scenes from an italian restaurant
Carmine's - a small traditional Italian cafe/restaurant in my old home town of Aberdeen - small menu, but brilliant at two things – pizza and pasta.
I first went there about nearly 20 years ago with the now MrsP. After our lunch Carmine told me 'this girl is a-nice, you bring her again, not that other one' (refering to another not so polite girl i had brought in the previous week!)
The reasons we love Carmine's are:
- the tinny cassette player blaring out Opera...
- Carmine does the cooking and serving himself while singing along...
- We were poor so Carmine brought sneaky glasses of wine (it's unlicensed) when we couldn't afford to bring our own in...
- The size of portion you were given was directly proportionate to your own size (huge Calzone for me)...
- Carmine comes over and shouts at you if you don't finish all your pizza...
- Despite being a regular for 10 years I was still called 'Ronnie' even though he knew fine what my real name was...
- Potential customers who only wanted coffee were chased out of the door...
- 'Poison' coffee (sneaky Sambuka!)...
- The cafe was across the road from the main Theatre in Aberdeen. The cast of whatever was on were often in there between performances (the walls were covered in signed photographs)...
- He closed at 7pm - daytime trade only so no bother from drunks etc...
lessons for marketing?
Carmine never advertised, ever - All w-o-m.
The turned-on-it's-head 'customer service' was legendary - people lined up just to get shouted at.
The one-size-fits-one approach to portions!
He never pandered. If you don't like it go to pizza hut.
People love authenticity.
The opposite of great is not 'bad', it's average. Average is invisible.
Anyway, I heard that Carmine is retiring this year. It will be a sad day when the last customer is chased out the door.
apologies for the blantant use of a Billy Joel reference as the title (I'm on a rediscovery of early Billy Joel, it's a phase that will pass, i'm sure).
