Est Bar or n’est pas bar?

Readers of my blogs will know that I’m a creature of habit. And that I’ve been a business traveller for most of my life and I’ve evolved a set of habits which minimise the stress that goes with it.

One particular habit is that of being in control of the ends of the day, early morning and evening, because if you’re travelling you’ll surely lose control somewhere in between. That’s why I plan my morning travel and make sure that it accommodates breakfast in a half way civilised fashion.

One of my regular morning trips is to Luton airport, not an end in itself but a means of travelling on to Barcelona which I do frequently, and as long as I leave before 0700 I beat the rush hour and I’m into the airport by about 0800.

I’ve then found that if I book my parking far enough in advance the short stay for a day or two is little more than the mid-term. That’s a convenience in the morning but a great advantage if I’m returning late night because I always seem to just miss a bus. For the short stay you walk. And then I treat myself to the Priority Lane for the security check. At £3 that seems a good price to pay to get to the front of the queue and avoid a 20 minute wait.

So lots of good stress control so far but this is leading up to something and that’s breakfast which I always take at the Est Bar: generally friendly and competent staff, excellent coffee and fresh croissants. So I sit and relax for 30 minutes or so and read the paper whilst I enjoy the time.

But not quite this morning. No croissants. ‘Sorry we’ve run out’ or similar. At 0820.

I switch to grumpy old man mode: ‘why can’t you get one from one of the other outlets?’ Bar staff concede that they are all owned by the same group but supervisor insists that it’s not possible because of reasons of ‘stock control’. I insist. I play the customer card, I say I want to enjoy my breakfast at Est Bar because it serves its coffee in cups, I suggest that the supervisor comes up with a solution. In the face of my determined pleading she gives up and says she’ll ‘try and borrow one from Frankie and Bennie’s’. She stomps off and, 5 minutes later, returns with a croissant which she plonks down in front of me. Not exactly good grace. In the meantime the girl behind the bar had told me that they were waiting for another batch to be delivered so I guess what we got was what we called in the chemicals business a time swap: you give me a croissant now and I’ll give you one back in the future.

So what’s my point? What does this say about Est Bar? I know that this would only be one minor incident in thousands of transactions during the year but it disappointed me. It wasn’t busy so why couldn’t the staff show a bit of flexibility/initiative and demonstrate to one customer how ‘customer focused’ they are. I would then have written a glowing report. As it is I’m disappointed. I will forgive and return because the coffee’s good and there’s no real alternative; but I have written this post!