Kristin "The Quantum Peeper" H.'s Profile

It's Ban Lan Gen. That's the traditional medicine to help with a cold. I have a cold coming on, and I'm taking it by the mega dropper. It has prevented a cold for me many times before. But, if the cold gets outta hand, I'll go see Dixie and Devon.

Maybe

Once you can get past the fact
that the food is sorta cool
temperatured,
it's edible.  But
on the day I came in,
it was late afternoon
and the place reeked
of bug repelling floor
cleanser.
Yet the walls and floor looked dirty.
And a man with deep set eyes
Maybe he was the manager
Sat alone at a table
Scribbling in a little book.
Maybe it was poetry.
And the counter boy leaned against
the fryer
texting someone
maybe a girl.

Dear Owners and Operators of The Lion and Rose:

Let me first begin by congratulating you on reading the Yelp reviews of your restaurant. People take a lot of time to write reviews, and if you want to have a thriving business nowadays, it's in your best interest to pay attention.

As others have noted, your food is good enough. I was bracing for a terrible experience as I tasted the Cornwall Pasty with Parmesan Tomatoes and Guiness Cheese Cauliflower. But, I relaxed with each tasty bite. I would have rated you higher based on your food alone.

Now, let me get to the heart of the matter, and why I'm taking the time to tell you how to fix your restaurant so it doesn't go out of business like the multiple chains that have inhabited that place before you.

In my mind, I started calling your restaurant, YE OLDE HOOTERSE.

Almost every review has commented on your poor service. Let me tell you why you have poor service and a weird atmosphere: you're demeaning your diners by thinking that they want their adequate but unremarkable pub food, that is conveniently located on the way home from their kids' soccer game, served by young busty ladies in short plaid skirts.

You may have had a certain kind of douche-y Twin Peaks kind of theme in mind when you opened your restaurant, but the sexy ladies and overweight male managers sorta pushing them around dynamic is unsettling. All the men working were managers and fully dressed, the ladies not so much. Now, I'm sure hot young ladies can be good servers. It's not that. Our server was friendly and competent. But as a wife, mom, business owner, feminist, and person paying the dinner tab, I was uncomfortable that every girl working there HAD to have a low cut, tight t-shirt on, and a skirt that was cut in a really slutty way so you could see her  upper thighs. Maybe you don't know this about the ladies, but in a natural habitat, that kind of forced sexiness is often an act, and for a 'family' restaurant, it makes the entire transacation awkward.

People who are coming to your restaurant don't give a shit about how sexy your servers are or aren't. They just want a service experience that meets or exceeds their expectations. In my book, that kind of great service comes when the server is allowed to be him or herself.  How about hiring servers based on their abilities and personalities rather than their cup size? Dump the forced 'hot wench' atmosphere, and let your restaurant become what it should be in that location--a meeting place for friends after work and families who live in the area.

Mark my words, if you keep up with the Ye Olde Hooterse vibe, you will have to close your doors at worst, and will be less successful than you really could be at best. This is the 21st century, and a forced and awkward sexualized dining environment which demeans everyone involved isn't going to fly.  At least not in Westlake. You could make your restaurant into a real pub, that had a sense of community and inclusivity. That'd be a much for authentic feature of a REAL PUB for your place than the old timey beer swag on the walls.

Though I knew several really good realtors in Austin, we didn't want to work with anyone who we considered a friend--in case things went bad. We wanted to keep our cut throat dealings about the sale of our 1974 1154 square foot rancher on a strictly professional level. I can be sorta an a-hole about things.

Three different people recommended Jill to me to be our realtor for the sale of our house, and purchase of a new one. Three people, that I know. In person. With those solid references, we gave her a call when we started our home search--which began when we stalked a house in Hyde Park before the home we owned wasn't even near ready to be listed, and continued as we tried to figure out what we wanted in a new place, Dripping Springs? House in Travis Heights with a tree growing in the middle of it?

Jill:

*Gave us homework to envision what we wanted in a house.
*Talked to us in a really nice voice that was never condescending no matter how batshit crazy we were about this stage of our lives. (I forgot to mention I was in my first trimester of my first pregnancy -2010- trying to figure out where we were going to move.)
* gave us snacks while we went out looking at houses.
*Did not smack the crap out of us when we realized we needed to rent in order to get our overfull house, that we'd lived in (hard living with dog hair) for 8 years ready to sell.

And so we worked with Jill to come up with a plan, and we most of our junk and our dogs and our collections of fantasy figurines, and fabric for projects that *I promise* I'm going to sew one day, out of our old house, and made it pristine.

She directed us in the staging of the house, and when we were finally ready, she took AMAZING photos of the place--AND shot an HGTV quality video of the house. The house went on the market and...

TWO DAYS LATER WE HAD A REASONABLE OFFER (not full price, but it was CASH, and would close in 2 weeks.)

Then we got a back up offer.

And then we got a back up to the back up that we didn't formalize because it seemed like that would be showing off.

Now I was in my second trimester, and really didn't want to deal with any of the real estate crap at all.

Jill:
*negotiated win/win agreements with the purchaser of our house
*had stellar comps available to defend the price that we set
*talked to my husband and I in a really nice voice that was not condescending at all, even when we were freaking out late at night after our baby birth class to learn how to deliver our GIGANTIC baby
*made the transacation so easy that I had to watch the movie The Secret again to believe that anything this good was actually possible. (The Secret is that whatever you think is drawn to you to happen...and while I don't go in on all manner of hocus pocus, I did indeed actually watch it because I was in friggin' disbelief that my house was sold after two days on the market, and would close with a cash offer in two weeks. I didn't want my disbelief to jinx it!)

She attended our closing, and I apologized to her for several instances where I know I came off as a bija.

Now is the time I should mention that she's SO NICE, she's PBS nice. She's Buttermilk Biscuit on The Biscuit Brothers. How in God's green earth could I have ever been uppity to Buttermilk? And she forgave me. (I think.) She brought my new baby Biscuit Brother DVD's.

So, I can't say she's going to make you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich when you're on property tour, or she's going to do an homage to Gone with the Wind to sell your garden on the video she makes of your house, or she's going to give you DVDs. What I can say is that she takes her professionalism personally. She embodies each transaction with appropriate integrity and a deeply connected creativity. My hormonal, indecisive transaction needed lots of coddling, but I observed the way she negotiates and she isn't inherently a coddler. She had just done some sort of Black Belt/ Six Sigma/ Jedi Advanced Negotiation training dealie...and she's formidable.

She's got the ability to meet people at their level, and give them what they need to have a phenomenal experience during the most stressful moments of life in transition. Whether you're selling and then buying, or just buying for the first time, you want her on your side. If I knew you personally, she is the realtor I would tell you to call.

Make room in your belly for the roasted pork pupusa. It's a steal for $10, filling with complex flavors. Service was kinda meh, but it seated our party of 6 at lunch with no problem. I hear brunch here is great. Would come pack for sure.

This lovely, intimate dessert place pays great attention to detail. Order tea and enjoy dispensing hot water from a 'silver service' look tea pot. Great quality art to admire as you nibble the ideally balanced flavors of their cakes, tarts and cookies. I loved the black diamond chocolate cake, almost a petit four on steroids. The rum ball was tasty and felt festive for the holiday season.

The only thing I would suggest they add are fun, vintage looking trays to carry food to your table. Carrying the dessert/tea/pot was a little tricky. A little tray would have been perfect.

Did I need to purchase a slice of vegan chocolate bundt cake to eat as my late night dessert in my hotel room? Yes. And you need to too.

What's a girl to do when she forgets her bronzer brush AND her moisturizer when she comes to Asheville on vacay? She happens upon Makeup at the Grove Arcade and finds lovely, better quality replacements. Went with the Mario Badescu face spritz and a hydrating moisturizer, as well as a 'vegan' brush that feels so soft. They also sell my FAVORITE perfume line, Tocca. Really, the store purveys the best of the best small makeup lines. Super knowledgeable and friendly staff.

They specialize in makeup for weddings and special events. I will give them another star when they 'get me ready for my close-up' someday when I return to Asheville.

After finding out Fleshman Appliance doesn't come to my zip anymore, was referred to AMS (Todd Honeycutt). Though I was apprehensive to have a new service person in my life (I've been burned before,) this guy was great. He diagnosed and fixed my washer very quickly....apparently there's a reason why mother always used to yell at us to MAKE SURE our pockets are empty. I accidentally left a drill bit in my jeans and it jammed the mechanism to let water drain out of the washer.

But I digress.

He showed up on time, he was clean, he actually smelled good.

The reason for the 4 star instead of 5 was just that it took about 5 days to get an appointment with him. I didn't really mind. It was a good excuse to avoid doing laundry.

Did I mention he smelled good?

I'm not here to play the blame game. Having said that, I had two other companies come out to inspect our house who told me that I was going to have to spend between $4000 and $5000 to repair my failing foundation. Do I look like I'm made of money? Yes, I know I'm "so money" but that doesn't mean I have bags of cash to throw down on work that doesn't need to be done.

Mark Knowles from Level Best came out this morning and measured my house for problems. Twice. He measured it once, and said that he'd like to do a repair, but there wasn't a repair needed. I got very excited, but thought maybe he was doing something wrong since I had two other estimates that specified we'd need the entire right side of the house to be piered. I showed Mark one of the estimates and the drawing that the other guy did, and maybe as a point of principle, he measured again. The other company was off by as much as an inch and a half on a couple of their numbers. What's that old joke about why some men have trouble with measurement...something about 4 inches being 9 or whatever?

So, I'm not going to go bad mouthin' the other two companies, but I will say that I have been a salesman in my life. I've sold aluminum siding, Mexican handicrafts, lawn care, theatre ticket packages, internet advertising, and I've even sold money (mortgages). There are some sales people/ consultants/specialists or whatever you want to call it who love money and they will tell a consumer what she wants to hear to get her dough. It's true, I've seen it. There's an historical basis for Boiler Room.

However, there are some folks who get into sales because they really want to help people, and they believe their product or service is truly better than any other choice. And coming from that perspective, they would rather make no money than to damage the credibility of their company or product. I felt that way when I worked for The Body Shop and sold the shit out of some Satsuma bubble bath (because I love that stuff.) Mark was one of these people who just really wanted to help. He came a bit early and didn't stick around to chew the fat. I guess he was out the door to try and find a homeowner who really needed foundation repair, rather than try and railroad me into paying for something I didn't need.

Though I haven't confirmed this, I have also heard Level Best is the top foundation repair firm on Angie's List.