Coastalblog

It was while sat on bench in Westward Ho! that I had one of those moments where you you question all of your life choices to date. Where ground in which just a few moments ago you stood, sure-footed, has become uncertain, shifting quicksand. I realised that I was bored of fish and chips. Not these particular ones, even if they were by no means the finest exemplar of the genre (I shan't name the chippy in question, but if you do find yourself in EX38, it's the posh one). The fish was decent, the chips sub-par to my way of thinking, bit too small, and definitely too pale, but not offensive as such, and, having just come out from an extensive swim in the sea, I was ravenous, and primed for quite literally all the carbs. Half-way through I realised I was bored out of my skull. Chips, chips and more chips. It became a chore. This was a slightly disturbing realisation for me, in my professional life I've got a pretty decent rep for my fish and chips, to suddenly realise that I

I am, despite the intemperate nature of a lot of these posts, a fairly live and let live sort of a bloke/chap (haven't quite decided the register of this yet so I'll delete later, or not, it's not like it matters, you get the gist). While I undoubtedly have a spectacular array of personal grievances/hobbyhorses/probably untenable opinions, I am, at least, self-aware enough to realise that most of them don't bear public scrutiny. Also, as a general rule, I don't care. But we're among friends here, right? it's a safe-ish space? Okay because, and I don't want to assault anyone here, I need to talk about Lidl/Aldi Etiquette.  When the German discounters came to our shores twenty odd years ago, they were, at first, ignored. That peculiar English snobbery which is terrified of seeming in any way different to one's peers, coupled with good old fashioned inertia meant that everyone kept stopping at Tesco's and Sainsbury's, despite them being, by any

That's all it said, and I spent a while frowning at the screen. What wasn't great? Part and parcel of working in hospitality is you get complaints. It's very much the law of averages, you serve enough people, sooner or later someone's going to be unhappy about something. You can mitigate this as much as possible, be on your game at all times, have robust checking procedures and do your best to rectify errors, this will help, but sooner or later you'll get a complaint  That's just people . Some of these complaints are legitimate, mistakes can be made, you apologise, you offer to compensate in some form, some people are fine, some can never be mollified. Again, that's just people. Most of them are as a result of a perception gap between you and the customer. As a pub, one of our most regular types of complainer is the Person That's Come To The Wrong Pub And Is A Bit Out Of Their Depth And This Is Somehow Your Fault, a prime example of this being a five top