Ye Olde Durty Bird; 2 S. St. Clair St.; Toledo, OH 43604

On Tuesday, July 1, 2014 1:31 PM, I wrote an electronic letter to Ye Olde Durty Bird restaurant in Toledo, Ohio via the contact form contained on its website, a copy of which is reproduced below.

From: Roland Hansen
Subject: Dissatisfied customer
Message Body:
I am a very dissatified customer. I took a guest who was on his work lunch hour to your restaurant today. I am a reired 66 year old man, so time is not a problem for me, but it is for my guest. I informed the waitstaff of the time constraint. My guest ordered a big Italian Hoagie with chips; I ordered a classic burger with chips. It took about 20 minutes or so to have our order delivered.
There were fries, not chips, on my plate. I inquired about whether the fries were supposed to be included with the burger and that I thought it was supposed to be chips. The server asked if I wanted the fries to be taken back and chips to be brought out. I responded with "I do not care what you do. I did not order the fries and I am not going to pay for them." The server appeared irritated and walked away. I started eating my burger. Lo and behold, within a couple minutes the server returned with an extremely small bowl of chips (about the size of a custard dessert dish). The server set down the chips and while I had my burger in my hand with a napkin held under it in my other hand, the server removed the burger platter with the fries on it. and walked away. I was astounded at these actions. To make things worse, when I asked for the bill because we had to leave (my guest had to place half his sandwich and all his chips into a take-out container due to being late in returning to work), I was presented with a bill in which I was told $1.49 had been removed as that was the cost of the fries. None-the-less the bill included the full sales tax on the original incorrect amount and the $1.49 was listed as a discount. Consequently, I actually paid $.10 more than I should have paid. I paid with my Discover Card. In all my years, I have never received such poor service, nor have I ever witnessed such unprofessional actions as the way this incident was (mis)handled. FYI, my receipt lists the following: 1020 Phillipe, Tbl 21/1, Chk 4918

Almost immediately, I received an immediate automated electronic response which was as follows:

Ye Olde Durty Bird Management Team
To Me
Jul 1
Thank you for contacting the Management of Ye Olde Durty Bird, Downtown Toledo's Gastropub.
Your inquiry will be processed accordingly.

HOWEVER, IT WAS NOT UNTIL,
TEN (10) DAYS LATER, THE MANAGEMEMENT OF YE OLDE DURTY BIRD RESPONDED VIA E-MAIL.

On Friday, July 11, 2014 12:22 PM, The Management wrote:

Roland,
So very sorry to hear about your experience here at Ye Olde Durty Bird.
We strive to provide quality food and service for all guests.
Your feedback is important and helpful for us to make any necessary improvements.
Again, very sorry for the negative experience.
Sincerely,
Julie Ketterman
General Manager Ye Olde Durty Bird
2 S. St. Clair St.
Toledo, OH 43604
PH: 419-243-2473

THE SAME DAY AS THE DATE OF THE RESPONSE FROM YE OLDE DURTY BIRD, I RESPONDED WITH THE FOLLOWING.

To The Management
Jul 11
Thank you for your answer of July 11, 2014 to my concerns as expressed in my July 1, 2014 e-mail to you. I believe I just may share our communication exchange on my two blogs in order that others may be as aware of your responsiveness as I now am.
In that I believe you would want the general public to also be aware of your responsivenes, I will also give some thought to sharing this elsewhere on the internet.

To which, I again received an immediate automated electronic response, as follows:

Ye Olde Durty Bird Management Team
To Me
Jul 11
Thank you for contacting the Management of Ye Olde Durty Bird, Downtown Toledo's Gastropub.
Your inquiry will be processed accordingly.

IT IS NOW ANOTHER TEN (10) DAYS LATER, AND THE MANAGEMEMENT OF YE OLDE DURTY BIRD HAS NOT RESPONDED TO MY LAST E-MAIL. THEREFORE, IN KEEPING WITH MY MESSAGE TO THEM, I NOW POST THIS BLOG ENTRY.

Comments, anyone?

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UPDATE (written August 15, 2014)

I wrote a very similar yet somewhat different entry of this Roland Hansen Commentary on my other blog, i.e. Roland's Ramblings, entitled Ye Olde Durty Bird Restaurant In Toledo, Ohio: Irresponsible Management which was posted on August 1, 2014.

Shortly after publishing that blog entry, I sent a link of it by private message to the Facebook account of Ye Olde Durty Bird. Within hours, I was contacted by Julie Ketterman, General Manager of Ye Olde Durty Bird Restaurant via her personal e-mail account that was used to avoid automated responses. In her e-mail, Ms. Ketterman took full responsibility for what had transpired, was very apologetic, and offered to right that which was wrong.

After a brief exchange of e-mail, an agreement was reached that I found to be extremely satisfactory and, in fact, was more generous than would be expected by anyone. I found Ms. Kettterman's personal attention to the matter to be personal, professional, responsible, and accountable. The end result of this entire matter is the complete opposite of my earlier impression.

I can now state that while the initial difficulties were very frustrating, the end result was much more than satisfactory. For this, I publicly acknowledge and express my appreciation to Julie Ketterman in her capacity as the General Manager of Ye Olde Durty Bird Restaurant.