Critiquing local businesses

We shop almost exclusively in Carrboro and Chapel Hill.  (The mister owns the business next to Whole Foods and is on the board of the Chamber of Commerce.)  It's the right thing to do.  In fact, I can brag right now about pulling off a fairly ambitious home renovation project using all Carrboro contractors with only one exception -- nobody in Carrboro cuts granite. 

As for endorsing or panning certain businesses, I would certainly participate in such a forum.   Let me start by endorsing Tim Peck & Artisans without qualification.  Every one is a perfectionist and a pleasure to have around.  Friendships blossomed.  

We should also be discussing how we build a network of good local businesses which promote & practice environmental stewardship, social justice, and local economic vitalization.

Jamie, a bike shop ought to provide excellent service.  This is not like a clothing store where the garment either fits or it doesn't.  The clerk who sells me a new top needs no expertise. The specialist who sells you a bike should make sure it's perfect.  Otherwise it's unsafe.

So go ahead and name the offending business.   

A thread to comment on local businesses?  Sure!  Why not!  This could be fun!  (Jamie, I agree with Catherine; just go ahead and name the bike shop if you want to gripe about 'em!) 

A couple of my own contributions:

(1) I'm not sure I've ever seen a service business where the employees look as regularly unhappy as the people who work at Foster's.  Both the one on MLK and the one up in Durham.  I'm not saying they're unpleasant to customers; they're not.  I'm just saying I've been going to both establishments for 10 years now and the folks behind the counter always look at least modestly bored and unhappy.

(2) Al's Garage rocks!  They're a bit pricey but I have found them to be absolutely reliable, which is really something precious in the auto repair business.

(3) The servers at Lantern are world-class.  Truly.  I don't know what sort of special training the owners of that restaurant give their wait staff, but they're doing something very right. 

(4) Haircuts at Moshi Moshi are fun.  Catlin is wicked funny.

(5) When I walk into Fitch Lumber, I feel like I'm walking back in time about 50 years, and not in a good way.  Something about the pictures of the men on the wall and the little pool of ladies clacking away on adding machines and the all-male (and all-white) sales force at the desks and in the aisles just makes it feel like a time machine.  It's not the folks themselves -- they're pleasant and helpful -- it's just something about the feel of the place, at least for me.

Ah, now we're getting somewhere.  I often wonder who trains the excellent restaurant servers we have around here -- Acme, Panzanella, Southern Rail, and Akai Hana for starters.  That's just about all of them, and the food is so good. 

For automotive service, Auto Motion (Ronnie Fantazo) just down from Al's Garage is a first-class operation.  Ronnie's calm voice on the phone is like therapy.  This in spite of the fact that I dislike my car intensely.  My sister swears by Al, who counseled her for years to get rid of her car the way a good friend would do.  Then he would fix it.  Again. 

I shop for clothes only where people know my name.  It's not that hard to remember, because I'm fairly extravagant.  Painted Bird in Carr Mill is one of those places.  So is Modern Times in University Mall.  I have a new dressing challenge, and the women in these destinations get excited whenever I find just the right thing.  

Wracking my brain to think of an establishment where I've been offended or gotten bad service lately, I can't come up with any.  My recent renovation project involved a ton of responsiveness, and I got it from everyone.  Maybe that's why I'm such a happy customer. Look for the testimonial in Carrboro Citizen sometime soon.  

Jamie,  thank you so much for your public thank you to our many locally owned businesses who work very hard to serve our community.   Chapel Hill-Carrboro is a very friendly environment for local proprietorships to flourish because of the high level of consumer awareness about their value to the larger community landscape.      

 I just want to point out a few things.   There are many of what you call "larger national chains"  who are good  community citizens.   It is a generalism  not entirely accurate to group the business community into an "us and them"  model.   For example, the Subway stores in this town are national franchises, but owned by local people who live and invest in this community.  They support many local initiatives while still being part of one of those "larger national chains' you mention.  (I used to own several of these stores myself, so that's why I use them as an example.).

 Trader Joes is another "not locally owned, larger chain"   that nonetheless has a commitment to the local communities in which they operate and has already contributed much to our local landscape.   Harris Teeter gives us all an opportunity every day to support the schools of our choice through linking VIC cards to specific schools.   

So "larger chain" and "local investment"   are not necessarily mutually exclusive.  Part of why we welcome all businesses in  our Chamber of Commerce is to bring them to the "local table"  and help them understand  the importance of investing locally in our community.   The more educated they are  about where they do business, and the more integrated  and tied in they are to local happenings,  the more likely they are to support local needs.    

 I want to give particular kudos to a few local businesses I like:  Harrington Bank, Grimball Jewelers, and The Chapel Hill Restaurant Group.  Not only do they give excellent service and a superior product, they also love and embrace this community and work hard to support it with their time and their other resources.     There are many others, but those three I know well and just think they deserve a big thank you. 

I have never been treated as disrespectfully and unfairly by any business as I was by the Herald-Sun.

 I subscribed to the paper for about 15 years and it was delivered  regularly for that entire time - until the last year or so. It was soon after they were bought by that company from Kentucky (or Tennessee or ?) and the new company cleaned house on many employees by unceremoniously dumping them. (Which, on a side note seemed like chickens coming home to roost because the cranky conservatives who ran the paper previously never saw a business decision they couldn't defend or a complaint against business practices that they couldn't deride). Anyway, we started getting the paper intermittently. We'd call and maybe we 'd get the paper delivered for a few days and then it would stop. We'd call again and maybe get a few scattered days of delivery. We did this about five times and then just gave up. A few months later I went to talk to the head of circulation and asked for a refund for the part of my subscription that they never delivered on (about $75). I was told by the nasty, scolding woman that it was my fault that the papers weren't delivered because I didn't call every day. She said they had no way of knowing if their papers were getting delivered and that I needed to let them know. I informed her that we did just that and that furthermore  nowhere in my subscription agreement did it say that I was repsonsible for administrating delivery and what business could possibly justify blaming the customer when a product or service was not provided as agreed, how pathetic it was that they didn't have any way of knowing if their product was delivered or not, etc., all the while she looks at me like a dog she'd like to kick again. And the entire circulation department is listening to her demented rant. The room had a feeling of gray ugliness. I was astounded. I meant to take them to small claims court to bring a little justice to their abusive practices, but time went by and I never did.

Worst business I've ever dealt with - hands down. There is no way that this was an isolated incident. The cancer in the building was palpable. I feel sorry for anyone working there. Even the twisted witch who runs her small franchise of hell in the circulation department.

I think the communication between circulation departments and delivery personnel can be extremely iffy, and my husband (who was an Omaha World-Herald paperboy decades ago) says it seems that it's gotten a lot worse in certain corners perhaps having to do with computerization and the scarcity of local delivery people (none of ours seem to live in Chapel Hill).

We'd subscribed to the Sunday NYTimes for a while when inexplicably it started to be delivered to our next door neighbor's yard (they weren't subscribers). I checked the bill -- correct street number -- and called every week for about 4 weeks. I always got a pro-forma apology call on Tuesday or Wednesday, half the time asking if we wanted 7-day delivery (no!). It went on for another month, and I told my neighbors they were welcome to read it if they'd just turn it over to us sometime on Sunday. I called every time and finally told the Times I would not pay for any Sunday it wasn't delivered to the correct driveway.

A supervisor called me back and agreed this was all awful, unacceptable, etc. But it still kept showing up next door. I sent back the next bill with a note on it saying I would not pay for mis-delivered papers -- got another supervisor's call, who sounded very apologetic and mystified. I told him if it happened one more Sunday, I was canceling the subscription.

It did, and I did.  I then got a flurry of "please come back" calls and promises to get it right, but I was just as happy to have an excuse to go down to the VisArt/Newsstand -- whose passing I mourn.

For 3-4 more months, my neighbor kept getting the free NYT -- which we shrugged about and shared. Eventually, the delivery stopped but I got one of those Christmas Cards from the delivery person in my mailbox.

I ignored it.