THE SECONDSERVING DIGEST

The SecondServing Team has been anxious to participate in 2011’s hottest trend: occupation. That’s why, in the spirit of bringing together a large group to occupy a small space, SecondServing is unveiling two new restaurants this week…on the same street!

And, while other occupations are characterized by pepper spray and sparse showers, Occupy Belden Place will feature sweet peppers and sparse showers (i.e., nice weather)!

Tonight, 11/17: 30% off food & booze at Plouf (FiDi | Belden Place)Wednesday, 11/21: 30% off food & booze at B44 (FiDi | Belden Place)

We are the 30%!

-SecondServing

For more info on Plouf & B44, including their menus:

http://www.secondserving.com/Restaurant/Plouf

http://www.secondserving.com/Restaurant/B44

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Here’s how to reserve a SecondServing table for TONIGHT or for Next Wednesday:

1) Dial 636.674.9399 (MEMORIZE-99) | Call after 11am

2) Enter the restaurant’s PIN: Plouf —> 4870 | B44 —> 8735

3) Request a rez from the host | Plouf: max party size is 6; discount is for reservations from 5:30pm-7pm | B44: max party size is 4; discount is for *all* reservations

That’s it! SecondServing will pump up the jams, and you’ll get the discount.

Please note that SecondServing guarantees discounts, not tables. DISCOUNTED SEATING IS LIMITED, so call early to secure your serving! And, if you can’t join us this time around, look for more discounts from Plouf, B44, and other great neighborhood restaurants coming online soon!

With market malaise, league lockouts, and London looting, it’s been a harrowing week for humankind. I’m proud to say it didn’t really get to me - the cynical media coverage, the disillusioned dinner conversation, the depleted brokerage accounts - that is, until last night.

It was while I was enjoying “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” when, to my dismay/embarrassment, the (human) crowd erupted in riotous applause…

…in support of the apes!

Really, humans? One down week is all it takes to endorse extinction?! No joke, one dude actually stood up and beat his chest when an ape chucked a police offer off the Golden Gate Bridge.

In an effort to restore order, happiness, and pro-humanity sentiments, SecondServing is bringing you 30% off at the “Best Pop-Up Restaurant” in SF Weekly’s “Best of 2011”

Tonight, 8/12: 30% off food (excluding alcohol) at EAT Restaurant (The Corner | The Mission | Mission St., @ 18th).

A portion of tonight’s proceeds will go to Fresh Approach, which empowers families at risk of hunger with the skills, knowledge and confidence to make healthy and affordable meals.

Two opposable thumbs up!

-Brett

For more info on EAT Restaurant, including tonight’s menu:

http://www.secondserving.com/Restaurant/EAT_Restaurant

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Here’s how to reserve a SecondServing table for TONIGHT:

1) Dial 636.674.9399 (MEMORIZE-99)2) Enter the restaurant’s PIN: 20583) Request a reservation from Crystal

That’s it! SecondServing will do its monkey business, and you’ll get the discount.

Please note that SecondServing guarantees discounts, not tables. DISCOUNTED SEATING IS LIMITED, so call early to secure your serving! And, if you can’t join us this time around, look for more discounts from EAT and other great neighborhood restaurants coming online soon!

**SecondServing SF Launch Announcement**
 
Dearest Gals & Guys,

Rick and I are thrilled to officially announce the beta launch of SecondServing(.com)!

Over recent weeks, we’ve released a pair of flash 30% discounts at two handpicked San Francisco eateries - dress rehearsals, of sorts, to ensure the proper functioning of our website and phone system. On both occasions, we were extremely happy with the reception of the service, both from eaters and from our gracious restaurant hosts - expect to see EOS Restaurant & Wine Bar and MoMo’s Restaurant offering-up more discounted tables to SecondServing members in the near future!

At this stage, we’re committed to gradual, controlled growth (more on our rationale in an upcoming blog post); to that end, expect for the Live Discount Stream to be relatively sparse in the coming weeks. We invite you to sign-up on our website to receive instant email alerts when new flash deals become available (and tell/bring your friends! www.secondserving.com/Invite-Friends).

We appreciate your continued support!

Serving you since now,
Brett

SecondServing = FirstRate

Well, that’s the association we hope people make: SecondServing stands for top-notch quality, service, and experience.

To that end, we’re doing whatever it takes to ensure that everything you consume is best in class. Sometimes that means reporting from hostile, war-torn, and politically unstable regions; other times it means doing cursory research and making uninformed inferences.

I’ve been thinking a lot about happiness these days, and specifically about how productivity and quality of work is influenced by corresponding levels of happiness, and vice versa. What’s more, many are asserting that the link between happiness and production is not unique to humans.

The California Milk Advisory Board, for instance, has spent no small sum trying to convince us that “Great milk comes from happy cows, and happy cows come from California.”

Does this mean that great bacon comes from happy pigs, that great wool comes from happy sheep…that great glue comes from happy horses?! I assume it does.

But where do happy horses come from? There’s no commercial for that.

Well, we know that Elmers Glue is headquartered in Ohio. We also know that Elmer must have been on to something because his glue is pretty great.

By the transitive property, ergo, happy horses must come from Ohio.

Happy Tuesday,

Brett

Also, if you haven’t experienced the putrescence wafting from Harris Ranch (a.k.a. Cowschwitz) along I-5 in Central California, you haven’t lived. An excerpt from the Wikipedia article:

Restaurant

The restaurant was targeted to local farmers when it opened in 1977, but later became popular due to its location on a busy highway midway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. As of 2008 the restaurant is the 57th busiest in the United States and sixth busiest in California based on gross receipts. The restaurant now features a “farm to fork” concept, featuring not only beef but wine and other products made locally by the ranch. A 153-room luxury Inn was added in 1987.

Public reception

The ranch is known to travelers for the “ripe, tangy odor of cow manure”, described alternately as a “horrible stench” and “a good, honest, American smell”. Food writer Michael Pollan was inspired to conduct the research on factory farming that lead to his seminal sustainability book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by the smell. The owner of Harris Ranch, in turn, threatened to withhold a $500,000 donation to California Polytechnic University if it sponsored a speech there by Pollan. In reference to the large number of cattle processed at its facilities, some critics have nicknamed the ranch “Cowschwitz”, comparing the slaughtering of cows to the slaughtering of Jews during the Holocaust at the death camp, Auschwitz.

(New) New Year’s resolution: dress up in a mouse costume, scurry into a wine bar, snatch a block of cheese from someone’s plate, and bolt.

We all have principles. Where we differ, from one person to another, is in the way we each uphold our personal collection of ideals and the degree to which we do so.

Some of us (the “royal us”) join the Peace Corps, some give to our favorite charities (some go the extra mile and start their own charities); others buy Prii (it’s official) or change their Facebook profile pics to “increase awareness” for the cause du jour (i.e., slacktivism).

Over the past few months, I’ve taken on the hobby (cause?) of sending snarky emails to combat offensive customer service. Worthwhile? Admittedly, probably not. Mildly entertaining? Mmmyes.

The astronomical growth of online group buying, and of Groupon in particular, has not taken place without growing pains. It’s becoming more difficult to find someone who hasn’t had at least one experience with a business that overextended themselves with a deal offering, not anticipating the unprecedented volume surge of new customers that would follow. Last week, I spoke to a friend who, after three months, still hadn’t been able to setup a massage appointment at a spa for which she had purchased a Groupon, despite calling half a dozen times and leaving several voicemails.

My first bad experience occurred with a Groupon I purchased from Barclay’s Wine ($25 for $75 of wine) at the end of 2010. I don’t fault Garrett, their (sole) customer support rep, but, for a company that seems to have launched Groupons in most major cities, I had difficulty tolerating their slow response times (~3-6 days, over a month after my order was supposed to have shipped). They must not broadcast Outsourced up in Bothell, Washington.

In any case, given the pleasure I derive from sending snarky emails, give me an inch and I’ll take a mile.

Here’s an except from my correspondence with Barclay’s Garrett:

[Jan. 28]

Me: Do you guys have an update on the status of my order?

[Feb. 3]

Barclay’s: Thank you very much for your order. It looks like FedEx has returned the package to us saying they couldn’t locate you. Can you confirm the address for us so I can double check this with you?

[Feb. 3]

Me: My address is listed correctly at the bottom of this email.

I never received email confirmation that the order had shipped (only that it had been processed on your site), and I never received any delivery attempt notifications from FedEx. My guess is that you weren’t anticipating the volume surge from Groupon and never sent it?

[Feb. 7]

Me: Any update on the status of my order? My likelihood of placing future orders on this site is decreasing with every (radio silent) passing day.

[Feb. 14]

Barclay’s: I am thinking that trying again should be fine. In the meantime, some of your items have gone out of stock, would it be ok if we substituted some wines of similar style or equal or greater value?

[Feb. 14]

Me: Sounds like trying again should work - thanks. Also, substituting wines is fine with me.

[Feb. 22]

Me: Any update on the status of my order? We’re quickly approaching the two-month anniversary of me buying five bottles from your site (which I’d celebrate with a bottle of your wine if I had one!).

Is there another email address I can contact to resolve this issue (e.g.,customerdisservice@barclayswine.com)? If the order still hasn’t shipped, could you please just cancel my order and ship me a refund?

[Feb. 24] 

Me: Greetings Garrett,

I’ll take this radio silence as your invitation to dispute the charge with Groupon and my credit card company and to submit scathing reviews in the blogosphere, Twittersphere, and several other applicable interweb spheres. I consider myself to be a reasonable person, but it’s been two months now and I’m very thirsty.

My wrath can be thwarted if you just.reply.and.ship.my.order.

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Kudos to Groupon, because I did end up sending them a message explaining the situation and they refunded me almost immediately. Their customer service rep even responded to my complaint with a witty, personalized one-liner! I had described Barclay’s customer service as inane/unhelpful, and, after I thanked Aaron and Groupon for their prompt and helpful support, he came back with:

Hey Brett,

[Insert inane/unhelpful mechanical response here]

Take care,

Aaron S.
Groupon Customer Support

Power to the Tweeple!
Brett 

Anddddd I’m back!

After spending the entirety of 2011-to-date in a state of incessant coughing, sniffling, and self-loathing, my immune system finally manned-up / woman’d-up (this blog is feminist-proof) and propelled me back into a state of modest productivity.

To my roommates, who had to endure a month of incessant coughing, I’m deeply sorry.

To any Kraft shareholders (Kraft owns Cadbury…Cadbury owns Halls…I consumed a gorillion dollars worth of Halls mentholated cough drops in the last month), you owe me one.

So goodbye Blogger’s Block and hello SecondComing of (Brett) Christ(opher Memsic)! And my salvation couldn’t have come a salivating SecondSooner, as the launch of SecondServing is exceedingly imminent and there’s much work to be done!

Yours in sickness and in health,

BCM

Kaya Sushi in El Segundo, CA was the site of my latest food faux pas.

I ordered green tea, and, when it came time for a refill, I naturally reached for the teapot in the middle of the table and poured myself a piping hot cup of….lukewarm soy sauce!

Initially, I decided it wasn’t fair for me to hold Kaya accountable for my cup (half empty) of soy sauce tea, as I was too oblivious to note the presence of the “saucepot” when I initially sat down. I just wasn’t accustomed to Japanese restaurants getting all crazy with their condiments.

The more I thought about it, however, the more I felt set-up!

Kaya’s decision to present soy sauce within a teapot is in direct conflict with the judgmental heuristics which we humans utilize to evaluate and simplify our surroundings. We process and categorize our past experiences and develop shortcuts, which subsequently influence our future actions - doing so allows us to successfully manage the otherwise overwhelming stimuli which surrounds us.

In general, using such shortcuts yields positive results. When I was younger, for instance, I watched a show about people from Roswell, New Mexico getting abducted by aliens. Since then, I’ve avoided Roswell at all costs, and I’m proud to say I’m still an abduction virgin!

But judgmental heuristics don’t always work out in our favor. I didn’t sample my soy sauce tea after pouring it, but I don’t expect to find SS tea on the cover of Tea Enthusiast Magazine any time soon.

So my revised opinion is that Kaya Sushi can really only blame themselves for all the soy sauce that’s surely wasted by unobservant tea drinkers like myself. In storing soy sauce in teapots, they’ve packaged something useful in a misleading way and betrayed customers’ trust in the process.

For the rest of the meal, I wondered whether I was being tricked (was it really teriyaki chicken, or some bizarre mixture of other things, like spam and rat meat?). It was a similar result to what I imagine would happen if your company hired a legitimate Nigerian prince to lead email marketing. It didn’t have to be that way, Kaya. It didn’t have to be that way.

Fortunately, this crime was victimless; the same can’t be said for my not-so-infrequent coffee spills.

Happy saki bombing,

Brett

Interesting/related aside: almost all restaurant wasabi is imitation

Note: Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini is a great read if you find behavioral psychology interesting. 

If I told you that six deaths and at least 18 hospitalizations resulted from a common cause during Japanese new year celebrations, which of the following would you suspect was the culprit?

(A) Her (click to open photo)

(B) Him

(C) It

If you put your yen on (C), you’re right!

If you had asked me to expound on the cultural significance of mochi before reading this article (source: guardian.co.uk), I would have told you that mochi’s singular purpose in this world was to provide unadulterated, bite-sized bliss to everyone fortunate enough to consume it.

But, since news of the “Mochi Massacre of 2011” began to spread, the mochi’s pristine reputation has been under siege.

I, however, will assert that the mochi was still acting under the best intentions this new year in Japan. Bear with me.

Exhibit A: The Aging Of Japan (source: Wikipedia)

“…the demographic shift in Japan’s age profile has triggered concerns about the nation’s economic future and the viability of its welfare state. In 1989, only 11.6% of the population was 65 years or older, but by 2007, that figure had risen to 21.2%, making Japan one of the ‘greyest’ countries on Earth.”

Note that all of the victims in the Mochi Massacre were between the age of 70 and 95. In a very real way, then, the mochi was doing its part to combat demographic imbalances and to right Japan’s exceedingly geriatric ship. If only more foods were this forward-looking!

Hope you’re off to a good start towards making 2011 the best year yet!  

Don’t choke.

Brett