I spent some time last week in Coronado, right on the San Diego Bay.
We stayed at the Loews Coronado Bay Resort.
The hotel is beautiful… You can see a picture of the sunset above.
It’s right on the Bay, away from the city. Quite, calm, serene.
They pretty much have you captive out there in the middle of the water… in a good way.
Because you don’t have to drive anywhere, which is pretty nice.
That was, until we ate the food.
I imagine their fine dining restaurant Mistral would be quite different. But with 5 kids in tow, we’re not really “fine dining” material right now.
Disclaimer: I’ve been pretty deep into cooking lately.
Every night at our house the past few weeks has been one new experiment after another.
- Steak diane…
- Fish cakes with anchovy caper sauce…
- Pork escalopes…
- Chicken tikka masala…
- Stir fried beef with noodles…
Yum.
So we were coming into the vacation week off of that. Granted, our expectations were probably not completely reasonable.
But the food at the resort was not so hot.
Just so-so…
I ordered some peaches with candied pecans and goat cheese.
The first time, they forgot one of the ingredients…
And sadly enough, by the time they came back, I’m pretty sure I was eating a plate of canned peaches.
No thanks.
So here’s a business who pretty much has everything their customers need 24/7…
They have tons of chances to WOW them at literally every turn.
But that’s not what happened.
It’s just like the town we live in…
It’s a resort town, but you can’t find good food anywhere.
The only reason we can figure is that very few of the tourists probably come back often enough to bother complaining.
The pain created isn’t enough to make a change.
Not sure what other excuse there is for mediocre stuff.
We went back to the restaurant at the resort for two nights because it was convenient, not because it was good.
At any rate, this applies to business.
‘Cause is that what you want your customers thinking?
I know there are revenue maximizing strategies for “capturing” your customers and putting “fences” around them and stuff like that. Kind of like they’re caged animals or something 
The lazy implementation of an idea like this includes stuff like not reminding customers of rebills, or making it hard for them to cancel continuity or some other (annoying) practice.
Well just because you put a fence around ‘em doesn’t mean they’re happy.
I’m all for maximizing revenue, but I guess the strategy I’d rather choose is this one:
Make your stuff so spectacular they don’t want to go anywhere else.
It’s a lot harder. Much riskier.
But the bar is rising folks… so is there really any other way if you’re in this for the long haul?
You just gotta keep getting better.
We cook too, and are consistently disappointed with restaurants and rarely bother. A few years ago we went out for a pancake breakfast -- looked like it came out of a box that used milk solids.
In our tourist town, their a few restaurants that are "wow." They cook from scratch using locally grown foods. They usually have a limited menu, but the food is good. And they are always busy. Even during the winter when the tourist seasons is off.
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