wow WWW.MH! You have such a great attitude! I hope it is the same attitude that you take with you to work and that you influence all of your employees to have, as well. Let's see... you don't have time for this? Then don't post! Your hours are long and stressful? No duh, you work in the food service industry. We know that and we don't pity you. My eyes get dry. Because I stare at a screen all day. Every job has it's crap. You can't find a lot of time to read about everyone's opinions? Well I hope that your place of business has not been critiqued. Let me let you in on a little secret. I read these forums, as do many other folks - over 4000 registered users and no telling how many lurkers.
Let's say your place is Mega Hotdogs (MH - get it? LOL). Someone posts that they had a bad experience and another person seconds that opinion. When I am driving around the Shoals wondering where I'm going to eat - MH's place will be last on my list. If I am with a group of friends / family, I'll tell them why. If someone mentions Mega Hotdogs, I'll tell them "I read on the TD Forums where more than 1 person had a bad experience there". If you take the time to read the thread about your business then you might get some insight. No, you can't fix the things that the posters complained about on their particular visit - but you can take steps to make sure it doesn't happen again.
I've worked in several restaurants. I know they run out of food. It is part of it. I also know that it is not too hard to change a menu. It is not too hard to change "the special". It is also not too hard to tell your wait-staff "we are out of frog legs, so let your customers know that we are instead suggesting the chicken wings". Not a big deal. It IS a big deal if you are out of two or three different things. In that case, you might want to rework your menu and try to use more of the same ingredients in different dishes, use more ingredients that you can obtain locally in a pinch, and keep better track of what items are in demand and what drives that demand. Could be the weather, the day of the week, the time of the month, or other things going on around town. For example- people want hot soup more on cold rainy days, they want bigger meals on the weekends, and maybe more expensive entrees around the beginning of the month. Fish dishes probably won't sell well when the local Fire Department is having their fish fry.
Here's what I got from your post: thanks for sharing your opinions, but I really don't care. I don't care if you read mine or not. It's not for you. It is for the other customers on this forum. We are trying to help others from spending their hard earned money and wasting their precious time going to a third rate food joint and having a bad experience. Keep that in mind.