Wow. Some of the posters for Yelp are completely misleading. Firstly, let me start by saying that some of the people who rated this a 1-2 stars left very misleading reviews about this place. When my wife suggested to eat there, I immediately looked online to read reviews of the place before committing, as I wasn't really in the mood for a sandwich, and I wanted to try something new instead. There were a bunch of "poor customer service" or "worst customer service I've ever experienced" type of comments. This immediately drew red flags, as I've eaten at Paneras in Colorado and in Florida and haven't had one complaint about the service (the prices are definitely a different story, though...). I hadn't been to the one in Tyler yet, so to read all of these comments, they almost MADE me want to go just to see if what they were saying was true. So I decided to go the next day on my lunch break.
I was greeted by a nice gentleman (who I'm assuming was the manager) as soon as I walked in. The floors were a bit dirty, but this was at 2:30pm, so their lunch rush was probably to blame for it. I asked him what his favorite item on the menu was, and instead of a "well everything's good" type of response, he went in to detail about all of the options you have, and how flexible they were about making requests for taking things off/adding things. He suggested the new bbq flatbread, which I gladly paired with their baked potato soup. He not only repeated my order, but told me HIS name and let me know that if there was anything I needed, I could come to him. "Is this the poor customer service that everyone's talking about?" I wondered to myself as I poured my soft drink. Before I could even sit all my stuff down and log in to their free wifi, my food was on the table and looked freshly made. The flatbread was good as was the soup, however when I went and added tobacco sauce to the soup, I was instantly hooked! Also, while I was eating I heard the manager encouraging his staff about how well they were working, and seemed enthusiastic about doing a good job while encouraging the other workers to do the same. And while he was walking around the dining room, he actually remember MY name, as well as one or two customers who had been eating before I was there. WOW. How many times have your servers used your name after only hearing it one time? I was very impressed by the experience, however I almost felt betrayed by the reviews I had read, while grateful for them at the same time. I felt betrayed because I read all of these poor reviews about service that were dead wrong! While also feeling grateful for reading those, because my longing to see if what they were saying was right, was what led me to going!
For those reading this comment, please do yourself a favor and just try the place for yourself. One thing I've learned from these sites, is that most people who leave the negative reviews are usually just out for blood because of something that was to their dissatisfaction, and typically add an outrageous amount of hyperbole to their stories in order to make people feel the way they do. These people work to SERVE YOU and TAKE CARE OF YOU. That's literally the industry they work in: service. Yes, there will be times that your food will be wrong, or an issue with your receipt will come up, or they'll give you the wrong drink or forget a napkin. In these instances, you need to call and SPEAK to a manager, and not degrade, yell at or belittle them for an oversight. I'm almost positive that if we called the supervisor to any one of these posters that leave negative reviews, that there would be plenty of instances of oversights, or times where they didn't work at a high level. This is a risk you accept when you are working with people, who are flawed by nature. Please do us all a favor and leave reviews that aren't sweeping generalizations, or make accusations about a company or establishment that is just an isolated instance. However, some of you are just plain grumpy, unpleasant, and judgmental people by nature, so this probably won't happen (not to point fingers, as I accept that I'm not a perfect person either).
By the way, when I brought up this site and it's poor reviews with the manager as he was walking around the dining room, he gave a great response to the critics. He said "It's hard to please everyone, to be honest. It doesn't mean I can't treat them with respect or work hard to fix their mistakes when they bring it to my attention. That's why I'm here! Some people just like to gripe..."
Isn't that the truth! read more
