Sunday Morning Breakfast Out: Take 2

Hubby and I went out to breakfast yesterday and decided to return to the same place this morning: he, because they serve “baked beans” (pork and beans to Americans) with one of the breakfasts, me because I was curious if the speedy service we received yesterday was the norm.

This little coffee shop, called Beanz, is inside the small Table View Mall and located directly across from the entrance to the Pick n Pay (South Africa’s answer to Safeway). At 9:30 on a Saturday morning, the parking lot was jammed and the mall…including Beanz…was busy. Bu the service was fast, efficient and pleasant, despite the place being nearly full.

Hubby and I returned this morning and it was a whole different story. Where yesterday we took the only available booth in the place, this morning there were only two occupied tables when we walked in. The young lady who brought us our menus…before I even had my sunglasses off and traded for my normal specs…took our drink orders and when Hubby started to ask for sweetener, her eyes flicked to the little container of sugar and sweetener packets already on the table.

If yesterday’s service was good, today’s was phenomenal. There were three employees out front…two servers and a manager…and nobody went without attention for long. Before our drinks were served, another server came and took our order, no quibbling over special orders (Hubby wanted a frank with his breakfast) and or quailing over scrambling the eggs. No sooner had our order been taken than the original server appeared with the drinks…and my Coke Light was a full 340ml can, not one of those puny little ones or a fountain coke which always seem to be just a wee bit flat.

The food arrived before Hubby had finished his coffee, and everything was perfect. Generous portions correctly prepared and served quickly…even the toast was hot enough to melt the butter spread onto it. During the course of our meal the server stopped by once to see if everything was ok, and my plate was removed shortly after I finished. There was no waiting around to pay the bill because the server was too busy chatting with a co-worker…nope, when Hubby put his credit card out with the little folder, the server was right there to collect it. By the time our bill was settled and we were on our way back to the car, we had been in the place only half an hour…

Contrasted with our experience of three weeks ago, this place was a breath of fresh air: good food, well-prepared, efficiently served, all at a cost of only R135, tip included!

Beanz, we are coming back! And if you are reading this in Cape Town, I highly recommend you try this place!

Poll results

Fifteen people responded to the question "What in this series of posts most influences whether or not you will visit [the restaurant]"

Sweet Violet's experience: 0
SV's writing style: 2
The manager's responses to SV: 12
SV's responses to the manager: 0
None of the above: 1

I'm not sure how my style of writing (as opposed to the content) influences...it was included in the poll because the manager seemed to think it was significant. If you were one of the two who voted regarding my style being influential, please drop me a comment and enlighten me as to your reasoning.

Then again...this poll was open to anyone, who's to say the manager didn't drop by and click that button himself, just to make sure his point was validated?

Dodge City Dispute: do I need a silver bullet or a wooden stake??

If the latest installment of the apparently immortal Dodge City dispute doesn’t interest you, click this link for something you might like instead: http://cheaptricksntips.blogspot.com/ . For those of you who want to know what is the latest numbskull trick Mr. Dodge City has pulled, read on.

It is no secret I have a low traffic blog. It’s been that way since its inception more than four years ago and I’ve done very little to change that. Just last week I learned about blog page rankings but I have no idea how to find out what mine is…and I don’t care enough to spend the time finding out what it is, why it is supposed to matter, or how to find out what mine is. The importance of this disclaimer will become apparent in due course.

Anyway, this past week I noticed a jump in my stats (I have one of those little counter thingies you can get free on the web). Today, I had a further jump, all without any appreciable reason. Surely my recent blogs about the burst hot water heater haven’t rung a lot of empathetic bells? I checked the site that gathers the stats…most of which is Greek to me…and saw that the blog had an unusual number of Google hits. When check for the Google search words, I suddenly realized that people were picking up words from Mr. DC’s blog, plugging them into Google, and ending up at my blog. Bizarre, eh?

So, I checked his blog to see what was going on and imagine my shock to see the name of my blog emblazoned in bright letters at the top of his posts!! No kidding! “A View From The Other Side” was part of the actual title of two of his three posts!

Now, I’ve been blogging for more than four years, but I don’t know much about the technical aspects of it…and I don’t care to know…but this guy is even more ignorant than I am about how blogging works. He is driving traffic to my blog with his obsession…people who come to his blog to find out about his restaurant (one of the diners is located in one of the most popular tourist attractions in Cape Town) are, instead, finding out that he has an obsession about a customer who complained about the service…and the curious ones are finding me through Google. He may have figured out how to put up a WordPress blog, but he has no idea how he is hurting himself and helping me by informing every person who finds his blog that if customers complain about the service, they could end up being the target of some obsessive cyber-stalking and character assassination! And, he hasn’t figured that driving traffic to my blog makes it more popular when people do searches for me or for topics I have written about in my very eclectic blog.

So, today he posted a rather long rant in response to a short comment from someone I used to occasionally spar with on the web. Interestingly, he didn’t post my comment to the very same blog entry, so it is now official that he is refusing to allow me to have the same say on his blog that he had on mine. Heaven forefend there should be any information published on his blog that does not exactly conform to what he wants people to believe! Anyway, Jim (my erstwhile sparring partner) posted this comment:

Well this has been interesting, for me SV was OK we never saw eye to eye on just about anything, but I still liked her. And if you’ve managed to get her to change her blog well your a better man then me Gunga Din….But I don’t eat urgers [sic], or stuff like it…and carry on blogging can be ineresting [sic], funny or down right frustrating, but you gotta stop plugging the place…Cheers [Jim has a decidedly conservative bent while I am known to be a wild-eyed liberal--of course we didn’t agree on anything!]

Here is Mr. DC’s response to Jim's comment (in red) and my remarks on that response (in green):

re: re: Dodge City Diner - Customer Service Response

Thanks for your comment. Has been an interesting experience for me as well. Have been in restuarant [sic] game for more than 20 years and never come across anything like it.

A restuarant [sic] Complainant’s motive typically lies in either wanting a refund and/or just drawing the problem to the attention of management for rectification in good faith. Well, there are other reasons…like, I like the food but your crappy service is driving me away. Like, this is my third visit to this venue and the service has been bad every time (see my original mail/blog post), but this time it was just bad beyond belief. Like, maybe I was wanting to get the service fixed so I wouldn’t have to stop coming into the restaurant because the service was so dismal?

SV’s complaint appeared to be backed by an additional motive - events suggest getting exposure for herself - maybe as a writer or whatever. How so? Notice there is no quote or direct reference to anything that would support this allegation. And the evidence suggests otherwise: four+ years of happily blogging along as a low traffic site with no evidence to suggest an attempt to increase it. Logic, also, is on my side…if I wanted to make a name for myself as a writer, why would I pick on an unknown diner at the bottom of the world? Wouldn’t I try to piggyback my efforts on something a bit more visible than a diner that has no website, no reputation outside this one city, not even a blog? The whole allegation doesn’t make an iota of sense. SV’s blog content suggests vindictiveness as a possible motive as well. Again…in what way? Where is a quote or some logical explanation for this allegation? He can’t do it because there isn’t anything. SV’s 2 odd page complaint was outside the norm in almost every sense. Well, “2 odd page” is usually interpreted as meaning “more than two pages.” If you say you have "twenty odd cents," don't you mean twenty cents plus a few? Using 10 pt Arial, it comes to barely 1.25 pages: here is just one of many, many examples of the distortions of truth that permeate his blog entries and emails to me. As far as my complaint being “outside the norm,” what kind of indictment is that? Only people who write complaints inside “the norm,” whatever that might be, are entitled to being taken seriously and treated with respect?

Problem is that while SV secures her desired exposure, [at best this is speculation; at worst, libel] an inaccurate account of events can do serious and unreasonable damage to the business concerned [true…but my account is not inaccurate and, if I am wrong and it is inaccurate he has intractably refused to tell me what is inaccurate about it so I can make corrections] - threatening the livelihoods of all deriving an income from the business. In DCD’s case we have 4 outlets emplying [sic] about 300 staff. It became necessary that I warn her of my right to recover damages in due course if necessary. Why, then, has he refused to tell me what is inaccurate? I have never refused to change an inaccuracy, but if he won’t tell me what they are, isn’t he the reason any inaccuracies that might exist haven’t been corrected?

During the dispute with SV, a very brief very miserable complaint was logged on Food24 against another DCD outlet. The Complainant suggested that Food24 readers do a google search - where they would coincidentally find SV’s blog. Hence my concern that exposure for her blog was a likely motive behing logging the complaint. Oh, what a crock! My mention of Food24 was days before someone posted that review. Any person anywhere in the world who had web access could have posted it. Not only did I not post it, nobody who has ever read my blog would mistake that review for my style of writing. He claims (below) that he has contacted Food24 to learn who posted the review but the fact that he doesn't know sure hasn’t stopped him from blaming me, has it?

I have asked for further details from the food24 complainant. No response as yet and events suggest that the complaint was fabricated and simply intended to unreasonably harm DCD’s reputation. That is entirely possible…but there’s no reason to think it was me. I was doing just fine exchanging emails with him and had no reason to go elsewhere, particularly since I was asking, in almost every email, for him to tell me what he thought was inaccurate so that I could consider an amendment. Maybe he’s the kind of person who tries to resolve a dispute on one hand while undermining those efforts on the other, but I’m not. Besides, I was winning that email war...what possible reason would I have to move to a new venue (like he did with his new blog)? SV swears that she has no knowledge of who may have logged the complaint! But on the balance of probability? How about some evidence instead of speculation? How about refraining from blaming someone until there is even a tiny smidgen of proof? Probability? If you are talking probabilities, what is most probable is that someone else read the early entry mentioning Food24 and made the review, given that hundreds of millions of people had that opportunity. Do I strike anybody reading this as being stupid enough to foreshadow something like that myself? Believe me, if I was going to put up a rude review, I wouldn’t advertise it ahead of time…and it would have been written with a great deal more panache.

Actual details of SV’s service experience in our store as per vidoe [sic] coverage was as follows: 9.44 enter store, greeted by manager, 9.46 waiter takes order for coke/cappucino, drinks at table 9.52, canderel at table 9.54. SV out of store by 9.59. This if the very first time I have seen most of this information! And how interesting that he limits his review of the video to time. In his apology email he refers to this video and states that the drinks took longer than the corporate standard and that there was no excuse for the staff being unable to find the Canderel. He even admits that a staff member left the restaurant to get Canderel from an outside source. Interestingly, this review also fails to mention my getting up from the table and going to the register to inquire what was taking so long to get the Canderel…and the fumble at the register, where it took three members of staff to process a cash transaction is omitted as well. Staff recall an altication [sic} of sorts between SV and hubby before they walked into the store - so emotions were high at the outset it seems! This is an out-and-out lie. Not only were we not engaged in an altercation, we were actually discussing various venues for Sunday morning breakfast and, upon seeing the Dodge City (we were en route to Spur), we decided to try them. We’ve had burgers there (and they are excellent) and the service wasn’t that good, but since only one other table was occupied when we entered, we actually expected to get better service than we had had in the past! Aside from the fact that Hubby and I seldom argue, when we do argue, we definitely don’t do it in public! If there were any high emotions as we entered, they were positive anticipation…they make magic with hamburgers, why not with breakfast, too? I find it very interesting that Mr. DC has failed to mention (or, to date, even acknowledge) my husband’s email to him clearly repudiating the charge that we were not having an altercation nor did I “unreasonably abuse” him as Mr. DC’s staff alleges. SV first blog claimed experience took 30 minutes - but has subsequently backed down on this and other aspects of claim. Another distortion of the truth. My first blog entry on the subject was a verbatim copy of my email to Dodge City. The second entry was posted immediately after I received his apology email which included a mention that his video footage showed we were there 15 minutes rather than the 30 I had estimated. Without so much as a suggestion from him, I made a new entry into the blog in which I accepted his service time and corrected the time to 15 minutes. I could not amend the first entry because it was a verbatim copy of the letter I sent…a copy is a copy, errors and all. This is considerably different from me “backing down,” especially when you consider that he did not sent the first attacking email to me until at least two days after I had made the correction!

I responded to the complaint with an apology and R50 voucher as a token of appreciation for bringing matter to my attention. This is true. He also mentioned the video footage and that his footage showed us we were in the store 15 minutes, not the 30 I estimated. At this point I had no reason to doubt the existence of the video nor his claim of 15 minutes. I immediately posted a correction…without requiring any proof from him, just taking his word for it. Cost of food order was approx R15. Um…I’m not entirely sure about this…I paid for this with an R50 note and I seem to recall getting about R25 back…but I could be wrong. I was so irritated by the time the three staff members finally figured out how to make the till accept a cash payment, I did not carefully count my change. But I do recall an R20 note and one R5 coin… SV rejected voucher –not true…my husband refused the voucher…so he did get the email and was just too rude to respond or even acknowledge receipt (of course he wouldn’t…it didn’t support his twisted version of the truth or his staff’s specious “observations”!) What he could not know is that, prior to his attack on me (after the two day silence), Hubby and I were planning to use the voucher, but at the Waterfront store where our service experiences have been better...not as good as they should be, but better- so refund not the motive. Well how amazing…a correct logical deduction! At last! So what was the motive DCD asks? DCD did not ask anything…DCD merely created a massive straw man and is now happily flailing away at it. No apparent good faith anywhere in logging the complaint. Since when does making a complaint require “good faith”? And it’s an awfully narrow view of the world to assume that there are only two possible reasons for complaint: gain or vengeance. How about something completely outside that restrictive little box: enlightened self-interest? I like the food but the crappy service was driving me away…why hasn’t it occurred to this person that my motive was to get him to improve the service so I would be able to continue patronizing his business? And what about ranting? Has he never heard of a rant?? If we removed every blog from the internet that contains a rant, would there be any left?

Re your concern re my trying to get exposure -Jim expressed a concern about Mr. DCD wanting to get exposure? Where? not to worry, that is not my intention. Ah...so his statement that exposure is not his intention is supposed to be sufficient to prove his intent, but that doesn't work for me? What is his intent, then? To libel a complaining customer? He has three entries on this blog and that's all he talks about! New at the blogging game. Recent entry was an effort to change the blog title to something other than DCD & see if it worked. Yah, right…and he changed the title of two of his blog entries to include my blog name…I’m wondering what WordPress would think of that since clicking my blog name on some Google results directs to his blog instead of mine…doesn’t that violate TOS? Try clicking on the link below and see for yourself.

This entry was posted on September 23, 2008 at 1:13 pm and is filed under A View from the other Side, dodge-city-diner with tags A View from the other Side, dodge-city-diner, dodge-city-diner-cape-town, dodge-city-diner-waterfront.

So, even though I know he’s not going to publish my comment…at least he hasn’t published mine in the past, so I have no reason to expect he’ll publish this one…I gave it my best shot:

Thought you might like to know that people are taking key phrases from your blog, putting them in Google and ending up at mine where they can read the whole story...your emails as well as my repeated requests that you tell me what you think needed changing and your refusals to tell. I know you won't publish this comment...I mean, why let me have my say the way I let you have yours by publishing your side of the story word-for-word?...but that's OK because I'll publish it myself.

But you might want to rethink this tactic...you are actually sending people to my blog who otherwise would never have heard of this, so you are telling everybody what bad service you have and how rudely you respond to someone who calls it to your attention. And, because they can take just about any phrase out of your blog, plug it into Google, you are actually sending people to read my side of the story! I doubt this is what you intended, but that's what you are doing (I checked my stat counter this morning and found multiple hits from Google, the key words lifted wholesale from your entries.)

I've always had a low-traffic blog (for four years), never wanted more than that because I blog primarily for myself and a few regular readers (most of whom are foreigners, BTW) but your blog has increased my hits by making people curious, so I'm gaining a bit of new readership thanks to you.

Oh, and does it seem appropriate to you that what purports to be a corporate website is publishing what amounts to character assassination...and not even having the common decency to allow the target a rebuttal? Not a very good business move...more like a spiteful kid indulging in some name-calling than an exercise in good corporate relations. But why should I care? If you want a highly unprofessional web image that holds you...and by extension, your company...up in a bad light, I guess it's no skin off my nose.

Thanks for all the referral readers though. Appreciate the mention and you creating all the buzz.

Believe it or not, there’s more! His second blog entry (19 Sept) was a verbatim copy of his first (16 Sept) entry with one notable exception: he changed the title of the piece to the name of my blog. Maybe that is how Jim (see intro to this entry) found him. I left a reply, since my previous reply to this entry had not been published.

Yup, you know this isn't true and sending people to my blog will prove it because your emails---proving it wasn't true---are published there.

Thanks for the referrals, though. You've made people curious (about something they would never even have known about it you'd been quiet and let it drop) and now they are coming to my blog to get the rest of the story. I wondered where all the extra traffic was coming from, since I usually have a quiet, low traffic blog and there's been a flurry of unexpected activity over the last few days. Now I know why.

In case you are wondering why I keep making entries about this…why I don’t take the high road and just ignore him…it is because of the doctrine of “tacit agreement” which, if my research is correct, is still in viable in South African law. A magistrate may impute tacit agreement to a litigant based on their conduct…or lack thereof…so if I err, it must be on the side of caution.

You see, if he publishes untrue statements about me and I do not refute them, a magistrate may impute my agreement to those statements because I did not refute them. Kind of a “well, if it wasn’t true, why didn’t you say so?” sort of thing. Tacit consent and tacit agreement are situations in which taking the high road could actually work against you. And, since this guy continues to bring up legal action, it’s not prudent of me to ignore his libels in the interest of taking the high road. It is more prudent of me to refute.

And that’s what this entry is all about.

Dodge City: 5,000 bucks a day...

Well, I answered yesterday’s nastygram with a simple, short, and succinct reply:

I shall not respond to further email from you unless your mail specifically enumerates the errors you wish corrected and what you wish to see in the way of a correction.

Should be the end of it, right? Well, this is what just arrived in the email:

I would like to draw your attention to the following issues related to the posting of a negative review against Dodge City Waterfront on Food24 today :
1. You are regarded, in the balance of probability, to be either the party that posted the review or arranged such.
2. It is understood that the review has been fabricated. The wording thereof suggests deliberate intention to damage the reputation of the Waterfront outlet and to cause financial loss to the owner of the outlet.
3. The owner of the Dodge City Waterfront outlet is not the same party that owns the Canal Walk outlet.
4. The Dodge City franchise and the owner of the V&A outlet have suffered financial loss as a result of the fabricated service complaint that has been made in a public forum.
5. Damages are estimated to be R5,000 for every day that the review remains posted on the Food24 webpage.
6. You are invited to retract, or to arrange the retraction of, the fabricated service review immediately.
7. Should you fail to act in accordance with request recorded in para 7 [sic] above, a summons for damages suffered will be prepared and served against you once your place of residence, or employment, has been established.
I will argue in due course that I have done everything possible mitigate the damages now suffered by the Dodge City in the form of providing you with a written warning of the implications of making deliberately false and/or exaggerated claims aimed at causing unreasonable financial damage to the Dodge City brand and its outlets.

Well, I’m afraid I can’t take credit for this one. The odd coincidence here, however, is that before I wrote the original letter to my friendly correspondent, I actually went to Food24 to find the Dodge City for Canal Walk…I was planning to leave the message “Great burgers and shakes but the service is dismal. Go to the Waterfront diner instead.” But there wasn’t a Food24 entry for the Canal Walk store, so I wrote a letter to the email address listed on the Food24 site instead, expecting that if it didn’t go to the franchise owner, it would likely be forwarded to him by the recipient. Since the email address was simply dodgecity@mweb.co.za, however, I figured it would probably go right to Mr. Dodge City himself.

And no, I didn’t put anyone up to it. In fact, any rational person who reads what’s been going on over the last few days would have to conclude I wasn’t involved since I have made repeated efforts to get this guy to tell me what he wants, my plan being to correct any real errors and ignore the rest in the interest of peace. In yesterday’s mail to him I repeated no less than six times, directly or indirectly, my request to inform me what has his knickers in such a knot, pointing out that I can’t do anything to relieve his distress until I know what’s causing it. Well, unsurprisingly, he hasn’t come forth with anything…maybe because there isn’t anything? I am beginning to think this guy has a hidden agenda here, since he refuses to give me the information needed to satisfy his demands and escalates this thing every time I try to lay it to rest.

So, I answered him: “I didn’t post it.” Simple, succinct, to-the-point.

Which prompted him to reply yet again:

You are going to have to convince the Magistrate - not me. As far as I am concerned, the wording of the Food24 review suggests that you are, in the balance of probability, a party thereto. That is all that I will have to prove in due course and I have absolute confidence in my ability to do so. I attend to all Dodge City's legal affairs personally and represent the brand in court when necessary. I look forward to debating the merits of your conduct in court in due course should you not arrange the required retraction of the Food24 review and settlement of damages suffered by Dodge City and its franchisee up to the time of retraction.

The contents of your blog to date (including your prior reference to Food24 and your understanding of the damage that could be caused by a negative review on this webpage), and that of your latest blog bedfellow, are unlikely to assist your effort to claim innocence. I will argue that you are vindictive and intent upon maximising damage to the Dodge City brand for reasons that are not particularly clear at present.

My rights and those of my franchisees are reserved.

OK, so now I’m starting to smell a big fat rat. How do I know this guy was telling the truth about a videotape of our visit to the diner? Since I didn’t check the time, I only guessed (with my husband’s input) that we were there for half an hour. When Mr. Dodge City said his video tape showed 15 minutes I neither demanded to see the tape nor dug in my heels to defend my position: I just accepted his word, corrected my error, and dropped the whole thing. It was two days later that he resurrected the thing with the character assassination mail.

Today I attempted to close it again with my two sentence reply that I would not be responding unless his mail specifically enumerated his complaints and desired corrections. I had not anticipated a further escalation on his part and his latest salvo required response:

I know nothing about this, either directly or indirectly: If you really want this removed, contact Food24 and have them check their records as to who posted it. If you fail to take this action, it can be construed that you do not want it removed, you are just seeking ways to further harass me. How do I know that YOU didn’t post it in an attempt to extract money from me?

I have attempted on two occasions to lay this to rest: once after your apology, and then again today when I said I was not going to respond further. You are the one who keeps resurrecting and escalating.

I’d like to help you, but I am unable to compel or cause Food24 to retract a review with which I had nothing to do.

At the time of this writing, the poll has had only six votes, but so far the response has been unanimous: #3 has it. If anyone has damaged the franchise’s good will, it has been the franchise owner himself. I let it go after his apology…why couldn’t he?

So far, he hasn’t replied to my latest response…nor has he had the courtesy to acknowledge respond to Hubby’s email of two days ago. I will keep you posted…

Dodge City: Can anybody figure out what this guy wants from me?

Yesterday I received this email:

I would strongly advise that you confine your blog to facts that you will be able to prove in due course if necessary.

You are not entitled to try and make a name for yourself as a writer via internet exposure at the expense of the reputation of a largely innocent party. I regard you to be impossible to please and, with respect, it is likely that an average person reading your rantings, eg about a cappuccino that took 6 minutes to deliver, would conclude similarly. I would honestly suggest that that you either stick to fiction writing or do something about improving your memory recall.

My rights and the rights of the Canal Walk franchisee are reserved.

In the event of you persisting with the disclosure of false, grossly exaggerated, or in some cases, trumped up facts about Dodge City, I will have no option other than to enforce the full extent of my right to relief against you without further notice.

I replied, trying to absolutely stick to the issue: the service was bad, he acknowledged the service was bad, but he wants me to “amend” my blog in some way but won’t respond to my multiple requests to tell me where he believes my blog is in error and in need of amendment:

On 08/09/08 I received the following from you: Video footage of the event shows that you entered the store at 9.44am and left 15 minutes later at 9.59am - not 30 minutes as you suggest.

On 09/09/08, in my very next blog entry, I corrected the error: I was incorrect about the time…it was 15 minutes, not 30, and I also emailed my acceptance of your service time: Since we paid in cash and did not have a time-stamped credit-card receipt, we could but guess at the length of time we spent at the store. I will accept your video time of fifteen minutes,

Later that same day you responded: The 6 minutes it took to get the coffee to you was slower than standard time allowed. Problem was that the milk had not been foamed in advance. Re the Canderel - they did have the product in the store but could not find it. No excuses - staff should no[sic] known where it was kept. Your waitress did not leave the store to get the Canderel - one of the managers did….The Franchisee has been advised of your grievance and has assured me that remedial action will be taken to get product delivery times back to Franchise standard… On behalf of Dodge City Diner, please accept my apologies

I did not respond to this mail as I considered the matter closed at this point: you acknowledged at least some of the problems and apologized for our unfortunate experience. My husband and I discussed it and decided that we would not return.

On 10/09/08, two days later, you sent me this email: “I would like to ask that you please consider the merits of amending your blogg [sic] regarding Dodge City. The justification behind my request for amendment is as follows: 1. Video footage suggests that your blogg [sic] does not reasonably represent the facts or sequence of events surrounding your service experience. 2. It is reasonable to suggest that the blogg [sic], in its current form, would do unreasonable damage to the goodwill of the Dodge City brand and the investment of the Canal Walk franchisee.

There was nothing in this mail, however, to indicate what you thought needed to be amended. Up to this point, in fact, you had been in agreement that the service was, based on your own observations via your own video footage, below your own corporate standard...and the one error you had pointed out to me had already been corrected.

I replied the same day saying: “Yesterday I posted a follow up blog entry in which I corrected the time difference, acceding to your time of 15 minutes for our entire visit and 6 minutes for delivery of our drinks. In what way do “the facts or sequence of events” differ in your video as compared to my blog? Assuming that I am willing to make an amendment, I cannot do so without knowing the points of contention…” Later in the mail I reiterated the point: “To the best of [my] knowledge and recollection, my blog is correct. If you can demonstrate where it is not, I will take amendment under consideration.”

Your reply on 10/09/08 acknowledges my correction: Thanks for amending the service times recorded in your revised blog. The remainder of your reply, however, does not address my requests for you to indicate where my blog and your video tape diverge. Your email, however, does request that I amend my blog to include certain inflammatory accusations that were included in your email, and I have complied with that request. A new entry was made to the blog with your mail quoted in its entirety, thereby precluding the possibility of a misquote or fault with my memory leading to something incorrect being published.

On 11/9/08, I responded to your email, again pointing out that I had asked you where our versions of the events diverged: I asked you to provide me with examples of how your video footage differs substantively from my blog, since amendment is impossible if I don’t know what needs to be amended. And I furthermore indicated a willingness to comply with your request (as I had already done twice by correcting the time and by publishing your statement as requested): Instead of providing the information I need in order to comply with your request, however, you respond with an ad hominem attack and gratuitous insults.

On the morning of 11/9/08, my husband also responded to your email of 10/09/08, providing correction to erroneous information supplied to you by your staff. To date, he has not received a reply or even an acknowledgment of receipt from you.

Which brings us to your missive of yesterday afternoon: You state: I would strongly advise that you confine your blog to facts that you will be able to prove in due course if necessary.

You see, therein lies the problem: we both are in possession of a set of “facts” which we each believe to be true. You, however, are the only person in possession of both sets of “facts,” and you aren’t sharing. Since I don’t have possession of the video footage and I cannot read your mind, I can’t change anything on the blog without input from you. Since I don’t know what you are taking issue with, I cannot amend that which so distresses you.

Since you have agreed in writing that the service was below your own standard and I have corrected the time error, I don’t know what other “facts” remain in dispute. I have asked more than once for you to give me the information and you have not been forthcoming. I am therefore unable to make amendments to satisfy you without knowing what is in dispute.

You further state: In the event of you persisting with the disclosure of false, grossly exaggerated, or in some cases, trumped up facts about Dodge City… Please indicate which facts I have disclosed that are false, grossly exaggerated, or trumped up. I do not have the option of retracting, correcting, amending, or otherwise changing statements with which you take issue until and unless you reveal to me what they are.

Well, you’d think this would be sufficient to bring the man to the realization that I’m not unwilling to correct errors, but since I don’t see any remaining errors, he’s just going to have to rub my myopic little nose in them.

Here’s what I got in response:
You have a legal obligation to ensure that any disclosure by yourself, that negatively impacts on Dodge City's reputation in the marketplace, fairly represents the true state of affairs.

I have no obligation to convince you that my account of events correct. My obligation is limited to drawing your attention to the fact that your disclosures on the internet are regarded to be unreasonably damaging to Dodge City's reputation, that the Brand is likely to be suffering damages as a result thereof, and to advise you that you are legally liable for any damages suffered after your receipt of the said notice.

Dodge City's conduct in dealing with your initial email complaint to me was in line with international best practice ie I accepted your version of events without question and made a geuine effort to make amends - in your case, thanking you for taking the trouble to draw the matter to my attention, and offering 3 times the value of purchase as compensation. Dodge City seldom receives customer complaints, but when received they are dealt with consistently, urgently and responsibly - as was done in your case. In this regard, your attention is drawn to the following facts:
1. I attempted to email a response within hours of receipt of email - albeit being a Sunday afternoon. The mail was returned undelivered..
2. I came across your complaint on the web during a regular search to review customer feedback that evening. The nature and wording of your complaint was outside of the norm, suggesting that it was backed by a motive that extended beyond simply wanting to raise a genuine grievance. It is likely that an average reader of your blog would conclude that you derived a degree of pleasure from the process of complaining and relished the prospect of doing unreasonable damage to the Dodge City brand.
3. Your response to my efforts to make good, and to appease you in general, was contemptious. I am not sure what you were expecting by way of compensation but 99,999% of complainants would have been more than happy with the genuine apology and the R50 voucher.
4. Dodge City welcomes customer feedback - regardless of whether positive or negative. We do not victimise complainants as you suggest may happen to you.

I reiterate that in the event of you persisting with the disclosure of false, grossly exaggerated, or in some cases, trumped up facts about Dodge City, I will have no option other than to enforce the full extent of my right to relief against you without further notice.

I'm going to have to ponder my response to this one, since I'm getting the strong smell of paternalism here. Correct me if I am wrong, but is he no longer focussing on alleged misstatements of fact and has gone on to try to tell me (and by extension, every other blogger in the world) not only what I can say but how I can say it? I'm open to suggestions, opinions, and insights.

Lekker weekend, you guys!

Dodge City: Hubby enters the tiltyard

So, night before last I received the nastygram below from the Dodge City owner:

Thanks for amending the service times recorded in your revised blog.

Dodge City staff mentioned that you were engaged in a loud verbal altercation with your husband outside the store before entering. Their impression was that you were being unreasonably abusive towards him. I would have thought that, as an objective and balanced critic of human performance, you would have added this snippet of information to your account of events - or is that you take pleasure in finding fault in everyone around you but are blind to you own deficiencies.

I would appreciate you amending the blog to add the objective opinion expressed above.

My response was:

Thanks for amending the service times recorded in your revised blog.
You are welcome.

Dodge City staff mentioned that you were engaged in a loud verbal altercation with your husband outside the store before entering. Dodge City staff is incorrect. My husband and I seldom quarrel and when we do, it is always in the utmost privacy. Their impression was that you were being unreasonably abusive towards him. There is such a thing as “reasonably abusive”? Has it occurred to you that the staff is trying to shift focus from their dismal performance by casting me as a querulous and abusive individual whose complaints therefore need not be taken seriously? Do you doubt the evidence of your own video footage?

I would have thought that, as an objective and balanced critic of human performance, you would have added this snippet of information to your account of events- Even if this slander was correct, exactly what bearing would it have on your staff’s appalling performance? The topic here is the performance of your staff, not my behaviour, particularly behaviour not directed to the staff. or is that you take pleasure in finding fault in everyone around you but are blind to you own deficiencies. Are you now saying that your staff’s performance was above reproach, that there was no fault in their service delivery? Or it is only people who are, themselves, above reproach who have the right to complain about substandard service? I asked you to provide me with examples of how your video footage differs substantively from my blog, since amendment is impossible if I don’t know what needs to be amended. Instead of providing the information I need in order to comply with your request, however, you respond with an ad hominem attack and gratuitous insults.

I would appreciate you amending the blog to add the objective opinion expressed above.
The opinion expressed above is far from objective and is, in fact, based in slander. I would appreciate your forwarding to me the names and contact information of the persons who have so egregiously misinformed you so that I may explore my options with regard to a defamation suit against whoever made these statements.

Hubby is out of town, but he does have email, so I forwarded the nasty email to him for comment. This morning I received the following message from my husband, a copy of the email he sent to the restaurant owner in response to the nastygram:

Dear Mr A________

I must profess to being quite astonished by your email…to my wife. A few things are clear from your message…:

1. Not only are your staff bad at delivering good service, but they are obviously hard of hearing and lacking in visual acuity to boot. I experienced no "verbal altercation" nor was my wife "unreasonably abusive" towards me. As an aside, I'd love to hear your definition of "reasonable abuse" - perhaps it’s what you subject your employees to to make them surly and unresponsive to customers? Or maybe it’s just the kak* service that you deliver to your customers? Or maybe it’s the sort of nonsensical email you have written below?

2. Your inference below is that one has to be an "objective and balanced" critic of human performance in order to have a valid complaint about service and that my wife's alleged "abuse" had some sort of bearing on your bad service. This is grade A bulldust. It’s quite obvious that you have no intention of taking note of the feedback, let alone acting on it. In other words, STOP avoiding the crux of the issue, which is that you need to improve your service!

3. I fail to see what my wife's deficiencies, whatever they may be, have to do with the basic facts of the issue which is that the service you delivered was sub-standard.

Thank you for confirming our decision not to patronize your establishment ever again. The memory of your bad service (including your missive below) is going to last far longer than the good taste of your hamburgers and milkshakes.


Kind Regards
N G________ ([Sweet Violet]’s un-abused Husband)

P.S: Please feel free to tear up your R50 "courtesy voucher". A free meal is too high a price to pay for your "reasonable abuse"

P.P.S: I will be recommending to my wife that she publish your response… and my reply thereto on her blog. I think it’s in the interest of diners to know what they can expect if they complain about service levels at Dodge City diners.

* “kak”: Afrikaans word for “shit” or “crap”

Whew! Like me, Hubby has a long, long fuse. He’s much more laid back than I am and it takes a lot to rile him up….but this did it.

I wonder if the restaurant owner gave any consideration to the subtext of his insulting little missive. Hubby and I each caught the “unreasonably abusive” comment: does the man really mean to imply that there is both reasonable and unreasonable abuse? Having already assassinated my character, what of his insinuations regarding Hubby’s? My sweet, reserved, good-tempered, well-mannered husband has been cast as a boorish lout who engages in loud public squabbles with his harridan of a wife rather than the man he is: one who would bite off his own tongue rather than publicly humiliate himself in such a manner. Paradoxically, he is concurrently portrayed as a pitiable character, a hapless wimp subject to public browbeating from the quarrelsome shrew to whom he is married.

The further subtext is that only those who are without personality defects of any kind are entitled to complain about poor or neglectful treatment: only those who are “objective and balanced critic[s] of human performance,” it seems, are entitled to take exception to less-than-perfect service. This, of course, is nonsense…as one of the comments on an earlier blog entry on this topic says: “Even if you and your husband had had a full on physical altercation outside their restaurant, what does that have to do with their service?”

The commenter, Kerryn, further observes: “It seems that demanding reasonable service, and getting annoyed when your waitron is inept is 'over reacting' and being 'unreasonable'.” It is interesting that she should bring this up…the next instalment of this saga (yes, there is more!) veers in that direction.

Insults and lies: Dodge City yet again

I spent a number of years as admin to the head of legal departments back in Silicon Valley. One of the things you learn in that kind of environment is to be careful what you put down in writing, especially if it can be perceived as unflattering (or worse) to another. It was with this knowledge that I undertook to write the management of Dodge City to express my dismay and displeasure at the abysmal service we received Sunday morning. (Copy of letter below, two entries down.)

My personal recollection is that we left the restaurant at about 10:20. I have this impression because my husband is diabetic, he was very late eating that morning, and as we left the restaurant, I was concerned about finding another one in the mall that was still serving breakfast, thinking we needed to find a place by 10:30 and feeling pressured as a result. The manager informed me, via email, that his videotape of the incident shows we arrived at 9:44 and left at 9:59, putting us in the restaurant for 15 minutes rather than the 30 that Hubby and I had estimated. With no reason to not take his word for it, I adjusted the time frame in my second blog entry on the topic (immediately below this one).

A subsequent email from the manager said “The 6 minutes it took to get the coffee to you was slower than standard time allowed. Problem was that the milk had not been foamed in advance. Re the Canderel - they did have the product in the store but could not find it. No excuses - staff should no known [sic] where it was kept… The Franchisee has been advised of your grievance and has assured me that remedial action will be taken to get product delivery times back to Franchise standard.” The email closed with a voucher for a return visit and an apology.

Silly me, I thought this was the end of it. We estimated a time incorrectly, we were corrected, I published a correction. So, imagine my surprise when I received the following email this morning:

“I would like to ask that you please consider the merits of amending your blogg [sic] regarding Dodge City.

The justification behind my request for amendment is as follows:
1) Video footage suggests that your blogg [sic] does not reasonably represent the facts or sequence of events surrounding your service experience.
2) It is reasonable to suggest that the blogg [sic], in its current form, would do unreasonable damage to the goodwill of the Dodge City brand and the investment of the Canal Walk franchisee.
I would really appreciate your understanding and co-operation in this regard.”

I replied:

“Yesterday I posted a follow up blog entry in which I corrected the time difference, acceding to your time of 15 minutes for our entire visit and 6 minutes for delivery of our drinks.

“In what way do “the facts or sequence of events” differ in your video as compared to my blog? Assuming that I am willing to make an amendment, I cannot do so without knowing the points of contention.

“It is not reasonable to suggest that my blog, in its current form, will do any kind of damage whatsoever to the Dodge City brand. The blog is not a restaurant review site nor does it have a high search-engine page rank. A negative review appearing on such sites as Food24 or What2night, both of which allow patron reviews, could potentially be very damaging as they target the South African diner and also appear on the first page of a Google search for Dodge City (restricted to South Africa), whereas my blog doesn’t even show up on any of the first ten pages. If a negative review appears on Food24, which is much more likely to influence a diner’s decision about eating at a Dodge City location, will you suggest that they amend the review to cast your establishment in a more favourable light?

“You have concurred that your staff’s actions were below your own standard and you have further concurred that your staff could not find the sweetener: should I amend my blog to imply something else? The service was poor…so poor that we left rather than endure more slow service en route to getting our meal. Are you expecting me to amend my blog to indicate that the service was swift, positive, and without flaw?

“Part of being in the restaurant business is getting reviews, both formal and informal. Our experience was negative…should I have blogged positively anyway? (You may want to note that I remarked favourably about the food…the burgers and shakes are among the best in town.)

“We had a bad experience. I blogged about it. To the best of knowledge and recollection, my blog is correct. If you can demonstrate where it is not, I will take amendment under consideration.”

Frankly, I expected the whole thing to drop right there, since he had to be bluffing. I hadn’t stated anything untrue and I had corrected our error in the estimation of the time, so there couldn’t be anything wonky about either the facts or sequence of events in the blog.

I have to admit that I was rather taken aback at the suggestion that my little blog, which does not draw a readership of people looking for restaurant recommendations and which has a very low search engine page ranking, could do any kind of damage to the franchise, unreasonable or otherwise. The thinly veiled threat…praise us or get sued…left a bad taste in my mouth. How dare he try to hijack my blog and demand that I publish untruths!

But I am a reasonable person and, if he could demonstrate to me where my facts or sequence of events were contradicted by his video footage, then I am just as interested in correcting the errors as he is.

Unfortunately, his most recent email did not supply me with any discrepancies between his videotaped “facts and sequence of events” and those in my blog. In fact, that next email didn’t address the correction of errors at all:

“Thanks for amending the service times recorded in your revised blog.

“Dodge City staff mentioned that you were engaged in a loud verbal altercation with your husband outside the store before entering. Their impression was that you were being unreasonably abusive towards him.

“I would have thought that, as an objective and balanced critic of human performance, you would have added this snippet of information to your account of events - or is that you take pleasure in finding fault in everyone around you but are blind to you own deficiencies.

“I would appreciate you amending the blog to add the objective opinion expressed above.”

First of all, this is an ad hominem attack and has no bearing whatsoever on the issue at hand, the dismal service we received on Sunday morning. “Ad hominem abusive (also called argumentum ad personam) usually and most notoriously involves insulting or belittling one's opponent, but can also involve pointing out factual but ostensibly damning character flaws or actions which are irrelevant to the opponent's argument. This tactic is logically fallacious because insults and even true negative facts about the opponent's personal character have nothing to do with the logical merits of the opponent's arguments or assertions.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem The ad hominem attack is usually employed by the losing party in an argument to change the subject and put the opponent on the defensive.

Secondly, the assertion is a complete and total fabrication, an unmitigated fiction, a bald-faced lie. My husband and I seldom quarrel and when we do it is always in privacy. We won’t even argue with each other if another person is in the same house with us! My husband is a reserved man who would eat glass before he would engage in a public quarrel, and I was raised in the Fifties, when little girls were imbued with the belief that one did not do such things as making public scenes. I may be many things, but I am not a drama queen and I simply would not embarrass myself or my husband in such a manner.

The truth is, my husband and I were walking together and we were either holding hands or my hand was tucked into his arm, and we were discussing the relative merits of one chain restaurant over another with respect to breakfast. We stepped into Dodge City and, once seated, resumed our conversation. It was no more and no less than that.

I haven’t responded to this latest salvo. I haven’t decided what I want to say. I cannot allow it to go unchallenged, however, because silence is tacit consent, even in the law. I’d like to say I was open to revisiting the location and give them another chance, but after this last email, I’m not so sure that would be a good idea.

One thing, though…considering that the information in that last email was a series of whoppers, I am now calling into question this alleged video footage. I haven’t seen it, after all, and I accepted the 15 minute service time from the manager, thinking there was no reason to lie to me about it and Hubby and I had simply not correctly estimated the time. In light of the lies and insulting personal attack to which I have just been subjected, however, the truth of that 15 minutes versus my original estimate of 30 must now be called into question.

Revisiting Dodge City...

So, I got a reply from the manager. I sent him another email and I got another reply. I don’t think we are going back. We may stop at the location in the V&A Waterfront for lunch (their hamburgers really are good, and their milkshakes are excellent as well), but definitely no Sunday breakfasts. And we aren’t going back to the Canal Walk location at all.

Apparently the place has video and the whole incident was captured. Based on his email, the manager who contacted me viewed the video. I was incorrect about the time…it was 15 minutes, not 30, but bear in mind during that entire time we had not even been able to place a complete food order and there was only one occupied table besides our own…and there were at least six employees on the floor!

The manager says the coffee took so long because the milk had not been “foamed in advance.” Well, if it was supposed to be foamed in advance and it wasn’t, then that is a fault against the restaurant. And, if there was a problem getting us our drinks in a reasonable time, why didn’t the server come to our table and inform us? “I’m sorry it is taking so long, but we still have to foam the milk. Your cappuccino should be here in just another minute or two.”

The manager says it took six minutes to get the drinks to us, which is slower than the standard time allowed. OK, so if we were there for fifteen minutes and it took six minutes to serve the coffee, that leaves nine minutes during which we waited for sweetener and were still unable to place a food order.

He says the restaurant was not out of sweetener but nobody could find it!! Then he contradicted my statement that our waitress left the place to borrow some from a neighbouring restaurant, saying it was a manager who did it. Sorry, but I had gone up to the front counter to ask the manager what was going on with the sweetener and while I was standing there, our server came walking in the door. If a manager got the sweetener, where was the waitress coming in from? And, again, why didn’t someone come to our table and say “We seem to be out of sweetener, but someone has gone next door to get some for you. It will only be a minute more and we really appreciate your patience”?

Seems scrambled eggs really are not available as a normal offering! That’s enough to keep us away for breakfasts because most restaurants massacre fried eggs and we only eat scrambled when eating out. But it seems that if the restaurant is not busy, Dodge City will prepare scrambled eggs…but you have to order them through the manager. WTF? Every place I’ve ever been to eat breakfast offers scrambled eggs without the drama…you can even get scrambled eggs from McD’s for heaven’s sake!

The manager did not address the kerfuffle at the till, so the reason that two members of the staff…one of them presumably the manager…couldn’t promptly process a simple cash transaction remains a mystery. I’m guessing they usually deal with credit cards and the ice cream lady who eventually rescued them was used to selling ice cream cones for cash and knew how to do it.

By way of apology I was offered a voucher for R50 (about $6.25…enough for a hamburger and a drink): “Once again thanks for taking the trouble to bring the matter to my attention. As a token of appreciation for your effort, this mail serves as a R50 FREE product voucher that may be redeemed at any Dodge City outlet. The voucher is valid until 30th October and please note that it is not exchangeable for cash.”

I appreciate the gesture, but I’m not entirely certain that presenting an email exchange in which I am clearly identified as a person who narced on the staff of one of the restaurants is such a great idea. Besides, if they couldn’t figure out how to process a cash transaction, what are they going to do with an email that claims to be a voucher??

Getting out of Dodge...

Dodge City is a small chain of diners/restaurants in Cape Town. They have spectacular hamburgers and this morning we decided to try them for Sunday breakfast. Herewith, the letter I send via email to the management of the chain later in the day:

What is the point of having a great menu and eye-catching décor if the service is so poor your patrons walk out without ordering?

My husband and I were at the Canal Walk Dodge City at 10 this morning. There was only one occupied table at the time we walked in, and there were five employees and a manager on the floor. You’d think with those odds…three employees per occupied table…our service would have been stellar, wouldn’t you? Well, you’d be wrong.

The waitress was pretty prompt when she came to our table to take our drinks order, and my husband, who is diabetic, was very specific when he asked for Canderel or sweetener with his coffee. How long does it take to make a cappuchino and pour a Coke? The kitchen could not have been busy…there was only one other occupied table in the place and we hadn’t placed our order yet. I was beginning to wonder if the girl was hand grinding the beans, one by one, when she finally arrived with our drinks.

We had studied the menu and as soon as the drinks were served my husband gave his breakfast order. The waitress immediately informed us that scrambled eggs were not available. What?? What kitchen cannot prepare scrambled eggs, particularly when the restaurant is deader than Bob Mugabe’s ethics and the kitchen staff are surely contemplating their navels for lack of orders to prepare?

My husband changed his order and, just as I was about to give mine to the waitress, he noticed that she had forgotten the sweetener. He asked again for sweetener and, without taking my order, she left the table. We waited. And waited. And waited some more. Finally I asked my husband if he had seen where she had gone and he said she had left the restaurant!!

I approached the manager, who seemed absolutely clueless about the whole affair. Obviously, Dodge City was out of sweetener and the waitress had gone elsewhere (a neighbouring restaurant, perhaps?) to secure some. But she was gone so long that the conversation between me and my husband went something like this:

Hubby: What do you say that when she gets back, we just pay for our drinks and go someplace else for breakfast?

Me: You are reading my mind again…that’s exactly what I was thinking.

Hubby: So, when she gets back we just ask for the bill?

Me: if it takes this long just to get a cup of coffee and a coke, you’ll be in a diabetic coma before the food gets here.

When the waitress returned with the sweetener and delivered it to our table, we asked for our bill and she quickly delivered it to us. She did not, however, return to fetch the money/credit card and I finally got up and went to the register myself with cash. Nobody seemed to know how to make the register work to accept a cash payment. After two people fumbled with the machine (one of them the person I assumed to be the manager) the woman who had been fiddling with the ice cream display stepped up and put the transaction through.

All in all, this ridiculous experience took the better part of half an hour. Worst of all, it never should have happened.

Why on earth was the restaurant out of sweetener? Your menu includes slimmer’s meals…don’t you think those people will want sweetener with their coffee or tea instead of sugar? And no scrambled eggs? What kind of nonsense is that? How difficult is it to break two eggs into a cup and stir them around with a fork? Especially when the restaurant is empty and the kitchen staff is not under the pressure of multiple orders? And what is with the waitstaff standing around jabbering with each other while customers sit there waiting?

I’m sorry, but as much as I like Dodge City’s food, especially the burgers, I don’t think we are coming back. The service at this location has never been stellar, but quite frankly, today it just stank. I cook and serve a full breakfast to my husband every weekday morning and 30 minutes is enough time to prepare, serve, and eat the breakfast and that is without any staff at all to assist. There is just no acceptable excuse for this kind of shoddy service and lack of attention to inventory of such front-end staples as sweetener.

The only bright spot in the experience is that my husband, on my caution, decided not to inject his insulin before we placed our food order. Had he done so, he could very easily have passed out in the restaurant due to low blood sugar because the service was so unimaginably bad.