Tag Archives: Customer service

October 7, 2011 · 8:50 am

How To Be A Celebrity Chef

Photograph of chef Jacques Pépin at Aspen Food...

Image via Wikipedia

The end of a long week so a business thought related to food.  Actually, it’s related to the food business, and it comes from Jacques Pepin.  Chef Pepin is one of my culinary heroes, and his TV work, both solo and the series he did with Julia Child, ranks in my mind as some of the best cooking programming ever done.  He was one of the first “celebrity chefs” – after he had put in 30 years in the kitchen.  He kind of built the mold – successful restaurant career, TV, books – that many of the folks you see on The Food Network are trying to follow but he actually paid his dues.

Jacques Pepin is very different from many of them and not just because he was a pioneer.  Want to know why?  It’s a great business point for us all. Continue reading →

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September 13, 2011 · 10:48 am

There’s Neither An “F” Nor “U” in Baseball

The Major League Baseball logo.

Image via Wikipedia

One thing caught my eye last week and you might have missed it since there was so much else going on.  The Yankees and Orioles played a baseball game last Tuesday.  That’s not really news.  However, they started play at 11:08pm ET after a four-hour rain delay, and the game did not end until 2:15am. Yep, you read that right.  Guess the kids were late to school after the game?

Apparently, the Commissioner’s Office called the Yankees and told them to get the game played.  The Yankees, in an effort to make sure the folks who had tickets to the game (it was played so no rain-checks, right?) announced that ticket-holders to the game would be given some form of a free ticket offer to “any Yankees game – next season”.  Having worked in a sports league, I know that the postponement and rescheduling of games is a nightmare, especially given travel, labor rules, and fan reaction.  But since it rained throughout the game, maybe the risk of injury should have prevailed in their thinking?  And not just to the players. Continue reading →

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September 1, 2011 · 11:17 am

Fuzzy Honesty

The ongoing power outage at Rancho Deluxe is pretty damn inconvenient but seems to be a boon to subject creation here on the screed.  A couple of things happened since the last post which I’d like to share.  One is smart business, one is not.  The first comes from a restaurant here in town and I’ll publish it tomorrow as our Foodie Friday Fun post.  We don’t normally pop out to eat on Wednesday nights but after I tell you about what we found, we just might do so more often.  The second comes from our friends at Connecticut Light & Power, our local electricity provider.  I think they’re doing many good things in dealing with this crisis – here’s one not so good thing. Continue reading →

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