I love it when folks are helpful, even when it’s at the end of the check at the end of the meal: Tipping Etiquette:

This is the bottom of a check at a restaurant. What do you think of this? Is it a good customer experience or presumptive?

I love it when restaurants get “presumptive” because if they were being presumptive, they would have gone higher than 20%.

Via Branding Blog

According to The Consumerist, BK is going nationwide with its bonafide pork BBQ ribs.

From the press release:

“Fall-off-the-bone ribs and summer go hand-in-hand, and now we are excited to be the first national fast food hamburger restaurant to offer our guests an authentic bone-in rib menu offering,” said John Schaufelberger, senior vice president, global product marketing and innovation, Burger King Corp.

“Our guests’ initial reaction to this product has exceeded our expectations, further validating the BURGER KING(R) system’s investment in our new game-changing broiler. Because of this proprietary cooking technology, we’ve been able to up the ante in our product development across the board, and BK(TM) Fire-Grilled Ribs are just the beginning of the innovative product line we can offer with this new cooking platform.”

While I had a lovely dinner of Mediterranean mezza, great service, and charming company, I will never go back to Neyla Mediterranean Grill because of something small and easily preventable.

I arrived for dinner early.  There was no valet and I scored a space right in front of Neyla at a meter.  I just happened to not have any quarters but that was OK because I had a twenty-dollar bill.

No worries, right?

Well, thank goodness for the lovely lady at Papyrus because I was told that Neyla did not trade in change or coin currently.

Like I said, when I parked outside and didn’t have any quarters for the meter I went in and asked for Quarters.

I asked the hostess for change and she said they didn’t have any. I asked for the manager and she led me to what looked like the owner.

I asked the owner for some quarters for some dollars and he said that his entire restaurant did not have any change or quarters at all and that he could give me dollar bill change for my $20 bill but physically did not have any change at all in the entire restaurant.

Is that even possible?  Or, was the staff bullshitting me?  Are there really restaurants who do not maintain a till or a draw with any change or quarters whatsoever?

Back to the young lady at Papyrus at the corner of N and Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown, I really have to thank her!  She’s new there and she was lovely.  I asked her name but forgot it.

When the manager at Neyla told me there were physically no quarters in their entire restaurant I left the restaurant and headed across the street to the store on the corner and told the woman working there there that I would be happy to buy something there but what I really needed was quarters for the meter

She told me not to buy anything and asked me how many quarters I needed — she told me I didn’t need to buy anything at all and was happy to help me out!

God bless her!

I will surely make sure I make a special trip for all of my stationary and printing and wrapping paper and blank journals and even any fancy fountain pens and gifts I might need from Papyrus in general and the 1300 Wisconsin Avenue Papyrus in particular!