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Aug
12
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I recently took a friend to see Eddie Izzard for his birthday. The show was at the Spreckles Theater in downtown San Diego so I wanted to find a nice restaurant near by to grab dinner first. I perused Google Maps and found a very nice looking restaurant called Currant just down the street from the theater. Their menu and wine selection looked great so we were pumped for a great meal.
The restaurant had a good vibe and was smartly decorated with a chalk board advertising their wine flight selection. I ordered the Pinot Noir wine flight only to be notified that the chalk board hadn’t been updated since they opened and they no longer had those wines. Annoying but I can get over it.
We barely glanced at the menu after we were seated since we had both already made our selections when we looked at the menu online. However when I didn’t see what I had selected on the menu, I asked the waitress about it. Her response was basically the same as her response to the chalk board. She said that they change their menu quarterly so they don’t keep their website up to date. Oh wow, your menu changes 4 times a year? Clearly I can see how updating your site four times a year would be such a major time suck and totally not worth it (sarcasm). As a side note, their site is completely in Flash so yes it would take longer to update but that’s not the only way they are getting screwed by their Flash website as we all know.
The waitress had no idea what was even on the website and I bet if I asked her what the domain was she would have to ask someone else. It is astonishing that companies still feel like once they put up a website they are done. Your website needs to be fully integrated into your everyday business and updated regularly. Especially if you have client-facing employees, they need to be well versed in what is on your website. You and your employees will look like idiots if a customer asks a question about something they saw on your website and the employee has no answer.
I most likely won’t go back to Currant since the food was mediocre on top of not being able to get what I was looking forward to. But for their sake, I hope they start to take their website seriously and stop thinking of it as just a fancy place to put their phone number.
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2 Responses to “Currant Restaurant: What? We Have a Website?”
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I agree. If something is not on the web now, it just doesn’t exist!
Today I was burning through my pile of paper, and found menu’s of restaurants for an upcoming event. I checked to if each of them were online. Il-Fornaio, which is a very profitable chain, had their menu onsite, but not their banquet menu. One can only imagine how much revenue they lose as a result.
Also, for the new Trump hotel in Vegas, first off I could not open it in Firefox, and then when there did not really give a full list of what was there and when it was open.
dk
Pam,
I also agree. It surprises me how many industries don’t take their website marketing seriously to their own detriment.
I guess it will take more scrutiny by their customers to get the point across.
John
Ritmo Bello
http://www.ritmobello.com