Last year I visited Eataly, an enormous Italian food and wine marketplace in Manhattan, and saw this sign:
OUR POLICY
1. The Customer Is Not Always Right
2. Eataly Is Not Always Right
3. Through Our Differences, We Make Harmony
This policy is such a radical departure from “the customer is always right”. Of course, it’s a lot easier to post a sign like this when you’re rich and famous like Mario Batali. At first I found this proclamation rather arrogant, but now see it as a plea, “Hey, can we treat each other like valuable human beings?” Once a chef friend told me that when she showed a customer a truffle from France the guy grabbed it and popped it into his mouth. Stunned she said, “Spit it out, that’s a $500 truffle.” And he did, he didn’t apologize. Once I stormed out of a restaurant because the wait staff was just standing around talking to each other and didn’t bother to take my order. But how do you we illustrate number 3. -Through our differences, we make harmony? Maybe it’s the time we went to El Mirasol in Palm Springs and the wrong dish was presented to my girlfriend, “Hey, we’re sorry but we made you the Pollo en Mole Poblano by mistake but it’s just as good as the Pollo en Pipian. Would you like to try it instead of waiting?” And Rose took it and enjoyed it and didn’t ask for a discount or complain, because she felt that she was well treated. Maybe this policy of making harmony isn’t so radical, and something that might make a lot of sense for all of us to follow because it treats every like humans who are doing the best they can given the circumstances.