Richtree responds

On July 29 I posted about a bad restaurant experience. Earlier this week I printed out the email I sent with the intention of faxing a copy, then mailing one if necessary, because I hadn’t yet heard back. Yesterday I got a response. Both my email to them and their response follow:

I’ve had an unpleasant experience at Richtree College Park this morning around 9:30 that I decided needed to be addressed.

First, I arrived at the French toast/Belgian waffle station to find no one there. There was a male worker nearby (maybe a foot or two away) prepping vegetables for lunch and there was a woman on coffee with no line in front of her. The station I was at was located between the two. No one looked up to see me waiting until the coffee station worker came over to make waffles, which I later learned were for her and a co-worker. I have no problem with workers eating on the job but do take issue when a worker’s own meal takes priority over a customer’s. When I tried to order from her she called over another co-worker to take my order. That was the unpleasant customer service. Recap: There was no one there, no one paying attention, no one appearing to be concerned that there was a customer present. I have worked in customer service – retail, coffee and food included – and I always learned that when there is a customer in line, you drop what you’re doing (e.g. lunch prep, standing over coffee that no one is ordering at the moment) and serve the customer. I wondered if there was a “It’s not my station/not my job” attitude present.

I ordered French toast with fruit topping and the quality was horrible. The fruit, referred to as “fresh” on the chalk board but which I could tell wasn’t, was still frozen when it was piled on top of my French
toast. Previously frozen fruit from a bag is not fresh, and still frozen is definitely not acceptable.

When I began eating the French toast at my office I found that the middle was raw in one piece (really, raw egg mixture) and after awhile I noticed that the fruit had taken on the flavour of the plastic container that the meal was put in. Raw middle and frozen fruit is not quality. Raw egg mixture is a health hazard. The plastic flavour, while offensive, could almost be forgiven if everything else was spectacular, but the fact that my food tasted of plastic makes me wonder what sort of toxins from the plastic were transferred to my food. My food was basically inedible and a potential health hazard.

I would recommend that even if frozen fruit is used, it should be completely thawed – warmed even – before being placed on any hot food. I would also recommend a longer cooking time and packing meals in aluminum containers.

I hope that Richtree takes these concerns seriously. 10 years or so ago when Movenpick was running the Marches/Markets they employed a mystery shopping company for which I was a shopper and I had the opportunity to “mystery shop” those restaurants. I never had any complaints when I visited back then. The food quality was consistently good, as was the customer service. Has it deteriorated since Richtree took over?

Richtree is my favourite place in this building to go for coffee- I appreciate that each cup is brewed fresh – and I’ve had decent sandwiches but I will not be buying breakfast there anymore. I’d thought that the overly salty (or too much baking soda, perhaps) muffin that I recently bought there was an anomaly but maybe it was indicative of inconsistent food quality.

I appreciate you taking the time to read this and hope that you address my concerns.

Thank you.

Their response:

Dear [my name edited out]:

Thank you for visiting our Richtree Market Restaurants and taking the time to write us details of your recent experience at our College Park location.

From your comments we regret to learn that overall you were disappointed with your visit and we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused by our shortcomings.  Please be assured that your concerns were immediately passed on to our General Manager at that location and corrections will be made to rectify them.

As a token of our apology, we would like to invite you back. We will be sending you a Gift Card for $10.00 in the near future.

We look forward to the opportunity of welcoming you many more times in the future.

Yours truly,

[Executive Assistant]

It’s something. I’ll give them another chance when I receive the gift card. Depending on how that goes I might or might not return after that.