A mammoth undertaking

I have spent the last two nights away on business, staying at a Holiday Inn at a service area a few miles away from a customer’s site. That was slightly more salubrious than it sounds, as it was quite a nice service area, off an A-road not a motorway, but chosen by the company on the basis of price and convenience, rather than its ambience.

There were four of us travelling together, and we arrived at the hotel on Tuesday evening tired and hungry after a two hour drive. But the hotel restaurant couldn’t even give us a table for at least half an hour, let alone feed us in that time, as they had a number of large parties in. Who would have thought that so many people would want to go to a service station for their Christmas party? We weren’t prepared to wait, so walked to the other side of the large petrol station to the Harvester that was also part of the same services area. They were also quite busy, but were able to seat us all straight away.

The food was what you would expect from a Harvester grill. Nothing special, but mostly acceptable – though I did have to send my chicken back as it was under-cooked. But what really shocked us all was that every single item on the menu had its calorie count printed next to it. My potato skins starter was 300 calories. The main courses ranged from 290 calories for the grilled chicken up to a whopping 1280 calories for the rack of ribs. Plus you had to choose a type of potato (chips, mashed, or boiled, each with their calorie count labelled) and help yourself to a bowl of salad. Typical calorific values of a salad bowl were given, together with the contribution from each of the dressings. They even gave the calorie count of the drinks,though I deliberately didn’t look to see whether my glass of wine was more or less sinful than my colleague’s beer.

I’m sure that this approach has been taken by the Harvester to try to give the customers information to make healthy choices. But it seriously back-fired on all of us. We were out for a meal at the end of a long day and before a particularly challenging meeting the next day. We wanted to relax. None of us was on a diet, nor needed to be,and we were not interested in the calorie count of our meals. We asked for a dessert menu, and I think that at least three of us would probably have had a dessert. Except that each of them was labelled with their calorie count, ranging from 290 for a skewer of fruit, up to 720 or more for a sundae. And it was extremely off- putting! I went so far as to ask the waitress for a menu that didn’t have the calories on it, but she didn’t have one. So all four of us turned down a dessert, as we felt we couldn’t justify 720 empty calories! I think that if I was a shareholder in the Harvester chain I would demand a rethink on this policy, as it is clearly eroding profits…….