Making Impressions…those that Just Won’t Stop

My friend and colleague, Jorgen Moller, has just written a nice blog post that I think you should read.

Jorgen has been in the food service and restaurant business his entire career. He is European-trained, originally from Denmark. His most recent restaurant, Out of Denmark, was in Delray Beach. It was a wonderful, small family-affair that served memorable food (and experiences), in an atmosphere that most folks could only dream about.

He first approached me because he had read some of my thoughts in articles I had written for Howard Appell'sToday’s Restaurant News when I lived in south Florida. I visited him at his restaurant and we hit it off as colleagues and good friends in the business. It was always a great treat to visit he and his family (his younger son, Christian, is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America; his wife, Monica, decorated the entire place!) and see a real culinary – and marketing – expert at work.

Yesterday, he posted an interesting set of guidelines in his own blog; I just had to add this to what he has said.

Jorgen, I remember the time when I asked you to visit with my MBA class at Florida Atlantic University. I was teaching a night course in “advanced service industry marketing” to aspiring MBA’s. I wanted to have people like Jorgen, who had really DONE IT in the trenches…come and talk with my adult students so they could really see the life of a non-academic marketer…using his street smarts to make it happen as an independent restaurateur in such a hyper-competitive arena as the south Florida food service market.

Jorgen showed up in his chef's whites, hat and culinary medals. One of the many stories he told them that night was the true story of how a couple from Cleveland, staying at a prominent Miami Beach hotel, had had an incident during their previous night's visit to his downtown Miami restaurant, the Prince Hamlet.

It was his habit the next day, to telephone a few of the guests who had dined with him the previous evening. This unhappy wife from Cleveland was quite surprised to hear from Jorgen himself – the Executive Chef and owner of the restaurant.

It was then that he learned of this unfortunate incident the night before.

As an apology and compensation, he sent them a check for their entire meal, gratuity…and more.

Twenty years later, that same couple were dining with guests in his then smaller restaurant, Out of Denmark, in Delray Beach.

The man stopped Jorgen and reminded him of that night twenty years previous. He then surprised the heck out Jorgen by pulling that very check out of his wallet…the one Jorgen had sent him two decades ago!

He had kept it all that time. He never cashed it.

He showed it to hundreds of folks who were going to be dining while on business/pleasure in South Florida.

I remember how my students sat there…spellbound…and amazed at such a wonderful, true story of real "experiential marketing".

Congrats to you, Jorgen….you make us in this industry proud! You have shown us that an independent restaurateur can compete with the biggest and best – and survive for decades – if you use your head, apply street smarts; use the input and help of others in your independent restaurateur’s marketing efforts.

Most of all, you have never forgotten that this is a business; and it’s always about the CUSTOMER.

(You can access Jorgen's most recent post at his blog, here:
http://soldouttonight.blogspot.com/2008/07/to-get-business-you-got-to-give.html)