Red Robin makes good

Last week I wrote an open letter to the CEO of Red Robin complaining about how they handled a bad situation I was involved with at their Seattle location. I’m tardy writing this update, but the general manager of that Red Robin location phoned me a few days later. She was pleasant, apologized without making excuses, and explained they will be doing more employee training on this kind of thing.

Then she offered me a $40 gift card for Red Robin, which arrived this week, along with a very nice letter by the manager re-iterating what she had said on the phone. But you see, I don’t really care about the gift card. It was the apology I wanted and what I received satisfied me fully.

Why? Well, basically that is what you are supposed to do. Funny thing is, that’s how the whole thing started. My sneezing, getting some of it on someone, and he not accepting my apology; instead going into full-lunatic raving mode and threatening me. But that’s not how it is supposed to work. When something goes wrong, and you are the responsible party, you make a sincere apology combined with a willingness to make whatever changes (within reason) are needed to make it right. Then the other person accepts the apology with as much grace as they can muster. Shit happens, but that doesn’t mean you have to leave it stinking on the floor.

So, props to Red Robin! They did it how you are supposed to do it. This is refreshing coming from a corporate entity in modern America. They didn’t try to cover themselves. They didn’t avoid admitting a mistake in order to reduce potential liability. They didn’t just ignore the problem and hope it would go away.

Heck, she even apologized for the bar being out of Elysian that day!