So I had dinner this evening at a new place around the corner called "Buns". Imagine a small burger joint opened by two frat guys fresh out of school with no real business or food safety experience. You've got it.
Small hole in the wall location, small commercial grill at the window, menu consists of burgers, fries, and pop. That's it. The food is basically what you'd expect from a couple of frat guys on a barbecue. It's burgers from costco (the big ones), thinly sliced potatoes done on the grill, and pop in a cooler owned by the local coca-cola franchisee.
This probably doesn't sound too appealing, but the area I'm in is relatively high density, with lots of places (including mine) forbidding the use of barbecues. Also, truth be told, there's not a lot of options for barbecues in the area. There's five chinese, three thai, and a pair of sushi places on the block, but the closest burger is McDonalds four blocks down. So it's got market.
Their problem is going to be their (apparent) complete lack of experience. They're leap years away from any sort of "order once, pay and get food" system. I think my order was confirmed twice, independently, by each employee. That, and character was the only thing that necessitated payment. This slows them down a lot, and seems to be doubling their work load. A couple people actually gave up and walked out waiting in line.
Their food safety is about what you'd expect from a couple of frat guys... So head down before their first random inspection.
I wish i had the credentials to go in there and help them improve. My tips would be simple:
- When you take the order, call it out.
- After the customer pays, write down the order (or use receipt) tape to tray or bag
- Buy three barbecue flippers, spray paint the handles. Red for raw meat, black for cooked, green for potatoes.
So yeah, if you like bbq burgers and fries, check it out
Small hole in the wall location, small commercial grill at the window, menu consists of burgers, fries, and pop. That's it. The food is basically what you'd expect from a couple of frat guys on a barbecue. It's burgers from costco (the big ones), thinly sliced potatoes done on the grill, and pop in a cooler owned by the local coca-cola franchisee.
This probably doesn't sound too appealing, but the area I'm in is relatively high density, with lots of places (including mine) forbidding the use of barbecues. Also, truth be told, there's not a lot of options for barbecues in the area. There's five chinese, three thai, and a pair of sushi places on the block, but the closest burger is McDonalds four blocks down. So it's got market.
Their problem is going to be their (apparent) complete lack of experience. They're leap years away from any sort of "order once, pay and get food" system. I think my order was confirmed twice, independently, by each employee. That, and character was the only thing that necessitated payment. This slows them down a lot, and seems to be doubling their work load. A couple people actually gave up and walked out waiting in line.
Their food safety is about what you'd expect from a couple of frat guys... So head down before their first random inspection.
I wish i had the credentials to go in there and help them improve. My tips would be simple:
- When you take the order, call it out.
- After the customer pays, write down the order (or use receipt) tape to tray or bag
- Buy three barbecue flippers, spray paint the handles. Red for raw meat, black for cooked, green for potatoes.
So yeah, if you like bbq burgers and fries, check it out
I'm normally a big fan of decisions amazon.com makes. Their site is pretty easy to use, the recommendations and upsells are useful without being over the top and annoying (see: godaddy.com), and overall its a site a think a lot of others would do well to emulate.
I don't like something they're doing now. As a rule, I feel that when presenting hyper links the links themselves should be useful words describing the target, and also generally represent the action item the user is looking for. Saying Click Here to visit a really cool blog is bad. The link doesn't describe the target, nor will someone looking for that link find it quickly when scanning for hyper links. Something like You should go read Paul Reinheimer's Blog is much better.
These days, skimming Amazon for "Log In" or "Sign In" doesn't work. The words appear, but they're not linked. Instead the link is on "Personalized Recomendations"
What are your thoughts?
I don't like something they're doing now. As a rule, I feel that when presenting hyper links the links themselves should be useful words describing the target, and also generally represent the action item the user is looking for. Saying Click Here to visit a really cool blog is bad. The link doesn't describe the target, nor will someone looking for that link find it quickly when scanning for hyper links. Something like You should go read Paul Reinheimer's Blog is much better.
These days, skimming Amazon for "Log In" or "Sign In" doesn't work. The words appear, but they're not linked. Instead the link is on "Personalized Recomendations"
What are your thoughts?
So on a recent trip to California I was in an area that had boingo wireless. I was stuck for a few hours, and I needed to get in touch with a friend back home. So I signed up, given the option for some sort of $5 for a few hours or $10 for a month, I chose the month option.
Then it wanted me to download this little application to "help" me connect. I was wary. I'm not on windows, and %99.999 of the time that crap is windows only. It's also useless %99.999 of the time. But, I gave it a whirl and installed it.
I'm Happy.
Most of the time, I don't even know the application is running. There's no dock presence or anything, it's just a little chunk of ram. Then, when I open my laptop up and it sees a boingo partner network nearby it pops up asking me to join whatever that partner network is. Then upon connecting it jumps through whatever the hoops are to get me logged on. I connect, I push a button, I'm on.
It's also much much cheaper than the roaming options I have up here in canada. Most of them are in the $30/month range, whereas boingo is $9.95/month for the first three, then jumps up to $21.95.
So I've got this small application that looks like it was built intelligently, a reasonable fee for wi-fi on the go, and fewer headaches jumping through partner hoops.
If you travel a lot, I'd personally recommend the boingo network.
Then it wanted me to download this little application to "help" me connect. I was wary. I'm not on windows, and %99.999 of the time that crap is windows only. It's also useless %99.999 of the time. But, I gave it a whirl and installed it.
I'm Happy.
Most of the time, I don't even know the application is running. There's no dock presence or anything, it's just a little chunk of ram. Then, when I open my laptop up and it sees a boingo partner network nearby it pops up asking me to join whatever that partner network is. Then upon connecting it jumps through whatever the hoops are to get me logged on. I connect, I push a button, I'm on.
It's also much much cheaper than the roaming options I have up here in canada. Most of them are in the $30/month range, whereas boingo is $9.95/month for the first three, then jumps up to $21.95.
So I've got this small application that looks like it was built intelligently, a reasonable fee for wi-fi on the go, and fewer headaches jumping through partner hoops.
If you travel a lot, I'd personally recommend the boingo network.
