Something New on the Menu
After experiencing and writing in a recent blog about Serendipity – a fortunate happenstance, I wound up having what seemed like the opposite, an unfortunate happenstance. This occurred when I forgot to make a reservation at a hard to get into restaurant for a dinner with an out-of-town client passing through Birchrunville.
If you follow the food media you might know the place I’m referring to, the Birchrunville Store Café. As you might expect from the only business in Birchrunville, the Café is a quirky place. It’s located in the old general store, it only takes cash or checks, is BYOB, and it’s open just four nights a week. And it seats just 42 people. One table for 8 and the rest for 2 or 4 and no, you can’t push them together.
But the food! Wonderful beyond belief. And the crew is the best. They are friendly and helpful, knowledgeable and entertaining. They complement the food perfectly. Tables are booked way in advance, but locals can sometimes get in at the last minute if there’s a cancellation or a snowstorm keeping diners away…the Café knows who to call to fill up the tables.
I called in desperation at the last minute but all the tables were already booked and there were no cancellations. So there I was, without a reservation.
An unfortunate happenstance indeed.
After taking a few minutes to gather my wits and get over my disappointment, I remembered a restaurant not that far away that I’d heard good things about. Apparently, it was also a bit quirky, BYOB, and has an interesting and unusual menu. I called, discovered a table for 2 was available due to a last minute cancellation, and suddenly my evening was headed once again in a good direction.
To my great relief, we were greeted at Marly’s by a friendly lady…who turned out to be the owner…and led to a table in a nice old brick and wood dining room. The menu had a collection of interesting options and the server was happy to discuss all of them with us.
I tried wasabi pea crusted salmon, something I’d never had before. It was scrumptious…as was everything we ate that evening. Once our server saw we were involved in intense conversation she left us alone while watching carefully from the sidelines, so she could pop by when we needed something. As we finished up our wine we agreed that our unfortunate happenstance had turned into a pleasant surprise.
This led us to discuss how business people get stuck in their thinking and continue to do things just because, “that’s the way things are always/have always been done”. You get into a rut and develop habits so strong that they become difficult to break. Even your thinking itself gets structured and loses flexibility.
This doesn’t mean that what you are doing or thinking has anything wrong with it, or is ineffective — my fixed thinking about making the Birchrunville Store Café my go-to restaurant always brought me an amazing dining experience. But it does mean that you often miss opportunities to expand your knowledge and notice ways to improve what you do. Or simply to shake things up, and experience something different.
Try a non-traditional hire and see what new ideas they bring, paint a few office walls in bold stripes and notice how it changes the energy of the room, go into stores you never visit and carefully look at things that other people regularly buy, in meetings with your co-workers let any silent moments drag on until others fill them. Take it all in and see what new ideas appear that were stifled before under the burden of habit.
I’m not suggesting you should give up on all that’s worked well for you in the past or overhaul your entire business operations. Just open yourself up to new experiences. New experiences lead to fresh thinking…which leads to new ideas to improve what you do.
After all, there’s no way I’m going to stop visiting the Birchrunville Store Café, and now Marly’s. But I’ll be happy to check out something new on their menus…and to visit the next new restaurant that comes to town…