Friday, February 3, 2012

soup of the day

Something I've noticed over the past few weeks is that my employer's whole soup-of-the-day offering is kind of a sham.

We have the same soup-of-the-day, every day. So in reality, we offer three soups- two that are blatantly listed on the menu, and one that is titled as the mysterious "soup-of-the-day." I don't know if this is poor planning or good marketing, but solving the soup-of-the-day mystery definitely peaks many customers' interests.

When customers inquire about the soup-of-the-day, I inform them that it is (once again) Chicken Tortilla. This often leads to them replying with the follow up question, "Is it good?"

First of all, what an inappropriate question; do you think I would I tell you if it wasn't? Second of all, I don't know what you like. You could be a fan of dog food for all I know, and in that case the answer would be no, the soup is not good, because I prefer human food over Purina One.

Instead of answering this ridiculous question, I instead describe the soup to the customer.

"Yes!" I typically answer. "It's an orange, cream based, Mexican tasting soup."

Customers can now make a more informed decision, and I've never had a problem with this technique.

Until yesterday. When a Mexican family walked in.

If someone were to ask me what kind of restaurant Taco Bell was, yes, I would tell them that it serves Mexican fast food. In all truthfulness, however, Taco Bell is probably further from authentic Mexican cuisine than the donuts at the gas station, and I would be quite ashamed to describe T-bell to an actual Mexican as "Mexican."

This was kind of like that.


Mother of Mexican family:
What's your soup of the day?

Me:
Today we have Chicken Tortilla!

Mother of Mexican family:
Is it any good?

Me:
Yeah! It's...uh....orange... ...soup.