Free Day.... History Part 1

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As Customer Appreciation Day 2010 is upon us, I thought it timely to share some of the history, the reasoning, and some behind-the-scenes operational workings.  

  Most common question posed tomorrow?  Why in the world do you guys offer everyone a free meal?  Good question.  Short answer… to thank our customers in a tangible way for their patronage throughout the year.  

  Longer answer… good thing we have a blog!

  History

  Tim, Joe and I sit down frequently to talk about how things are going at the restaurants.  We are constantly challenging ourselves to move the bar higher, and to raise the expectations.  When we sat down one Friday in early 2000, we wanted to do something for our customers that was a) outlandish b) generous and c) not already being done better by someone else.

  Tim and Joe had come up with just such a promotion at The Coffee Plantation on Mill Avenue. There, they gave away free coffee and the results were amazing.  Thousands of people came out.  They all found it rather odd.  Most found the free gift to be generous.  Nobody was in the habit of giving away free stuff to thank their customers.  It was at CP, therefore, a very successful promotion.

  But would people come out for a free meal?  Hmmm.  We thought we would come up with a clever promotional tag line “There is such a thing as a free lunch” and give it a try in 2000.  But when?  May is, as certainly all of you recall (alright, 3 of you) National BBQ Month.  We thought Free Lunch Day might attract a few hundred folks, and we embarked on planning the first Free Lunch for Wednesday, May 17, 2000.   I think we opened at 11am as usual, and planned to serve a few hundred freebies, close up to stock for dinner, and open again at 4pm.  A few hundred quickly passed a thousand, and the final number came in at 1,248 free meals served.  Wow!  We were wiped out, but we had established the fact people will come out if you give them something worth coming for.  The goal the next year was to beat the number.  We did.  By 17.  We served 1,265 free lunches in 2001, and we started thinking about how we could amp up what was becoming a really cool social event in downtown Gilbert.

  The photo with this post is of our kids at Free Lunch 2003.  Many of our children have worked at the restaurants since the beginning, and the ones who still live in town still look forward to Customer Appreciation Day.

  More on the history later today.  Tad

About

Gilbert guy who walks with Christ, sells BBQ, and appreciates those who care enough about his random musings to occasionally read his blog.