"telling tales" on a dear old friend.....

Writing this post almost feels like I'm "telling tales" on a dear old friend, but circumstances have become so dire, that I think this "tale" is warranted...

The place I'm speaking of is Frisch's on Shelbyville Rd. in St. Matthews. Now this restaurant and I go back a ways - - *quite* a ways, back to when it was known as "Waggener Frisch's" in the early '60's. Back then, it seemed like almost every high school had it's own Frisch's - - Waggener Frisch's, Seneca Frisch's (@ Hikes Point), Atherton Frisch's (@ Bowman Field), St. X Frisch's (Poplar Level), etc. Virtually all of them are gone now, but "Waggener Frisch's" has survived and, I thought, had prospered.

But for no reason that I can ascertain, there's been a really negative turn in quality of service over the past few weeks. Three examples:

A solo visit by me, mid-afternoon / midweek about 3 weeks ago resulted in me sitting at the counter and seeing the food window way overloaded with orders (including mine) waiting on servers to get them out. It was a complete disaster and when I finally got mine, it was messed up....
I offered to pay for the coffee before I left, but - to her credit - a *very* frustrated waitress spotted me the coffee.

A week later, I was back late afternoon with 3 guests. We all had burgers & stuff, but again, they looked well understaffed, the food window was a disaster and it was 1/2 hour getting the burgers from a waitress that we never saw again until I headed for the checkout. One of my guests posted a "medium" review on Google and got barked at by Frisch's for doing it!

Then, about 3 days later we went in for brunch on Labor Day. I figured it would be crowded, but I figured they would have their breakfast bar and that might be quicker than ordered service. Well, I *may* have been correct in my assumptions, but it wouldn't make any difference if you can't get seated! As in, we stood alone at the front desk for about 5-10 minutes - we were the only one's waiting to be seated - and when I saw that no one was acknowledging us, we decided to head out.

And then I see that the "new" Hikes Point Frisch's has closed down - - "new" in that it's only been open 2-3 years? - - and that situ makes me wonder if St. Matthews is the next to go....
It really such a shame because the food is just as good as it ever was - a good value, too - and some of the staff there are really a pleasure deal with. But for some reason the turnover in servers looks to be huge and the customer experience had dropped off significantly.

Gawd, the stories and memories I have from my teenage years at that place. It truly is a Louisville icon, but unless they make some *radical* changes there - - and soon - - hard to see them lasting very much longer...

I spent years managing restaurants, so I have a bit of insight into what goes on behind the scenes, and I currently do the occasional UberEats and DoorDash when freelance work is slow, so I visit quite a few restaurants. I've picked up several orders from the St. Matthews Frisch's.

I'd say at least half of the restaurants where I pick up delivery orders suffer from severe staffing shortages. I've seen several major chains simply shut down in the middle of the day because they don't have enough staff to operate. I've also waited for an hour to pick up an order because a server was manning the grill after the cook called out.

Staffing has always been an issue in the restaurant business but it seems to have gotten considerably worse. I'm not sure if it's a pay issue, if there's too much competition or kids these days just don't want to work.

As far as Frisch's goes, there's one about two blocks from where I live in Fern Creek. I've been living out here for 14 years and have only been there once. It just never occurs to me to go there.