I'll Take Care of You, Next Time (But What if I Won't Be Here Again?)
Jun 19, 2026
Written By Bart Berkey | Founder of Most People Don't
A restaurant manager promised to take care of me next time, and I decided not to wait.
I was in San Antonio for HITEC, and we stopped into a restaurant for dinner. The food was great, but the service was sloppy. Plates came out at odd times, and our server seemed checked out the entire night. Surprisingly, she was chomping on gum throughout our whole meal too.
We were not upset, but the whole experience was disturbing and unexpected. Especially in an upscale restaurant.
On the way out I shared my observation about our experience politely with the manager.
He looked us in the eye and sincerely apologized. Then he said, "Next time, I'll take care of you."
It was a kind offer. The trouble is, this was only my second time ever in San Antonio. He probably didn't know whether or not we were local or visiting. (This is a great example from our new online training class: HUMANALITY, "Just Ask").
I don't know when "next time" is going to be. The more I thought about it, I felt like I just received the coupon that I'll never get to use or a gift card to a store that I don't shop at.
The kindness was real, but it was scheduled for a moment that might never arrive.
So my wife and I decided to do something we had never done before...
We went back to the same restaurant the following night. We approached the manager, thanked him for his offer, and told him "we loved the food, and we are ready for our do-over."
Instead of waiting for "next time," we want to see what "this time" could look like.
He smiled and was genuinely surprised to see us back so soon. Then he was gracious. He seated us himself and sent over a couple of appetizers on the house.
However, that is not the moment that touched me.
A few minutes after we sat down, the server from the night before walked over to our table. The same one who had seemed checked out, who had been part of why the experience went sideways. She came over and said, "I apologize if your experience with me last night wasn't great. I was having a really bad day."
I sat with that for a second.
I thanked her.
I admitted I had assumed she didn't like serving us because our order had to many modifications, and were being too picky. She apologized again, and we told her not to worry about it.
I have eaten in a lot of restaurants over the years and have never had a server come over and apologize for the night before.
It would have been so easy for her to ignore us or to comp the salad and hope we never came back. They could have left the kindness scheduled for a future visit that would never happen.
It would've been so easy for us to decide never to come back. Instead, we gave them another opportunity to improve the next day.
Another chance.
There is a difference between a promise and a presence.
A promise lives in the future.
Presence happens now.
Every "next time" we offer, instead of doing the right thing now, is a lost opportunity today. -Bart Berkey
Two ways to put presence to work this week:
First, when you make a mistake that affects a customer's experience, fix it now. Don't push the recovery to a future moment they may never receive. The customer who had the bad experience is the customer in front of you now, not the customer in front of you next year.
Find even the smallest thing you can do today and do it.
Second, when something is bothering you about an interaction, name it out loud, see something, say something. The server who apologized to us didn't have to, but she did. She chose to be vulnerable and had the courage to, in a moment where most people would have avoided us. That single sentence "I apologize if your experience with me last night wasn't great, I was having a bad day" clarified that our tedious order wasn't the problem from the night before, but it was something I could not see.
Customer loyalty was at risk, instead of delayed gratification, by us choosing to return the next day, the restaurant was able to recover.
So here is the question I am sitting with this week, and I will leave it with you:
Whose "next time" are you scheduling, when "this time" is the time they actually need you?
Most people don't. But YOU do.
- Bart
