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« As Vince Lombardi might say, what we need is a new play book | Main | Ristretto Roasters »

August 12, 2005

A good sign

Ristretto_001A few days ago I wrote about an annoying sign posted at Powell's Bookstore in Portland, OR, so today I'm going to praise about a really, really cheerful and sweet sign I saw in the parking lot of Elephants Delicatessen.  In case you can't read the type in the picture, the sign says: 

Additional parking for Elephants customers available at Ringside Mon-Sat until 4PM Sun until 3PM. Thank you to Ringside for being such a great neighbor.

Elephants is a venerable, family-run delicatessen in Portland, OR, that serves a magnificent tomato-orange soup.  Ringside is an equally venerable steakhouse around the corner that serves the best onion rings I've ever had. 

This sign is great on many levels.  It tells you where you can park, and when.  It also, by inference, tells you when not to park in Ringside's lot, i.e., when they're open for dinner--but it does so without saying "no" or "don't" or sounding like a bunch of rules. And by thanking Ringside, Elephants gives the restaurant a gracious plug--saying, in effect, "Wouldn't you like to patronize this other fine establishment run by some other nice people?"

Unlike the sign at Powells, this sign assumes that you, the customer, are as much of a mesch as the people at Elephants and Ringside.  What good company to be in!  The world is a wonderfully delicious place, full of kind, honorable, thoughtful folk who appreciate good food and drink and gentle manners!

If Elephants had written the Powells coffee shop sign it would have read something like:  "Feel free to bring a few books to your table.... but please leave magazines and expensive art books outside (creases and crumbs, you know)." A sign like that would have made me smile instead of scowl.


August 12, 2005 in Management, Retail, services |

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