06/18/2026
It’s 1:30 in the morning.
The dining room is cleaned, the kitchen is shut down, and I’m finally getting ready to go home.
Just before leaving, I noticed a one-star review on google. The review called us the slowest restaurant in Omaha and said we don’t care about our customers.
Ironically, I remember that order very well.
It was placed through a third-party delivery platform. We prepared it on time and marked it ready for pickup, but the driver arrived nearly 40 minutes late. By then, the food was no longer at the standard we wanted, so we made it again.
A short time later, the platform called and asked us to remake the same order once more because there had been an issue during delivery.
So we made it a third time.
But in the end, nobody came to pick it up and the order was canceled at 9:45pm.
Honestly, the remakes didn’t bother us. Staying late didn’t bother us. That’s part of restaurant life.
What mattered was why we did it.
Earlier same today, a customer ordered our weekly special, Northern Crispy Pork tenderloin, and told us he would be here in 20 minutes. But He didn’t arrive until about 55 minutes later. A few minutes after checking in, he looked genuinely confused and asked:
“If I ordered almost an hour ago, why am I still waiting?”
It’s a fair question.
The answer is simple.
If we had cooked that Crispy Pork the moment the order came in, it would have spent the next 35 minutes sitting in a container. By the time the customer got home, the crispy coating would have softened, the texture would be gone, the food will be soggy and it simply wouldn’t be the dish we intended to serve.
So for deep-fried dishes Togo, we often prepare everything ahead of time and wait until the last possible moment to finish the sauce and complete the dish. That way, the customer gets the freshest version possible.
Sometimes that means an extra five minutes. Sometimes ten. Occasionally even a little longer if the kitchen is finishing another order. But we’d rather have a customer wait a few extra minutes than serve food that isn’t at its best.
After ten years in this business, I’ve never believed that restaurant owners wake up in the morning wondering how to make customers unhappy.
Quite the opposite.
Every restaurant owner I know wakes up hoping to make people happy. We want families to enjoy dinner together. We want customers to leave satisfied. We want people to feel that their hard-earned money was well spent.
Sometimes everything goes according to plan. Sometimes things happen that are outside anyone’s control. Sometimes customers only see one side of the story. And honestly, that’s okay. They’re not supposed to see everything that happens behind the scenes. But every once in a while, a conversation happens. A question gets asked. An explanation gets given. And suddenly both sides understand each other a little better.
No matter what, my dear friends, we still believe one review—good or bad—doesn’t define who we are. What defines us is whether we can go home at the end of the night and honestly say:
❤️We tried our very best for another day.
Sometimes, that’s all you can do.
And sometimes, that’s enough.
It’s late now.
Sorry, everyone. I guess I’m feeling a little more frustrated than usual tonight. But trust me, tomorrow morning we’ll still unlock the doors, fire up the kitchen, and do it all over again———
Just like every single day for the past ten years.
Joe
