A menu is an ad.
What’s promised should be delivered.
What’s promised should be delivered.
A 1960s magazine ad for the Avis car rental company featured this wonderfully candid opener: “I write Avis ads for a living. But that doesn’t make me a paid liar.” The author went on to tell of renting a car from Avis and finding, contrary to what he wrote in an earlier ad, a filthy ashtray. His closing lines: “So if I’m going to continue writing these ads, Avis had better live up to them. Or they can get themselves a new boy. They’ll probably never run this ad.”
Were the author of the Red Robin menu to order the Sautéed ’Shroom Burger — at least from the location I visited this afternoon — he or she might feel much the same way. Seduced by the promise of “fresh, plump, sautéed mushrooms,” I ordered my own ’Shroom Burger. Eagerly biting in, what did I find? Canned mushrooms. Canned. And as far as I could tell, no one had done any sautéing. All I could detect was the fresh taste of the inside of an aluminum can.
I defend advertisers against silly accusations — we don’t know how to make people act against their own will — but I am unabashed about decrying advertisers who lie.
To be fair, perhaps it’s only an oversight. They happen. Either way, a menu is an in-store advertisement. Please, Red Robin, deliver what you promise. Otherwise, you are helping give my profession a bad name. Almost if not more egregious, about an hour ago you sorely disappointed my poor tastebuds.
—Steve Cuno
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