Monday 4 May 2009

Its all about CLASS

This post is basically, a good old grumble about Pizza Hut's cost cutting measures :)

The EU bought in regulations regarding the shape, size and colouring of vegetables.

Most of the vegetables you'll buy in supermarkets will be Class 1, consistent shape vegetables and fruit. (No more LOL at the shape of that carrot, potato etc!). So all the vegetables that don't make the grade are then called Class 2 and are significantly cheaper. Aldi and other discounters will sell this stuff routinely.

Pizza Hut uses Class 2 vegetables, as they are cheaper. But it causes problems with how our products look. While we are badgered about the thickness of a slice of cucumber, "supply chain" are happy for us to use one cucumber which has virtually black skin, and others which are almost yellow.

While for the majority of the products it makes very little difference, it just shows that their commitment to quality goes as far as "only if it's cheap enough!".

Anyway enough moaning for this post. If I still have any readers left (I must start posting more regularly again and get my name back out there!!!!) Please leave a comment if you're still reading because it'd be great to hear from you!

Table for...

There are a few things which really annoy me about restaurant-goers.

Pair of mothers with 2 children in buggies...

"Table for two please"

It is quite obviously a table for 4. I can't sit you down on a table for two with two massive buses/buggies can I?!

I have taken to correcting parents on this and saying it's a table for 4. I don't understand why they don't count their children as real human beings, because most of the time the kids are nicer than the parents anyway. A lot of my colleagues are shocked when I correct the parents because they never do, but I think it stems from previously working a different format store. There you were still expected to be polite don't get me wrong, but it wasn't all lovey dovey.

That's not to say I'm rude, well not all the time. I have had a couple of notes written on the back of bills thanking me and when I do very occasionally serve tables, I get reasonable tips. I'm probably too honest with customers sometimes. There are a couple of items on the menu which are pretty dire and always disappoint customers and most of the time I tell them about it. They're normally very grateful for that, but some don't listen to my advice and low and behold cry back at me when they receive it.

The small salmon pasta bake for instance, looks like somebodys scrapped the remains of another portion and put it on the plate. Then an attempt to make it look better with some salad.

The tomato and mozzeralla salad is just the same. The mozzerela is ok but the tomatoes are normally floppy and totally unripe. I have a particular gripe about the vegetables but I will post that in a minute in a new post.