Why are patrons in restaurants not called customers?

[roadman65]

I often wondered why my bosses at the now defunct Steak & Ale Restaurant referred to our customers as "guests" and not the actual word.  Then again if you stay at any hotel, you are called the same.  You are a hotel guest or a resort guest, but not a customer or even a patron even after you give them well over 70 bucks (some as you know are well into the hundreds a night) to be there.

Guest is someone that you invite into your house or to a party.  A person who patronizes you is not a guest as you did not invite them.  Yet the food and hospitality industry calls paying customers who patronize eateries and lodging facilities as such.

[jeffandnicole]

There's hotels where a room goes for $70???!!!

[Max Rockatansky]

Didn't we hit on this with the Management Speak thread with Target starting all this a couple decades back?

[hbelkins]

Didn't we hit on this with the Management Speak thread with Target starting all this a couple decades back?

Yep, and I think I made the point that the word "guest," when used to describe a paying customer, is a bit misleading.

There's hotels where a room goes for $70???!!!

Sure there are. You just have to know where to look.  I'm pricing a Sleep Inn in Bessemer, Ala., for $56 a night.

[jeffandnicole]

Didn't we hit on this with the Management Speak thread with Target starting all this a couple decades back?

Yep, and I think I made the point that the word "guest," when used to describe a paying customer, is a bit misleading.

There's hotels where a room goes for $70???!!!

Sure there are. You just have to know where to look.  I'm pricing a Sleep Inn in Bessemer, Ala., for $56 a night.

That's more motel-ish than hotel-ish! (what the difference is...I'm not sure. Probably a gray line there between the 2 definitions)

[formulanone]

Didn't we hit on this with the Management Speak thread with Target starting all this a couple decades back?

I also recall Walt Disney's properties called everyone "guests", but it probably goes back further in the realm of hospitality.

At one of the fancier auto dealerships I worked for, every non-employee was a "guest" (at least we called you that when employees were "on stage").

It's just the service and retail industries' way of glorifying the process, and making people feel a little more welcome to spend. Of course, when they all do it, the meaning gets a bit lost.

[kphoger]

The mo- means you can motor up to your room door. Inside corridors automatically make something a hotel and not a motel.

[roadman65]

Its obviously a snob tactic to make one feel welcome and hb makes sense.  Even though you are a customer as you are paying to keep a business going, but the industry looks at as you are keeping us alive we are going to treat you well. 

As far as Disney goes they need to lower their damned prices for admission if they want to really make us feel like guests.  If you examine just how much of a person's paycheck goes to the single day admission now compared to twenty years ago, you will see that now you have to work more hours than back then.  However the supply verses demand scenario works and Disney knows that people want to visit their parks and therefore the market is there for what they ask, so they will continue to do it.

Its just like saying loss prevention over security.  The former sounds more nice than the latter even though the latter was the former for centuries.  Though I am not sure how far back the term guest has been in use as the names of security to loss prevention is an 80's thing just like Personnel to Human Resources is among other names that have changed.

The Motel verses hotel thing is funny too as also in a hotel you have a lobby where in a motel you have an office.  Then you have the term motor lodges and motor inns as well, however I think motor lodge was invented by the former Howard Johnson to show the motoring public that they are all on major highways and the fact all their rooms had a/c in them.  Motor Inn is more of a more fancier hotel probably with three or more floors and inside corridor.

FYI go to the McIntosh Inn in Allentown, PA on Airport Road off of US 22, and you have both inner and outer corridors.  The ground floor rooms are outdoor rooms where you pull your car up to the door, and the second floor is inside with a center corridor.  In addition the original Fairfield Inn motels, they had both ground and second floor rooms with doors outside and their third floor was an inside corridor.  I believe that Marriot had it that way as some rooms were fancier than the others and the one I stayed at back in 1990 in Morrow, GA put me in a room with a king size bed in it on the third floor which I why I assume that.

[roadman]

As far as Disney goes they need to lower their damned prices for admission if they want to really make us feel like guests.  If you examine just how much of a person's paycheck goes to the single day admission now compared to twenty years ago, you will see that now you have to work more hours than back then.  However the supply verses demand scenario works and Disney knows that people want to visit their parks and therefore the market is there for what they ask, so they will continue to do it.

"And someday, a mouse will rule the world."
"Oh, you mean like Orlando?"

from Pinky and the Brain

[roadman65]

As far as Disney goes they need to lower their damned prices for admission if they want to really make us feel like guests.  If you examine just how much of a person's paycheck goes to the single day admission now compared to twenty years ago, you will see that now you have to work more hours than back then.  However the supply verses demand scenario works and Disney knows that people want to visit their parks and therefore the market is there for what they ask, so they will continue to do it.

"And someday, a mouse will rule the world."
"Oh, you mean like Orlando?"

from Pinky and the Brain

That mouse did however bring sprawl to our state, so they were indeed a ruler in another sense.

[rm politics -S.]

[hbelkins]

Its just like saying loss prevention over security.  The former sounds more nice than the latter even though the latter was the former for centuries.  Though I am not sure how far back the term guest has been in use as the names of security to loss prevention is an 80's thing just like Personnel to Human Resources is among other names that have changed.

Any time one of our employees is involved in an accident involving a vehicle or piece of equipment, they are summoned to what is called a "loss control" meeting. I'm not fond of this practice. It's almost like the employees are being shamed. And I don't think the term "loss control" is especially appropriate for this situation.

FYI go to the McIntosh Inn in Allentown, PA on Airport Road off of US 22, and you have both inner and outer corridors.  The ground floor rooms are outdoor rooms where you pull your car up to the door, and the second floor is inside with a center corridor.  In addition the original Fairfield Inn motels, they had both ground and second floor rooms with doors outside and their third floor was an inside corridor.  I believe that Marriot had it that way as some rooms were fancier than the others and the one I stayed at back in 1990 in Morrow, GA put me in a room with a king size bed in it on the third floor which I why I assume that.

The Best Western in Frankfort, KY is like that. I've seen some other places that are similarly laid out.

[roadman65]

It really don't make a difference in a two story job that the second floor is inside or out as you cannot pull up to it with your car.  The ground floor makes all the difference.

I saw a motel in Arlington, VA (the old Holiday Inn on Glebe Road) that had been built on a hillside.  The both buildings had three floors on one side and two on the other.  So the ground floor had only rooms on half the building while the other half the ground was the second floor.  In other words you could be on the ground floor and walk around to the other side and be on the second. 

Then the other building was higher up so its lowest ground floor was even with the first buildings second floor.  Its kind of hard to explain but the lower building's lowest ground floor was two stories below the second building's highest ground floor.  Picture two buildings with two ground floors on both sides that are on two levels just like some shopping malls are built where the lower level is the ground for one side while the upper level is the ground for the other side.

The motel is now gone according to GSV as some developer built a complex of townhouses on it with some retail and food establishments.

[kphoger]

I'm simply picturing a hotel on a hill.  That's basically the idea, right?

[roadman65]

I'm simply picturing a hotel on a hill.  That's basically the idea, right?

Yeah actually it was.  Come to think of it most of Arlington, VA is hilly especially around Shirlington on I-395 where you have that creek creating a valley there.