[Archived] Uptown Retail & Restaurant News 2012-17

[Wedgeguy]

The secret of marketing is to treat your customers well and to always say hello. They do the same thing at Leather and Latte too. So it is not a Christian thing. It is just plain smart customer service.

[FISHMANPET]

I must be weird, because I actually prefer if people not make idle small talk with me.

[TommyT]

I must be weird, because I actually prefer if people not make idle small talk with me.

That's called being Minnesotan.

[FISHMANPET]

I learned it from my mom. When we'd shop at Sam's club, and you hand your member card to the cashier at checkout, they try and read your name off it to address you by your name, and my mom always made a purposful effort to cover up the name because she didn't want this stranger to refer to her by her name.

[Wedgeguy]

It just shows that people today are too in tune with their electronic social media and are becoming totally lost in having the ability to have an actual face to face conversation.

I understand you might not be a people person, but any retailer, service business, the first thing they will stress to you is to be pleasant with your customer and make their experience the best, so you will have a return customer.

Being Minnesotan is to be open or closed to others? As I've heard we are Minnesota Ice as well as nice. We can show both extremes.

[TommyT]

It just shows that people today are too in tune with their electronic social media and are becoming totally lost in having the ability to have an actual face to face conversation.

I understand you might not be a people person, but any retailer, service business, the first thing they will stress to you is to be pleasant with your customer and make their experience the best, so you will have a return customer.

Being Minnesotan is to be open or closed to others? As I've heard we are Minnesota Ice as well as nice. We can show both extremes.

For me (including myself many times, which I am not proud of) I think that being standoffish and wanting people to stay out of our business is being Minnesotan. My boyfriend is originally from Tennessee and lived the last 12 years in Chicago before moving here, he is VERY outgoing and talks to everyone about everything... it honestly drives me a little nuts sometimes because I was raised believing that other people don't want to know my business. If I'm going to buy a new tie for a wedding they don't care that it's my best friends wedding at the arboretum who I've known since I was 4. You just go in, ask for what you want if you have to talk to them at all and leave. It's a habit i'm trying very hard to get out of.

[Wedgeguy]

It just shows that people today are too in tune with their electronic social media and are becoming totally lost in having the ability to have an actual face to face conversation.

I understand you might not be a people person, but any retailer, service business, the first thing they will stress to you is to be pleasant with your customer and make their experience the best, so you will have a return customer.

Being Minnesotan is to be open or closed to others? As I've heard we are Minnesota Ice as well as nice. We can show both extremes.

For me (including myself many times, which I am not proud of) I think that being standoffish and wanting people to stay out of our business is being Minnesotan. My boyfriend is originally from Tennessee and lived the last 12 years in Chicago before moving here, he is VERY outgoing and talks to everyone about everything... it honestly drives me a little nuts sometimes because I was raised believing that other people don't want to know my business. If I'm going to buy a new tie for a wedding they don't care that it's my best friends wedding at the arboretum who I've known since I was 4. You just go in, ask for what you want if you have to talk to them at all and leave. It's a habit i'm trying very hard to get out of.

You are correct in it is how we were brought up. I've heard from a majority of the people who move up from the south that we are very much standoffish and not very friendly. I freak friends out when we go for a walk, as I'm always saying hello or giving some kind of acknowledgment that I'm passing by other people that are coming our way. Maybe it is because I grew up in a small town where you knew just about everyone. There is a line where too much talk is bad, but If I go to a bar and I barely get a hello from the bartender, I'll find another bartender or bar to go as I don't like to feel snubbed. Same with a restaurant or coffee house wait staff.

[MNdible]

I enjoy getting into real casual conversations with people at bars, restaurants, etc.

What I do not enjoy is being forced to read back my side of an obviously scripted fake conversation that an employee has been trained to walk through. There's just too much of this going on in retail, etc., these days. It's painful, and I don't want to be forced to engage with it.

[Wedgeguy]

I have to agree with the scripted stuff, if anything, it is a turn off that would make me want to go someplace that is more authentic. The scripted stuff is the marketing gurus that think we all can't think for ourselves. That I personally feel insulted by.

[mamundsen]

I'm MN born, raised, and I've been here my whole life. I will talk to anyone, about anything, for as long as they want. I appreciate the clerks asking about my day, talking about the weather, etc. I am annoyed when people can't talk face to face or even on the phone, but will text or email all day long. Also put down the phone (especially don't check social media) when we are hanging out trying to catch up.

[Minneapolisite]

It's the only one that fits the bill, unless you don't consider 7th Day Adventists conservatives. They're not fans of Gs,Ls,Bs, or Ts (or Qs), even less so when you add leather.

[beauss]

It's the only one that fits the bill, unless you don't consider 7th Day Adventists conservatives. They're not fans of Gs,Ls,Bs, or Ts (or Qs), even less so when you add leather.

The church associated with The Beat is affiliated with the Assemblies of God, the largest Pentecostal denomination. That's a distinction that probably matters much more to them than it does to you.

(Most 7th Day Adventists frown on drinking coffee, worship on Saturday, and hold other beliefs mainstream evangelicals would consider heterodox.)

[TommyT]

It's the only one that fits the bill, unless you don't consider 7th Day Adventists conservatives. They're not fans of Gs,Ls,Bs, or Ts (or Qs), even less so when you add leather.

Well it's weird that you say they are conservative right wing because we hold a GLBT Narcotics Anonymous meeting fellowship there on a certain night of the week and they both know about it AND welcome it. They don't want us to leave either. So... I think you should probably check up on your facts on their views.

[Minneapolisite]

It's the only one that fits the bill, unless you don't consider 7th Day Adventists conservatives. They're not fans of Gs,Ls,Bs, or Ts (or Qs), even less so when you add leather.

The church associated with The Beat is affiliated with the Assemblies of God, the largest Pentecostal denomination. That's a distinction that probably matters much more to them than it does to you.

(Most 7th Day Adventists frown on drinking coffee, worship on Saturday, and hold other beliefs mainstream evangelicals would consider heterodox.)

Ops, you're right.

It's the only one that fits the bill, unless you don't consider 7th Day Adventists conservatives. They're not fans of Gs,Ls,Bs, or Ts (or Qs), even less so when you add leather.

Well it's weird that you say they are conservative right wing because we hold a GLBT Narcotics Anonymous meeting fellowship there on a certain night of the week and they both know about it AND welcome it. They don't want us to leave either. So... I think you should probably check up on your facts on their views.

I have checked my facts: that's why I won't give them a dime. From their official website here's a title off the first part of their position paper on homosexuality, "I. Homosexual Behavior Is Sin.". Well, we know we're off to a great start.

And then from their page on friendships, "Sadly, the perverse gay agenda of today’s sinful culture has created suspicion toward the very concept and idea of friendship. Gay lifestyles have been so strongly pushed and given such large media exposure that many today wonder about normal friendships among members of the same sex. What once was understood as roommates sharing living expenses and travel costs is now clouded in suspicion."

I'd suggest anyone who needs a caffeine fix and is accepting of GLBTQ individuals, women, atheists, other religions, etc, that they spend their money elsewhere. I didn't bother to look up what their church was about when they hold it on Sundays since I never went (they also hold them at their affiliate Corner Coffee where I used to frequent) until I noticed they were soliciting donations when it was functioning during the week as a coffeeshop to fund a food drive in SE Asia (Myanmar, I believe), but only on the website did you find that your donation wasn't only going to be spent on food, but to proselytize to them. And from there I found their affiliation with the Assemblies of God and never went back.

[go4guy]

Not sure this is the right forum for religious talk. Let's keep it to actual restaurant news.

[TommyT]

Teeny Tiny bit of info

http://blogs.citypages.com/food/2014/04 ... aurant.php

[David Greene]

We won't go to Parasole restaurants since they skim the tips of the wait staff.

[Nathan]

and they think a minimum wage hike would devastate their business.

[mplser]

whaat? I'd have never gone to Cafeteria if I knew that! - and about the small talk thing, IDK if it's because ELliot Park is a largely immigrant population from Somalia, or Chicago, or wherever, but I find most people in my neighborhood to be VERY open and friendly. Being raised near Uptown, this kinda weirds me out at times.

[Chef]

We won't go to Parasole restaurants since they skim the tips of the wait staff.

It is fairly common for restaurants to take a percentage out of servers credit card tips for bank processing fees, because the restaurants don't get that money either, it is the banks that are skimming it off the top.

A better reason to boycott Parasole is that they have really been off their game for the last 10 to 15 years. When they were at their peak in the 80s and 90s the owners were still in the prime of their work lives and were running the company in a hands on fashion. I worked for Parasole for two years in the 90s, and while it wasn't fun, they were obviously a company that nailed the execution of their concepts. The people who are running it now are just not as good at what they do. But the company has really deep pockets so they can afford do-overs when the screw up.

and they think a minimum wage hike would devastate their business.

The minimum wage hike will probably have no net effect on restaurant profitability because everybody is going to have to pay it, but the lack of a tip credit for minimum wage has a profoundly anti-progressive effect on the distribution of wages within individual restaurants. Because Minnesota is one of the few states to not have a tip credit, front of the house labor costs run higher here which means that back of the house labor gets squeezed harder than it otherwise would. When people who are making $40k to $60k a year in tips get a raise because minimum wage goes up, that money doesn't come out of the profits of the restaurant, it comes out of the pockets of the lower paid dishwashers and cooks in the form of lost raises. A line cook who is making $11 an hour and working two jobs will probably benefit a lot less from the increase in minimum wage than a part time bartender who is bringing in $400 a night on their weekend shifts downtown. That doesn't seem fair to me.