Are you not being served?

Unhappy Kiwi diners will rarely complain on-site. Photo / Getty Images

When customers are as rare as rocking-horse droppings, doesn't it make sense to treat each one as a treasure? IT'S NOT as if I needed any more proof that the Professor is always right. She has a rule that you never enter an empty restaurant. It's empty for a reason, she reasons, and it's hard to argue with that.

Sometimes, of course, I have to screw up my courage and walk in anyway, driven by professional duty to find out why it's empty and report on the results. (When people tell me this is a cushy job, I always ask them when it was they last went to a restaurant specifically because people had told them how bad it was.)

Anyway, the place was empty, but it was not yet 6pm. I was on my way to a movie and was feeling peckish, so I ordered a glass of red and the cheapest thing on the menu - a hamburger.

That's when it all started to go wrong. The cheerful young waiter wandered off to the kitchen to place my order and forgot all about the wine until I reminded him. A young woman came in, sat at a nearby table, and ordered a cup of coffee. As both of us sat, reading silently over our respective libations, they dimmed the lights. I cooeed into the dim interior.

"Mate," I said, though it was not the form of address that had leapt immediately to mind. "There are two people in here and both of them are reading. Turn the lights back up."

The expression on his face was of one who had just had the meaning of life explained. I happily read on for a few minutes until the boss came in and dimmed the lights again. There seemed no point in complaining since my food had arrived.

It consisted of a cold, untoasted bun on one of whose two halves some store-bought aioli had been ineptly spread. The patty was a rissole, really, so globular as to make the dish's name a joke. The beef was of good quality, but unseasoned by any dash of imagination save salt and pepper. A large tablespoon of relish was plonked half-on, half-off this assembly, which was also adorned with good lettuce and tomato. The accompanying chips were tepid and soggy. It cost $17.50.

As I left, I apprised the boss - who was standing outside, presumably wondering why people kept walking past - of everything I've told you. She had the grace to look shamefaced and thank me for the feedback. As I passed the place again after the movie, I noticed it was empty, except for my vague waiter, leaning on the bar and staring into the yawning space.

The restaurant business was hard-hit by the recession and is still feeling the effects. But what never ceases to amaze me is the number of places that carry on as though these were boom times. I have not named the sad hamburger joint here because so many other places are just as bad and I am more concerned to ask a general question.

It is this: especially (but not only) when customers are as rare as rocking-horse droppings, doesn't it make sense to treat each one as a treasure, to deliver terrific food and impeccable service and make sure that any diner at your place goes out into the world to sing your praises?

We diners are partly to blame, of course, because we accept what we're given. We complain bitterly to each other about bad meals and indifferent service but we don't tell the restaurant concerned. It's not in our nature as New Zealanders: when the waitress asks whether "everything was all right with your meals", we tend to smile and say "yes" and resolve not to return. Then we vent our spleen on dining-out websites.

Time to rise up and speak up, I say. Don't wait for reviewers to do the job for you. Tell the restaurant what's wrong and what you want done about it and report their reaction as widely as you can.

And to the folks with the $17.50 hamburger: if your restaurant is empty night after night, it may not be the recession. It may be something you're doing - or failing to do - that's to blame.