Public Relations Win

The day before the Reindeer Run in Lakewood I had to go pick up my race packet in Rocky River. It was a Friday night, so we ended up looking for someplace different to have dinner in Rocky River. We ended up at The Pub on Detroit Ave.

The Pub is an English Pub that is situated in an old movie theatre. In our party was P, Dave and me. It was early, maybe 6-ish and there wasn't a line or a wait or anything. We entered and were ushered out to the patio. Yes, the patio. Which at any other establishment I probably wouldn't have cared, but we went to an English Pub to enjoy the atmosphere as well as the food. So much for atmosphere. At least they had heaters so it wasn't too cold. I did not, however, take my coat off because it wasn't THAT warm. I assumed we were banished to the patio due to having a child in-tow on a Friday night. Whatever.

Our service was crappy, the food was eh. I made my displeasure known to the waiter, reassuring him that I wasn't looking for anything comped, but that I thought he should know that we weren't happy. This was after dinner, but before dessert. We still ordered dessert because, hey, bread pudding! With the dessert order we also ordered coffee. On top of all the other crappy stuff that happened over the course of the meal, the coffee didn't come to the table until almost 10 minutes AFTER we finished the bread pudding. Major fail.

I would've totally given them a pass based solely on the bread pudding (it was really, really good), but then the coffee incident. And nary an apology.

So when I got home that night, I posted on their FB page about the service. (If you want to read it, check out "The Pub" Rocky River on FB).  That was on Friday night.

Monday morning I received a FB message from the marketing / PR person asking for contact info so the manager could talk to me about my experience.

I received a call from "Matt" the next morning. He apologized for the service, offered to comp us a meal, etc. I assured him it was not necessary, but he insisted that he didn't want to lose a customer and that he would send out a gift card so I could give them another chance. So I gave him my address.

Two weeks later I still had not received the gift card, so I sent a Facebook message to the marketing / PR person who contacted me initially that said essentially that while I should be surprised at the lack of follow through, I really wasn't.

Within 15 minutes I received a phone call from the PR person. She apologized profusely, said that that blunder was her fault, not the restaurant's and that she thought they were sending the card and that they thought she was sending the card, blah, blah, blah, apology-cakes. She promised that she would send out the gift card immediately. This was yesterday morning.

Last night around 6pm the manager from The Pub appeared on my doorstep with a takeout of bread pudding and $100 gift card.

I think I'll give them another try.

They'd better not screw it up.

:)