Customer Satisfaction

Or, why Browns Socialhouse is off our list

Last night we were heading home late from UBC, and hungry. Neither of us were in a mood to cook, so we decided to grab a bite on the way home. Rather than try some place new and untested, we chose Browns Socialhouse at Alma and 10th Avenue.

Last night, Monday, the appeal was that we knew that Browns’ menu would be predictable, tasty, and not too expensive. Sometimes things that remain unchanged are just what you need.

We walked into a two-thirds occupied restaurant, and were immediately directed to a table at the back corner of the restaurant, with a charming view of the dishwashing area at the back of the kitchen. We asked to sit somewhere else and were told that the other tables had someone sitting at them.

The reason why we got this treatment? We looked old to them.

Old people don’t party down like the football fans at the bar. Old people are cheap. Old people don’t tip. Old people just aren’t cool.

This wasn’t the first time this happened to us at Browns. We used to eat at the Lynn Valley Browns at least twice a week, every week, for most of a year while doing home renovations and planning for a move to France. We were as regular as it’s possible to be. We weren’t cheap, we tipped well, we were nice to our servers, and yet… every time we walked in it was as if we had never been there before.

We weren’t recognized, we weren’t greeted as a regular customer, and we certainly never got the kind of elevated treatment that regulars expect.

At the end of the day the only reason we could figure out was that we looked old. We didn’t register as the customers that they wanted. If we disappeared tomorrow, we wouldn’t be noticed.

We live in an age when judgments based on physical shape, sexual orientation, or racial background are rejected. And yet, if you are perceived as being over a certain age - lets say 65 - you often become invisible, or worse, become undesirable.

Businesses like Browns Socialhouse will literally tell you, in actions, if not actual words, “We do not want your money.”

With a modicum of luck, and with exercise and sensible eating, all of us will eventually grow older. Even though I’m the last person to say that with age comes respect - jerks are jerks, regardless of age - I do think that any customer should be treated equally well, no matter whether their hair is white or dark.