So today, I was feeling like a diner breakfast so I walked a block to the Chelsea Square Restaurant. From the outside you may not like its appearance; same inside. But set aside the looks and instead focus on the service and the food. Its a diner, remember!
The food is better than most diners. Particularily the fresh toast. Delicious thick Challah bread, dipped in a milk egg batter with cinnamon. It was toasted perfectly. Perfectly! I really don’t think I’ve had better fresh toast before in my 40 year old life. They had more pedestrian syrup so bring your own maple syrup to make it “off the charts”.
Last night, I ordered a soft taco from Castro’s. I normally get a burrito; they’re amazing. It came in a foil wrapper with a warm taco inside. The corn or flour wrap around it was very thin and multiple layers; like phyllo dough.
It smelled delicious, so I chomped down eating it. Yummy. As I was chewing, I noticed a few hard spots in the wrap. So I pulled them out thinking that maybe they were overcooked. I ate another bite, then another, then another; still finding the occasional hard spot.
Then it hit me. I was eating a translucent paper wrapper around the flour wrap.
I just ordered a Domino’s Pizza online. I’m not feeling well today and I’m hibernating. At the end of ordering online, I was given an amazing meter, the “Pizza Tracker”, which told me at what stage in the process my pizza was currently, when each started, and who was doing it. It updated this all in real time!
It makes sense that Domino’s Pizza, a very successful company, would instrument and measure every step of their process. Now, they’ve smartly exposed some of that to the customer to inform them of progress; its fun and entertaining.
I got my pizza within 30 minutes and since I was working on some other computer things, I could see the progress. Its mesmerizing. When I noticed each stage complete, I got more excited. And when I saw it was in the car being delivered to me. Wooooo!
The delivery guy was great. He called a few minutes before he got to my place saving us both time. I walked down to meet him and he zoomed up to my door and jumped out. He greeted me and I signed the receipt. The whole thing took less than a minute. My ordering and delivery experience was excellent.
After now eating a few pieces of the pizza, the pizza itself could improve. There was too little italian sausage when compared to the amount of tomatoes and mushrooms also on it. Also, the distribution of toppings could be more consistent. Yes, I know that humans make this pizza (humans…right?) so distribution and amounts could vary. So what can I do about it? That same nifty Pizza Tracker lets me rate my experience in four areas (ordering, delivery, taste, and will I recommend) and allows me to give written feedback. I provided all.
Clearly, Domino’s is striving for a consistent, high-quality, and predictable product. There is always room to improve. However, its not always cost-effective. Domino’s is gathering the metrics (I wonder if this is a Six Sigma project) and with them, they can make smart decisions. For example, if this pizza prep person gets statistically significant lower taste ratings, they could re-train or discipline them. These metrics could be used to compare stores to each other. Or perhaps, determine if the order or delivery step significantly influences if someone recommends Domino’s. Can you tell I have 13 years of high-end project management experience?
This has been a fascinating peer into some of the inner workings of Domino’s Pizza. But I’m done; with both my pizza and this post.
I’m completely hooked. The best pancakes on the planet are made by B&H Dairy. I get either banana or strawberry. I think the two behind the counter have a running bet between each other to guess my flava’ of the day. I also get a side of two scrambled eggs. That and my daily NY Post makes for a wonderful way to start my day.
I really do like the tree lined streets between avenues here in the city. Walking around, I saw a dog without his master. Sad. You could see he was anxious.
After breakfast, I camped out at Whole Foods. They have a good internet connection unlike the Time Warner Cable crap I have in my sublet. Cable internet is horrible in dense urban areas. Why? Because they oversell their capacity and each person ends up with very little bandwidth. Its exactly like airlines overselling flights. They make more money but don’t get passengers to places on time and anger them. Just like Time Warner Cable doesn’t download my data on time and angers me.
Back to Whole Foods…and IRAs. After I sold my primary house in Seattle, I took the proceeds are have invested them in some aggressive mutual funds. All funds outside the US because growth and strong currency outside the US is the way to go for the short term. I’m also researching moving my old Microsoft 401(k) into an IRA that has more investment options and that I can manage myself. Now being a self-employed guy, I want to get my hands into those funds and move them into more interesting investments. What I have them in now is good…but I want better.
I’m also moving into action on my housing plan for 2008 and beyond. I’m seeking to start a group of people, two to six, to join in to rent, lease, or buy a live/work space in the Lower East Side, East Village, or maybe Chinatown in 2008. It could be separate bedrooms, shared, build-out, loft-like…I’m open to lots of creative ideas. I think a live/work space would allow the most flexibility for everyone in the group; again I’m open to alternatives. All interest and leads are appreciated and welcome.
I’m very interested to also cultivate a group of people to join as a partnership, LLC, co-op, etc. to buy a space or a small building. I have experience in purchasing buildings in Washington and am happy to be the lead for a purchase here. The laws and customs are different in NYC but based on my knowledge and advice I’ve received, I only need to have good partners, a good real estate agent, attorney, and banker to make this dream happen. I’m exploring the co-housing and intentional community organizations to learn of best practices, build allies, and make friends. This Wednesday, I will be at the Brooklyn Co-housing meeting.
