what was going on so she approached the table and tried to mediate the situation but in a condescending way. First of all, I may look like I’m 16 but I am much older. I hold a graduate level degree. I am a professional, Businessman, and Educator. I respect everyone and demand the same. I don’t need to be talk down to. Neither do my colleagues. Is this how Bourbon does customer service? Without customers there is no business. What message are you sending? To make matters worse, that family that was there heard everything. They could not believe what was going on. They immediately picked up their belongings and left. We soon followed. We were tired of being disrespected by waitresses. I teach customer service, in all types of setting, healthcare. What I tell everyone is that you make one customer happy, they tell two people. You make one customer upset, they tell everybody. This restaurant is a classic example of an owner absent business. The business is being ran by unqualified individuals. Every businessman or women knows that customer service is the primary objective of a restaurant. I ask you Bourbon(owner) where is the customer service. Your business is a physical figure and representation of the Nyack/Rockland County community. Do you think that family will ever return? What will they tell their family and friends?