Back on Oct. 13, 2012, I blogged the praises of The Blind Onion Pizza Pub in South Reno. (See BLIND ONION PIZZA PUB: GREAT LUNCH AND GROOVY LOGO.)
Although it wasn't the best pizza I'd ever encountered, I thought it was better-than-most for this area, that the $5 slice and soda lunch was a screaming deal and that the cute pictures of Fred The Onion made this whimsical, tiny place, a place worth visiting again.
Sorry to say, a recent return visit to the South Reno Blind Onion was a downer. For starters, the restaurant was freezing cold. The thermostat on the wall said the temperature was fluctuating between 54 and 56 degrees. My party wasn't the only to notice this; other customers were heard complaining about the big chill.
The guy who took our orders — the slice and soda deals — looked like he was mad at the world. We then waited more than half an hour for our food to arrive, or at least some of it. Our server brought what my husband and I had ordered and told our son his order was on the way. It took about another five mintues for his pizza to be brought to the table. No apology from the server, who also was behaving in a surly fashion.
Adding insult to injury, the tomatoes on my pizza were uncooked and my son found some foreign matter on the edge of his pizza. Also, I had asked for just one topping, tomatoes. Part of my pizza had sausage on it, too. If I were a vegetarian, this would be a problem. The place was crowded and we didn't have time to get into another waiting game, so we just sighed and dealt with these issues.
For the final straw, some very angry-sounding music was being played in the restaurant, at ear-shattering volume. Clearly, someone was having a rotten day and wanted the clientele to know about it.
I contemplated whether to do another blog post about The Blind Onion in South Reno and decided it was important to report my dissatisfaction after my second visit. Why? I didn't start this blog to tear down local businesses in South Reno. Actually, it's a joy for me when I find great places or events that are truly worth writing home about. But when I'm treated very rudely, I want to spare others from the same misfortune.
Furthermore, as a longtime journalist, I'm well-acquainted with the recent trend toward "advertorial" sections in many newspapers. Print publications, competing with online news sources, are increasingly pressured to produce special sections on topics such as travel, fashion or food and entertainment. Feature coverage is given to businesses which buy ads. Businesses that don't advertise are given the brush-off or no more mention than a couple of sentences, regardless of how good or bad their products or services may be.
What this means to me, is that what's said in those features may not be completely honest or reliable. The reviews may not be impartial. Therefore, I rely more on the feedback of other independent bloggers or ordinary folks on sites like Yelp to gauge whether or not I want to patronize a restaurant or other business. They aren't tooting some restaurant's horn in return for ad revenue.
At first, I thought our recent bad experience at South Reno's The Blind Onion was a fluke. Every business has "off" days. Mishaps can occur. But when it's one mishap after another and no one can be bothered to say they're sorry, it's a sign that they need to tweak their customer service and lose the attitude. And then I heard from my husband that a co-worker had a similar experience at South Reno's The Blind Onion recently, at least with regard to the frigid dining room. This restaurant needs to fix its front door that doesn't shut properly, along with fixing the nasty attitude problem. Maybe then we'll give it another chance.
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