Page 66 - South Mississippi Living - May, 2024

Mind Your Manners
The Key To Being a Gracious Diner
Matt, Server at Mary Mahoney’s.
thrived in the Coastal restaurant scene for over 60 years, Mary Mahoney’s has experienced every type of customer and every type of situation.
Eileen Mahoney Ezell, owner of
Mary Mahoney’s, expresses that dining out should be a special experience for customers and stresses this point to
the restaurant staff. Ezell explains that communication from diner to server is essential, encouraging patrons to ask questions if they might be uncertain about a dish or kindly inform their waitstaff if they have any kind of concern. There
is a stigma often associated with being unhappy about your meal, but any restaurant cannot help right a wrong if they don’t know it exists.
Ezell also emphasizes to the staff the importance of engaging with customers by going above and beyond to ensure a pleasurable dining experience. Customer service is just that – service for customers. And it is important to Ezell that the staff at Mary Mahoney’s can engage as much or as little as the customer prefers. It’s a delicate balance, but a little bit of patience and open communication make all the difference.
So, the next time you’re dining out, remember that your server isn’t too different from you. A person at their job trying to do their very best. It’s easy to become frustrated or disgruntled when things run slightly amiss. However, it’s important to remember that we all make mistakes, we all have bad days, and, most of the time, we are all simply doing the best we can. A little love and a lot of grace can go a long way and it costs nothing
to be kind... which is stellar because everything else these days costs a lot!
Bon Appétit!
www.smliving.net | SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living
story and photos by
Kimberly C. Rasmussen
As I’ve traveled down this fun and filling role as food writer, I’ve experienced so many facets of the culinary industry that I never really considered when previously dining out. As customers, we mostly only experience one side of the dining process. We order, we eat, we pay. It’s pretty cut and dry. But there’s so much more going on behind the scenes that make up the
symphony of any dining out experience. People working at every level to ensure that we, as customers, have the most
enjoyable experience possible. But because we don’t see each step that
our food takes, it’s often easy to overlook all of the hard work that goes into every delicious bite.
Still, despite everyone’s best efforts, there are times when things just
don’t go as expected. We’ve all been there. Maybe the
experience wasn’t exactly
what we had in mind.
Maybe you had to wait longer than expected to place your order. Or
maybe when your food arrived, something was missing or incorrect about your meal. Perhaps your server wasn’t as helpful as you would have hoped. In all of these instances, the best of restaurant intentions can be overshadowed, leaving a bad taste – both figuratively and literally – in your mouth.
George Salad.
66 | May 2024
Mary Mahoney’s Old French House is a longstanding proprietor of all things culinary and customer service. Having