Taco Del Fire FOLLOWUP

Here is the letter I got back from the owner of Taco Del Mar...

Dear Mike,
    My name is Mike King and I am the owner of the TDM store in Lake City.  I received a copy of your email specifying the problems you had on Monday evening at my store.  Firstly, thank you very much for taking the time to voice your concerns.  I deeply apologize for the experience you had and would like to make it right with you if possible.  I have talked to the night crew responsible and investigated the circumstances surrounding your unpleasant treatment.  It appears in part to be an odd mixture of events coming after a rush coinciding with a shift change in which the employee who took your order left and placed your order aside without properly communicating with the other employees.  I do not wish to maike excuses and can only say that such events only seem to occur when I'm not present and I guarantee that things would have been present.  I take responsibility for the troubling experience you had and offer you a free meal if you care to try us out again.
    We are challenged by the small space and triangular geometry which is why I have instituted the order talking on forms instead of the direct interaction of the food preparer with the customer.  This system usually works fine, depending on the staff and communications, but is not without it flaws.  Again I apologize and thank you for your business.  Since I am unable to work evenings because of my family obligations it is only through customer feedback like yours that I know of problems.

Sincerely,
Mike King

Taco Del Fire

Tonight I visited the Taco Del Mar location on Lake City Way in Seattle with a friend of mine and had the worst experience, ever.

At first, the guy who tried to take our orders seemed stoned. He was overly casual and not very organized. He had to ask a couple of times for the name on the order, and for exactly what we were ordering. He would forget before writing it down and then would have to ask again.

Then while we were waiting for our food, two other customers who had been waiting a long time (20 minutes according to them), finally got their order, but it was only half of what they ordered (one burrito instead of two). We all went outside while they waited for the rest of their stuff since the inside of this store was like a steam room... the windows were literally dripping and the temperature was insane.

Finally the other guys got their order and left, and we continued to wait for our food, watching the two employees the entire time. They were virtually incapable of keeping it together. They couldn't get orders straight and had to ask people who were sitting waiting for their orders just what they had ordered.

They joked as they tried to get food made about how the one of them didn't even smoke dope. He figured perhaps if he did, he would be better at his job. I am pretty sure the other guy was stoned.

We watched in amazement as one of the guys tried to wrap my burrito several times, unsuccessfully. This made we wonder how in the world they were able to roll their joint. Eventually he just kind of mashed my burrito all into a ball and wrapped the foil around it. When I finally got it, it had the wrong kind of beans in it. I wasn't about to complain only to have to wait for them to attempt to get it right. They then had to ask just what my friend had ordered before they could make it. They just had no idea.

My friend's quesadilla was cooking, for a long time, and he started to smell something burning. We joked that it was probably his food that was burning since they had left it in for so long. Once the smoke started pouring into the rest of the store from the back we, and other customers, alerted the staff that there was a fire or something... They assured us there was no fire. We insisted - there was smoke - and obviously something wasn't right! One employee went into the back and we actually saw flames shooting out of the oven as he opened the door. Later, he brought the smoking taco salad shells out to the sidewalk in a pan where he left them, unattended, to stop smoking/cool down. Later he told us that he had tried to put the fire out with the fire extinguisher but that it wasn't in working order.

When he finally got his quesadilla, it was all mashed together and wrapped in foil. We also observed that they did not change their gloves once, and yet they were walking around touching all kinds of things while making the food.

All in all, while very entertaining, this situation, I am sure, cost them several customers. Some other people that had ordered, but not yet paid, just left. Others left with food, but in disgust after seeing what they had just seen and after having to wait so long to get their food. The guys inside did not realize this though as they were frantically trying to finish making all the food. We advised them that everyone had left and they could stop making food.

In defense of the guys working there tonight, I will say that the order-taking system in use at this location seems to have been one of the reasons they were having so much trouble. They use markers on laminated cards to record what people order, then those cards are used when actually making the food. The thing is, the place is not set up for this at all and the cards quickly become disorganized, and the marker rubs off. The one guy who was taking all of the orders had marker all over his gloves.

They also explained to us, later as my friend was trying to eat his food, that this was extremely out of the ordinary for them. That it wasn't always like this. Apparently a number of people had come in with large orders ("like 5 tacos! and 3 burritos!" Unheard of, I am sure!) and everything just fell apart. But I am pretty sure they were just stoned.

Unbelievable. Think we'll go back? yeahhh... I still have a few punches on my free burrito card.

*UPDATE*

After calling Taco Del Mar corporate and telling them the story we have been sent some free "burrito bucks". It looks like we all won.

Walk Through the Cemetery

There is this cemetery about three blocks from my house that I walk by almost every day on my way to Zoka. I realized the other day that this is one of the best parks in the city, it has a great view, great big trees, and a bunch of nice paths all through out it. Today I was hanging out with my little bro and we decided to go for a walk through it. I guess it was appropriate being Veterans Day, but that was not the point. It is just a really nice park. There was this blue pin wheel next to this one grave. The light was hitting it really intensely and the wind was blowing it really fast. I took some awesome photos of it as you can see bellow.

Delicious Monster Baby Out In The Wild

After over 7 long hard months of development Wil Shipley and I have finally released Delicious Library. We did not finish working on it until Monday morning at 4:30, the day we promised everyone we would release on. We got kicked out of Zoka (coffee shop where we work) at midnight and then moved to QFC (a grocery store with 24 wireless internet) where we worked till 6:00AM. I went home and stayed up making sure everything was going smoothly till 11:00AM when I finally passed out. Needless to say my schedule is now a little fucked up, but it feels great to have it out.

Our website hits, application downloads, sales, and the response have all been out of this word. Far above what we ever could have hoped for. We are now going to be taking a few weeks to fix bugs, answer customer e-mails, and promote the application. I am also now getting really excited about our next project (can't say what it is) and am looking forward to starting development on it.

The end of my Portland Trip

Sunday morning Christopher and I went and got a cup of coffee with Jeff Rooney, the brains behind the Delicious Monsters website. It was great to finally meet him in person after working with him so closely over the past few months via phone and iChat. It was also just a lot of fun to get all the Delicious Designers together (Christopher has helped on various stuff such as the company logo) for the first time.



Sunday evening instead of driving home I decided to take a detour down into the Columbia River Gorge. Affter failing to find a real camp group I ended up sleeping outside on the edge of the river. This morning I got up and hiked around for a bit then headed back up to Seattle. That three and a half hour drive leaves your brain num.