A collective of perspectives and ideas, some worth repeating, and some worth avoiding…

So Alan & I went to Smashburger for lunch today.

When you’re a restaurant, you have a handful of things you’re going to be judged or rated on by your clientele, and they vary depending on what kind of restaurant you are. A mexican food joint, for example, is going to be rated on chips & salsa, tortillas, horchata, etc. When I enter a burger joint, here’s what I’m looking at/for:

Burger

Fries

Shakes

Service

Decor

Now, you could probably nail 3 out of the 5 and still earn my repeat business. But if you have only 1 or 2 good things…you’re S.O.L in my book.

Smashburger has a decent decor, and seemingly enough seating, until you place your order and turn around. The problem isn’t the lack of seating, its that you can combine two two-person tables to make a four-person table, and then nobody resets it…so you have a bunch of 1 and 2 person groups taking up 4 seats…

I ordered the regular fries, and they were ok. Nothing special, nothing unique, and I wasn’t savoring them to the last salty greasy morsel.

The fry sauce was a little off putting. I’m not sure what their mix ins were, but it didn’t yield a desirable outcome.

I ordered the root beer float, as Alan got a shake. The root beer float was good, thanks to ol’ reliable IBC. The shake however was nothing to rave about.

The service was good, as the employees were above-average-ly friendly and willing to be of service. However, and I was actually kind of happy this happened so I could see how they would respond, but they didn’t bring out my root beer float with Alan’s shake, nor did they bring it out with my food….nor did they bring it out 5, 6, 10 minutes later. I had to get up and ask them about it. Now I was nice and pleasant. I don’t get off by being a huge jerk in these sort of situations, I’d much rather be the unusually nice guy…

So they bring the root beer float out a few minutes later, and ask if there’s anything else they can do. “Nope”. “How’s everything tasting?” Good. Thanks!”

Now, if you want to recover with flying colors in the restaurant industry, you come back with something more than a question. My/Alan’s suggestion? Bring out a gift card. Even if its just for a free shake, you’re going to get me to come back in because of how well you handled the situation.

So there you have it…my first food critique of The Perspective Collective. (Hereafter to be referred to as TPC? We’ll see)

Verdict? Smashburger is worth avoiding as you can spend less and get more, in almost every “category” at Five Guys.