By Isle of Wight Observer
I’m just about old enough to remember steam engines at the London railway terminals. Those giant machines seemed almost alive as they belched steam and smoke.
It’s been a while since any trains ran through Yarmouth Station; a bit like Island Line, I suppose, whose excuses rival Wightlink’s.
The old station at Yarmouth is now a beautifully restored café, and the man in charge is Philippe, a handsome Frenchman. The ‘Off the Rails’ menu was created under his watchful eye, and I’ve never eaten anything he served that wasn’t yummy! On a sunny Sunday morning, his ‘English’ breakfasts are a real treat – Absolument Fabuleux! Monsieur Philippe is justifiably proud of his charming station restaurant, but he doesn’t suffer fools gladly. His terse responses to unfair online reviews have become the stuff of legend. You know the sort of thing; spats like these are often reported in the press. The customer didn’t just nit-pick; they insulted the staff and food with a mean-spirited “nil point” verdict.
Café owners and managers are right to respond to rude people, and Philippe does it brilliantly. He’s blessed with a forensic memory too, so if someone claimed they arrived at 11am and were refused breakfast, he’ll know they actually showed up at 11.59, and made a terrible fuss. He’ll explain that, by then, breakfast was long over, the morning ingredients packed away, as the kitchen staff prepared for a busy lunch service from midday. Kitchens that transition from breakfast to lunch need time to clear away the bacon and eggs before preparing the fish and dauphinoise.
Reviews are sometimes the half-remembered experience of someone who didn’t get what they wanted. On occasion, they can be helpful, but they do have the potential to ruin your business.
My younger daughter tried to book some holiday accommodation recently, using a California-based website that we’d never heard of. The rate for the hotel she chose seemed suspiciously low, and, as she hovered, credit card at the ready, I quickly googled the reservation company. Not one single reviewer had a good word to say about them. Thinking they were saving money, people had booked through them, but, on arrival, found the establishment knew nothing about their reservation. If they were lucky the accommodation was still available, but not at the booked rate. If the customer was prepared to top up the amount to the actual rate, they could stay.
Many businesses live in fear of stinking reviews; a friend enjoyed consistent 5-star ratings until one wrote: “I wouldn’t touch them with a barge-pole.” On investigation, the reviewer had muddled them up with a similarly named business. The process of removing this stand-out rotten ‘review’ was very frustrating.
When basing a buying decision on assessments found on-line, you should look carefully at the surrounding ‘before’ and ‘after’ ones, to determine if the business just had an off day. As ever, I digress. Monsieur Philippe isn’t really responsible for ‘Off the Rails’ at Yarmouth Station; it’s someone else entirely. In 1963, Dr Beeching recommended the closure of 2,636 British railway stations, including Yarmouth. Fast forward 60 years, and, despite the great food offer, some of us wish they were still operational; much the way we feel about Island Line, I suppose.
In point of fact, a year after Dr Beeching’s devastating report, Harold Wilson’s Labour
government replaced the Tories, and promptly closed 1,400 stations that Beeching hadn’t mentioned at all!
On the platform at Yarmouth, sipping my cappuccino, I started wondering how long our slippery politicians have blamed each other for Britain’s disastrous railways? And more importantly, how on earth have we allowed them to get away with it?