HELLO Ruby Tuesday!

Every month or so, we’ve included Ruby Tuesday in our post-church Sunday lunch rotation. (exact location here). The kids are old enough now to not freak out that the chicken comes in real strips instead of molded nuggets, and will occasionally deviate from chicken tenders and find other things on the menu. My daughter even sneaks a piece of lettuce or so from my wife’s salad.

For us, the salad is the visit. The salad bar at Ruby’s is pound-for-pound one of the best you’ll find. I use the arugula mix and spinach leaves as my base, and add on whatever looks fresh from there. For the past several months, we’ve enjoyed the avocado ranch dressing.

Yesterday, it was not there.

I didn’t throw a fit, but I did let loose with a barely audible exhale. A passing server asked if I needed anything, and I told her there was no avocado ranch.

“We don’t make that anymore.”

I asked if there was anyone we needed to write to lobby for the return of the best salad dressing ever, and that I would buy this stuff if it were ever sold in the store. She said “Hang on, I’ll be right back.”

Within 20 seconds, Susan the manager walked up and said “We don’t make it anymore because it doesn’t stay fresh long, but let me see if we have any avocados in the back, and we’ll bring it to your table.”

I was amazed.

Not only did they bring it to the table, they gave me a take-home tub with the rest of the batch.

Good morning, corporate America. This is your Customer Service wake-up call. Rise and shine!

(This bout of sane customer relations is not an anomaly at this location. One day, when my son really wanted pizza, one of the servers made him some using texas toast, marinara, and mozarella already in the kitchen. He got a big tip that day, too…)