Cora’s is Corporate Crap

I’m not one for New Years resolutions, because I believe if it’s good enough to start once the year turns anew, it’s good enough to start anytime. Why wait? But, something happened to me this morning and it made me realize I’m going to start doing it all the time. Speaking up for what’s right when it comes to any corporation.

This morning I went to a breakfast/brunch place called “Cora’s”. I haven’t been in probably a decade, but it was what was open and available. It wasn’t my first, or even second choice, it was the simply the only choice. I just wanted some bacon & eggs with hash browns, a good greasy breakfast. What I got was enlightenment.

It Was Doomed From The Start

I swear, I woke up in a happy mood, at most, barely hungover. I felt great, honestly. Hungry, I ventured to Cora’s with a friend and before I even sat down I knew this was going to suck. They were slammed, servers running everywhere. Probably wildly understaffed with people calling in sick, on-top of the fact head office probably understaffed them on purpose to keep costs low and profits high.

The menu was shocking. Where the fuck is the bacon and eggs? Shouldn’t I just be able to choose X eggs, with some sides? No. Sure the usual stuff was there, but so much was pure sugar based. Pancakes, waffles, crepes. Just give me a damn omelette or runny eggs. Hell, I’ll even take a club sandwich with home-fries, but that’s nowhere to be seen. Instead, it’s Breakfast pizza (whatever the hell that is) and skillets of corned beef. Nobody asked for this crap. Whatever. I find something that seems reasonable. 3 eggs, 3 bacon, 3 sausage, potatoes, and toast. What could that cost? Well, it’s $22.65. Are you fucking kidding me right now? I didn’t dare look at what a glass of orange juice from concentrate would cost and opted for water.

What showed up was a complete disgrace. 3 of the most measly pieces of bacon I’ve ever seen. The sausages looked completely unappetizing and full of filler crap. Calling what I got 3 eggs would be a very generous stretch, at best, it was 2. The “potatoes” were just cheap fried potatoes, and there was no more than 1/2 a cup. HALF A CUP. The plate should be overflowing. $22.65.

Let’s Eat This Crap

Began choking down these moderately cold eggs, then took a bite of the potatoes. Cold. Soggy. Not even remotely crisp. The bacon was tasteless, the saddest swine that ever lived. But, when I bit into the first sausage that was the end. It wasn’t cold. It was ice cold. I don’t mean room temperature, I mean it was cold as if it just came out of a fridge and put onto my plate. The second sausage, same thing. The third was cold inside, and slightly warm on the outer, as if it was pulled from a fridge then spent 2 minutes under a heat lamp.

The Turn

It was at that moment that a waiter strolled by and causally said “all good?”. I just looked at him and said “no, not at all”. Alarmed, concerned, he asks what’s up. I literally pickup the sausage and hand it to him “feel this”. His face said it all. Pure disgust, disappointment, failure, embarrassment, and shame all wrapped into one. “I’ll fix this”, he says. I told him no need, but I can’t accept this plate and I won’t be paying for the meal. He nodded immediately, told me there was no way I’m paying, and started down the road of offering me the entire house for free. “I don’t want you leaving hungry. Let me make you a smoothie, or an omelette, or whatever you want”. “No, it’s seriously OK. I appreciate it, but it’s not needed. I’m just going to have this toast and deal with it”.

He came by no less than 2 more times to double check I didn’t want anything, and then also assured me that not just me, but also my brunch partner wouldn’t be getting a bill. The waitress came by and apologized. Their only ask : “Please don’t lambaste us on Google Reviews, it would mean a lot to me”.

It’s funny he’d say such a thing. Why would he care? Just some waiter at a shitty breakfast chain. It’s just a crappy job, why would he care about the Google reputation of that place? Well, I have a theory.

Whomever owns that franchise, or head office is going to read that review. They’re not going to read this is an issue with under-staffing and creating an environment that breeds failure, but instead that it’s a failure of all of these wildly overworked and underpaid slaves slinging shitty breakfast food off the back of a freezer truck at an insane markup while being paid minimum wage. Who’s going to get shit on? That poor guy. It’s not his fault. He’s doing his best, when he’s been setup to fail from the get-go.

More Proof This Is A Corporate Problem

You know what a breakfast restaurant absolutely, for no reason ever, would need? A fucking robot that drives around the place delivering trays of food only for a server to walk behind it to unload this stupid thing onto the table. I took one look at this thing and began laughing. It was the dumbest shit I’ve seen in a few weeks, and I see a LOT of dumb shit. The only thing it was missing was a big balloon tied to it reading “Powered by AI!”.

Anyways, this brilliant invention left the kitchen where we were sitting directly beside it. Drove about 5 feet then ran into an empty chair at table where a senior man sat alone enjoying his coffee. That chair could have EASILY have been occupied by an elderly partner or friend. The waitress comes over, tries to reposition the robot, but because it weighs like 200lbs, she can’t. She’s forced to tell the man he has to get up, then she moves the table so this stupid robot can proceed on it’s course.

Is that helping, you C-suite dumb-asses? Is this really better? What money are you saving, you fucking dolts. The only thing I can possibly see here is that they’re testing this nonsense out and once they work out the kinks, it’ll be bye-bye wait staff.

You’ll walk into the place, tap on a kiosk where it’ll assign you a table, and give you a map to get there. You’ll order off an app on your phone and type in your table number. Payment will be instant before you get your meal. You can use ApplePay or AndroidWallet “for your convenience”. Don’t worry, it’ll still prompt you for a 20% tip. You’ve yet to talk to a single human being.

20 minutes later some shitbot will show up and in the most programmed and monotone voice say “Bon Appetite!” as it’s little LED screen smiles at you. You’ll extract your food from it’s warming box chest cavity and you’ll proceed to choke down whatever slop arrives. When the meal is done you’ll press a button and the robot will come back, where you load your dirty dishes before you ultimately leave. Finally the robot will come back, and in one motion squeegee the table down and set it as available.

What employee is thinking “I love this thing! It’s so helpful!”. Not a single fucking one, I assure you. This is a pure management choice, very clearly being trialled by head office. They are so fucking out of touch with what people want it’s not even funny. This entire thing is driven by trying to boost profits. The moment they are able to largely automate the place, they’ll go to their stockholders and scream “we have fully integrated AI into our establishments, look at us go! We’ve cut labour costs by 70%!” and then they do their best impression of a money machine going “brrrRrrrrrRRrrRRRrrrrrrrrrRrrrrRR”.

Who’s Corporate?

Glad you asked. It’s Recipe Unlimited Corporation, the people who bring you such beloved purveyors of shit such as Swiss Chalet, Burger’s Priest, and The Pickle Barrel. All brands that used to be incredible and staples, putting out great stuff, until they got gobbled up by the never-ending hungry belly of capitalism and venture capital.

Remember going to Swiss Chalet as a kid? That chicken was amazing, the fries were to die for, and the sauce was just the right spicy. I LOVED the garden salad, which, for a kid was saying something. Hell, I worked at a Swiss Chalet for a couple months and ate everything. I haven’t gone into one of those restaurants in 20 years. 10 years ago the company I was with at the time would order lunch for the staff every Friday. Swiss Chalet was the choice a few times – and each and every time the orders would be wrong, to the point we never ordered from them again. I remember lusting after the fries, and then what showed up was always this massive let-down. About a year ago I got this undying urge to have that childhood feel-good meal again. Garden salad, quarter chicken dinner. I nearly puked. The salad tasted like plastic, the lettuce was all wilted and soggy, the shaved carrots and cucumber wheels totally oxidized, and that dressing was the cheapest oil they could source. The chicken was horrible, the fries were cooked in what tasted like month old oil, and the fabled chalet sauce was reconstituted from powder, I’m CERTAIN of it.

Burgers Priest is another fine example. They were -the- smash burger when there wasn’t smash burgers in Toronto. They expanded, then got bought by Recipe Unlimited Corp. Almost overnight the quality dropped to trash. The restaurants have gone WAY down and are filthy. The cheese they use is horrid now, the buns are soggy messes, and the quality of the beef has plummeted. I won’t even begin to comment on the level of service in the restaurant, or how long it takes to get your order (think 25-30 mins), which simply means they’re grossly under-staffed.

What’s The Solution?

Simply put, don’t eat there. And, I never plan to again. I boycott almost all chains at this point. Sometimes I’m left with no choice, and in the past year I’ve had more than 30 or 40 corporate lunches. They’re almost always at a place like Moxies, or Harpers Landing, Turtle Jacks, or whatever corporate restaurant chain is close to the client’s office. Even at these “higher end” places, it’s the same crap. Drastically overpriced food, very specifically set menus with stuff off the back of a truck, only prepared with a bit more care and a better presentation. It’s just the “high end frozen food truck”. And, you pay for it. I like to call it the Chicken Sandwich & Calamari index. At every single one of these corporate lunch spots there’s always a chicken sandwich of some type, and calamari. I take a lot of interest in the price and portion sizes across these joints. Chicken Sandwiches range from $22 to $29 and calamari is $18-$25 on average. The chicken sandwiches are almost always the same sizes and general presentation, and frankly are quite good. I always opt for the ceaser salad over fries ($4-6 up-charge). Calamari however is a wild ride. Sometimes the quality is horrid, other times it’s insanely perfect. The sauces range from disgusting to wanting to stick my tongue in the ramekin to get every last swipe if it wasn’t for a client I am trying to be cordial in-front of sitting across the table. And, the portion sizes range from overflowing plate to “Uhh, so I guess we all get one piece” at a table of 6.

Frankly I don’t care about these corporate lunch places as I’d never eat there if it wasn’t for it being a corporate lunch. I try and suggest places that are privately run when possible, and once in a while I know there’s a banger chef run joint nearby and promise them it’s not going to be the same crappy lunch, and they’ll love it – they always do.

But, how do we fix the problem? Crying to corporate probably won’t do much good. All they care about is profits. I don’t believe even with enough criticism and establishments being forced to close would they change course. We can all boycott these places, or call head office and bitch and complain all we want, but it will be all for not. We’ll just be making some poor customer service person’s day just a little shittier. The stock holders will drive it into the ground while extracting as much value and money from it while they can. It’ll be the same story as usual with venture capital. They care not about the brand, just what they can take from it.

What Now?

Writing this I realized something. That poor guy who took that sausage from my hand. What about him? I never treated him badly. I didn’t cause a scene. I simply spoke up for myself and refused to let myself sit silent for a meal that was disgraceful. And, I’m not going to let myself get walked all over by the enshitification of society wherever I can, because it relies on people not speaking up. I won’t be one of them. I’m going to fight for what’s right, and I won’t be taken advantage of

But, that doesn’t mean I have to be a dick to people who don’t deserve it. That guy didn’t put that sausage on my plate, or say “let’s cut the portion sizes”. He’s just some poor bastard who was forced to work the New Years Day shift, under-staffed, and slammed. He was probably there since 7am, and now it was 2pm. He was an hour away from the place closing and a sense of peace in his life again. He was counting the minutes, and then along comes me with the sausage that just capped off the shittiest way he could start his year. Yes, I was a little short when I brought it up. I was really fucking upset. I could have been nicer, for sure. Although, I was nice. I just could have been nicer. I, and everyone else can always be kind and empathetic to others. When I first pointed it out to him, I assured him I wasn’t mad at him, just the situation. I told him it wasn’t his fault. When the waitress came around and apologized, I assured her I wasn’t mad at her, and it most certainly wasn’t her fault either. When the guy came back for the second time, I literally stood up, put my hand on his arm and said again “It’s totally OK. Seriously. I’m not upset. Shit happens. I understand. I just have to stand up for myself, that’s all”. He thanked me.

We left, and I’ve bee thinking about the whole interaction all day. It’s now I realized him and that poor woman probably had the shittiest day, and to top it all off, they never got tipped on my table. I wasn’t even thinking about it at the time. That sucks. I got a free meal, what am I doing exactly? I hate tipping culture just about as much as I hate venture capital, but in the same breath I feel fucking bad.

So, I’m thinking tomorrow I’m going to call them and find out when that dude is working again. I’m going to walk over and give him a hundred bucks. He was nothing but kind to me. He could have handled that situation many ways, but he chose the compassionate and understanding route. That guy isn’t working there because he loves scrambled eggs, senior citizens, and cheap tippers. He’s probably a single father trying to make ends meet. I bet this is his second job. Who knows, but I’m certain he hates it. Nobody does that by choice. What’s a hundred bucks to me? I would have spent $50 on that breakfast, probably $70 with tax and tip. But, what’s a hundred bucks to him? Probably a lot more. However, what I want him to really know is that I appreciated him. He was just a dude having a really bad day, capped off with another load of shit dumped on him that he never asked for.

Fuck the corporations. Love the people. They aren’t the corporations. Stand up for yourself, be assertive, but be kind.