Can’t Have A Trip To Chicago Without Ribs & Pizza

Over the weekend I spent some time in Chicago for a mixture of business and pleasure. Part of the pleasure was being able to hit two of my favorite restaurants Carson’s and Lou Malnati’s in the greater Chicago area. 

Anyone remember the MASH episode where Hawkeye was trying to move heaven and earth to secure an order of Caron’s ribs, I think I must have been five or six at the time but I still remember that episode to this day. Granted part of the reason that is so ingrained into my head is due to my father dragging me to Carson’s every time we were in the area. Sure you can get good ribs at numerous franchise joints across the country, but nothing holds a candle to Carson’s. Service is always top notch with good portions and competitive pricing. 

I had convinced my party that we needed to dine at Carson’s Friday night and raved about their ribs. One of my dinner companions was from New York City and a bit of a foodie herself, so she decided that she would have a full slab after the waiter indicated that a full slab was “about this big”, holding his hands apart roughly ten inches. Snickering to myself I wanted for the fun to start as the waiter brought back the slab of ribs roughly twice the size of his “about this big” and slathered in perhaps the best BBQ sauce I have ever had the pleasure of having. To my diner companion’s credit, she ate a decent amount of the ribs and took the rest back to her hotel for a midnight snack. 

After the success of dinner at Carson’s my party looked to me for suggestions on the next night’s dinner selection; I happily obliged with some good old fashion Chicago style pizza from Lou Malnati’s. A quick trip down the L’s brown line and we arrived at our destination, which ironically is just down the street from our previous night’s outing. There are several Lou Malnati’s locations, but the one downtown is my favorite due to the way the dining area is broken up. There are several different sections that are all pretty isolated from each other giving the illusion of an intimate location, good for sharing a meal with good friends. 

Our group settled on three large pies for our party of nine, which at the time I thought would be too much. However, after a few drinks and some good conversation our party was able to finish off two of the pies completely with only a couple slices left on the third.

No, REALLY–how is the food?

When your server stops to ask how your meal is, how often do you give a truly honest answer?  Most of the time, the question sounds similar to an acquaintance asking, “How’s it going?”—to which you are absolutely expected to reply, “Fine” or some similarly short affirmative.

 

There are times when I’m honest with my server—namely when the food is extremely bad or extraordinarily good.  Those meals that fall somewhere in between, however, I tend to keep my comments to myself.  Based on a mediocre meal, I’ll simply avoid that restaurant in the future.  It’s a sad irony that there may actually be a better chance of me returning to a restaurant where I had a terrible meal—because those places may just make it up to me and convince me to give them another chance.

 

The trouble with this is that many a good restaurant may end up on my blacklist.  Based on feedback to a Chow.com story on this topic, it seems that a lot of restaurant owners wish their customers would speak up.  Certainly, there will always be those who are unreasonable in their complaints, but the people who leave quietly disappointed are arguably worse because their business may be lost forever without the chance to make amends.  (Those who go on to post their complaints on Chow or Yelp are another breed altogether.)

 

Constructive criticism allows restaurant owners and/or chefs the opportunity to improve.  This seems especially important at independent operations where the menu is potentially more malleable; your critique may inspire their next special!

 

But what will push the average customer to give the meal an honest critique?  I think a lot of this comes down to service.  Does the server show sincere concern for the guest’s opinion?  I’ve spent too much time lately at restaurants where the servers can’t seem to be bothered with attending to their guests’ needs, let alone listen to guest opinions.  In situations like these, retraining the waitstaff may be in order.  For a restaurant’s servers to take an interest in the customer experience, the management needs to first.

 

In fact, when a chef/manager/owner has the time to make a trip to the dining area and speak with diners, it leaves a great impression.  Management like that shows both the staff and the customers that great food and great service is their priority, and it’s likely they’ll be rewarded for the gesture.