VIDEO: What are Some Benefits to Supporting Main Street?

At a time when so much attention is focused on what we should and shouldn't be eating, it was refreshing last week to see first hand the commitment to quality displayed by one of our last hometown family restaurants in Stillwater, Joseph's.

Joe Kohler contacted me a few weeks back and expressed interest in participating in the Tour Main Street concept of video promotion for local small businesses.  For my part, I was excited to include a local restaurant in an edit!  Though Mr. Kohler provided me with some fine professional photos of his wonderful home cooked menu items and famous pies, I requested permission to bring my camera in and record some video of the "goings on" behind the scenes.  I'm glad I did!

In an age when we're all so busy and make snap decisions on which fast food joint to hit, or debate on whether we should super size our meal, I saw what we all want for our money in a meal away from home.  My camera captured food made by hand, hamburger meat pounded out right on the grill and fresh ingredients in abundance.  Joseph's serves generous portions carefully made with customer service that is rare for today.  Todd, the manager, really seemed to enjoy the privilege of serving people and consistently made the customers smile as they settled their tab.  Having worked in restaurants, I know from experience, that isn't always the case, and we all know good customer service is rare these days.

Quality of customer service is something that is NOT uncommon however among our local small businesses.  It's hard to go into any sort of chain and talk directly with the CEO to resolve an issue.  Not so with Main Street businesses.  Often the person behind the counter IS the CEO, and everything else for that particular business.  They care about us as customers because without happy customers, they struggle to survive.  We are the beneficiaries of that caring attitude, we feel valued, we feel they appreciate our investment in their success.  Those are relationships that are worth strengthening... on Main Street.