The Battle of Ghirardelli Part 1

I had been waiting for months. My mouth watering, my mind spinning. I knew it would be one of the happiest days of the entire year.

It seemed like forever before it finally got here, but then before I knew it Christmas time was had come and I found myself at Downtown Disney in Orlando standing before Ghirardelli Ice Cream.

You may be familiar with Ghirardelli chocolate, it's soft, creamy and utterly delicious. The ice cream though is waaaay better. There aren't many Ghirardelli ice cream stores across the country however if you're lucky enough to be near one I hope you have tried it.

I was particularly excited on this occasion because I knew it was time for their famous pink peppermint ice cream to be available. Huge pictures of the peppermint ice cream sundae were on display all over the store.

If you have ever visited this Ghirardelli ice cream location in Downtown Disney you know that there are about 3.5 tables for people to sit at and it's always packed. Due to this reason I sent my loyal sidekick to find a table for what soon would be a party of 5.

Knowing what everyone wanted and with cash in hand I walked up to the register to place my order: 1 peppermint sundae, 1 waffle cone with 1 scoop of mint chocolate chip, 1 dark chocolate sundae, 1 waffle cone with 1 scoop of espresso chip ice cream. Total cost? $31.

I paid, took my number and found my loyal sidekick at our table in the crowded seating area. A few minutes later our party joined us and we began to wait for our ice cream creations.

The process at Ghirardelli is streamlined and simple. Employees take the order, it gets sent behind the ice cream making line and then runners deliver ice cream based on the order number.

I checked the clock anxiously, knees jittering, face sweating....after all I had been waiting ages for this sundae and it only comes once a year.

Tick, Tick, Tick.....10 minutes had gone by. No ice cream yet. The conversation at the table started to dwindle and our attention began to focus on how long it was going take for the employees to scoop our ice cream and bring it to our table.

5 more minutes went by. Lots of ice cream was being delivered to tables around us and none of it was ours. As I looked over the dining room people who had ordered after us had gotten their ice cream, yet we were still left sitting, waiting, and getting more and more irritated.

My loyal sidekick was especially getting frustrated. I won't reveal her true identity but just know that often times in her day to day tasks she gets rather warm, sweaty, and dramatic. The fact that we were in a crowded dining room, had been waiting over 15 minutes for ice cream and were starving wasn't helping. My loyal sidekick reached a breaking point and couldn't take it any longer.

She turned to me and said through her gritted teeth, "what is taking so long, it's been almost 20 minutes!". Before I could mumble an answer she went stomping up to the line to interrogate the hourly employees.

The conversation didn't look pretty and she came back looking more upset than when she had left. She turned to our table and reported that they had lost our order. She barked at me to give her the receipt and this time thinking she couldn't handle it alone I went up to talk to the employees with her.

When I arrived I questioned the one scooping ice cream and said, "We have been waiting 20 minutes for our order. Do you know what's going on?"

"We thought we lost it, but now we have it." she said.

"Ok, I responded, so you're going to make it now?" She mumbled disgustedly, "yes".

My loyal sidekick and I went back to our table a little relieved that they hadn't completely lost our order and that we would be getting our delicious sundaes soon.

Tick....tick....tick. A few more minutes go by and we see 3 more orders get delivered to other tables, none of which were ours. Thinking this was getting a little ridiculous I went back up to the counter to question what happened to our order.....since I was under the impression that our ice cream would be coming out next.

When I went to ask the same employee who said she would be making ours next she didn't even respond to me, just nodded her head as I asked if she was going to make our order. Dissatisfied with her lack of interest in this severe service error I went on a search for the manager.

I stumbled instead upon the Supervisor. Who was on the other side of the ice cream line. I explained the situation saying we had been waiting for over 20 minutes for our order of ICE CREAM and that the employee on the other end making them wasn't accommodating or helpful.

He didn't apologize but instead made excuses saying that a bunch of employees had called in today and they were short staffed. He also told me that they were really busy and he couldn't do anything about it.

What? You're short staffed? You're busy?

If you are so unable to operate your restaurant properly then why did you even bother opening?

Clearly this supervisor wasn't any better than the employee so I went looking for his boss. Then about 2 minutes later I met Tom, The Manager with his official black ear piece in and I questioned why it was taking over 20 minutes to get scooped ice cream, why his supervisor was making excuses and why all of his employees are disgruntled.

He turned from behind the counter and said........to be continued.