And with that, they lost my business for quite a while...

Sometimes the best laid plans go to ... well, you get the idea.

A famous Market of restaurants that hails out of the Boston area lost my business for quite a while thanks to being completely and totally unprepared for doing business today (Thanksgiving, the day that I'm typing this article) after we (my kids and I) had called the day prior to confirm that they'd be open and what their hours for the day would be.

We planned to go to my kid's grandparents (their mother's parents) and take them food from that Market place.  Originally I had planned that we'd go there for dinner yesterday, assuming that businesses would be closed today, or only open limited hours, but the family over-ruled me there and instead insisted on having dinner together today.  Ok, but I'd rather get my food as fresh as I can, so after calling the restaurant and confirming that they'd be open and what their hours were today, we instead aimed to go there in the mid-afternoon today.  We got there, in fact, at approx 3:30pm.  With them advertising holiday hours that would have them open until 7p.m.  When we got there, their doors were locked, despite the sign on the door noting the hours they were supposed to be open.  Oooops.

Apparently they were backed up at least 2+ hours on food preparation for the customers that they already had in the place and apparently their management had decided to turn people away.  Uh, gee, it didn't occur to them that if they were one of the few restaurants open that they'd be over-run with customers that were hungry for something that somewhat resembled a traditional Thanksgiving dinner?!  Really?

I can understand that they were likely overwhelmed, but no one forced them to open today.  They could have closed for the holiday, given their employees the day off to enjoy with their family, and could have told us they'd be closed when we had called to confirm their hours for the day (after asking the obvious question of would they be open).  Once they told us they'd be open until 7pm tonite and once they had advertised that on their door, they had an obligation to be open and be ready.

In the end we went to one of the major grocery store chains, grabbed some prepared foods and loaded up as much stuff as we could to make a nice dinner.  I felt bad about it all though because my son and I had discussed and debated going for food yesterday.  We could have, and it seems we should have, done that.  We even debated going for food in the late morning, very early afternoon.  It sounds like we would have wasted our effort with that too.

While I know that the business didn't have to be open, and I feel for their employees who likely wanted to be home with their families, I'm still very frustrated with them and again, likely won't be back to one of their restaurants for quite a while.  I don't take being let down lightly, and refuse to reward a business that doesn't prepare properly.