Bambi-deer-in-the-headlights time again

[lordshipmayhem]

Remember the free Harvey's Hamburger giveaway on the Sunday of last year's con? The line that looped around the building twice? How they ran out of hamburgers? The look of Bambi-deer-in-the-headlights sheer unadulterated terror on the faces of the poor bastards opening the store that day?

How sure we all were that the Harvey's chain wouldn't pull a stunt that stupid again?

Well, let's just put it this way: Never underestimate the stupidity of the human race.

Edit: Put in the postal code M9W1J3 (no spaces), which is the Doubletree Hotel's Postal Code.

Comments

[fpelayo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was wondering if those guys were serious about doing at that location when I saw the event listed on Facebook last month.

More reason for me to have lunch at home and arrive late on Sun. :P

[sandwichboy.livejournal.com]

I'm really not sure why you think this is a stupid move for them. It got tons of people into their restaurants, and they now know that there's a huge annual con on that day so they can overstock to adjust. One way or antother, it's going to make them money. Since they're willing to give away MILLIONS of hamburgers for one day, I'm willing to hazard a guess that cost isn't an issue, and as someone that's worked in the hospitality industry I can say that dealing with huge events that require you to be going full tilt for an entire day while the mongol hordes descend upon you, is really not unusual and something you learn to deal with.

[lordshipmayhem.livejournal.com]

1) Good marketing 101: You don't give away product when you have a more-or-less captive market. The participating stores are mostly in areas where a typical Sunday provides them with low volume, and the giveaway will earn them significant additional income from sales of complementary fries, onion rings, drinks and so on. The exception is the Dixon Road store: any other Sunday, like the weekend after the con, the volumes would be more typical (and quite low). But this isn't Any Other Sunday. With just four affordable restaurants (Harvey's, Subway, Tim Horton's and the Italian joint across the street) and 17,000 mostly poverty-stricken university and high school students descending on the area, this particular Harvey's has all they can handle without resorting to any giveaway.

2) None of those four restaurants historically have prepped for anything like the mobs that Anime North sends descending upon them, despite the fact this will be what, the fourth year running at the Congress Centre? I don't anticipate this year to be much different. It would be a pleasant surprise to discover Harvey's were prepped for the Sunday mob, but based on past history I'm not anticipating it.

Heck, Harvey's could have made a mint over the weekend with breakfast, but when they stopped that through the rest of the year at that restaurant, they couldn't be bothered doing anything during the con. I'd have brought in a special crew and supplies, even if I had to borrow the staff from other franchisees, just for the Con weekend. My restaurant's going to be there anyway, this is additional revenue by the bucketload.

So I anticipate that Harvey's will be as inundated as they were last year if not moreso, and just as ill-prepared.

[sandwichboy.livejournal.com]

Your solution would be to change a massive promotional campaign across the two most heavily populated provinces in the country based on one single location in Toronto? Or should they simply not offer it at that one location because it'll be busier than normal. From the corporate office perspective, neither option is worth their time in the slightest. And your assertion that none of the four restaurants have been prepped for a mob the last 4 years is spurious at best since I've gone to all of them several times, and they're always heavily staffed and in constant motion. Really though, there's only so much prep you can do for the crowds we have, and only so many people you can cram into a tightly packed kitchen and serving counter. Eventually it gets crazy busy and you just put your head down and cope. Which is what they've done. Now if we could just deal with the garbage issue...

It's a promotional campaign far larger in scope than one con in one tiny corner of Toronto. Not giving much of a shit for that doesn't strike me as stupid, but simply pragmatic and cost effective from their point of view. I doubt the people working at the location will see it that way, but that's the problem with being the smallest cog in the machine.

[lordshipmayhem.livejournal.com]

Actually, this monster cross-country promotion is specifically at "select locations only", so it is possible for them, if they had have had the forewarning that a simple phone call to the Congress Centre would have given them, to have dropped THIS Harvey's from the list of participating locations. They haven't, so they need to have enough ground beef, buns & fixings available, if they don't then they end up with unhappy customers and lost sales.

Enough supplies and staff to meet the demand. *That* is my solution. They don't have the time anymore to drop this franchise from the list of participating outlets.

[sandwichboy.livejournal.com]

And you should know full well that there's no bloody way they could EVER hope to have "enough" staff or supplies for 17,000 people in one day. The best they could hope for would be to serve a thousand or so more, so the only way they could avoid a headache would be to remove them from the event entirely. And it's not like these people are unaccustomed to spikes in service...it's next to one of the largest convention centers in the province, which is likely busy every single weekend in some capacity.