Update 20/07: The attitude of The Yorkshire toward customers intending to use deals vouchers seems to have changed a little. I rang up to make a booking (I had bought two vouchers). The person on other the end of the phone asked if I would be using a Scoopon. When I replied that I would be, he answered that they didn’t have a table, as “they had enough Scoopons tonight”.
The trouble I have with businesses promoting themselves via group deal sites such as Scoopon and Zoupon is that it makes me question why a given business needs to take this route. Surely if they’re actually good, they should have plenty of business.
While, on the face of it this is a reasonable assumption, it doesn’t necessarily hold true in all cases, and some businesses may be using these sites to get word of mouth happening. The Yorkshire Hotel (48 Hoddle St, Abbotsford, ph. (03) 9417 3088) is a case in point.
For years it was known as the Yorkshire Stingo, and was a fairly run of the mill pub, but new owners have recently come on board and are focusing on serving quality pub fare. Problem being, it still looks the same from the outside, and a lot of people probably don’t know it’s changed.
Enter a site like Scoopon, which has enabled the business to bring a lot of new customers, who will hopefully have a good experience, and let others know. Based on my visit, I’m happy to spread the word.
The deal I bought was $39 for two meals (rib eye steak or fish of the day) and a bottle of red or white wine, all of which they’d normally charge $102 for.
I chose the rib eye, served rare, and it arrived perfectly cooked and seasoned. It was a good quality piece of meat, from one of my favourite producers, Cape Grim, and came with kipfler potatoes and some zingy coleslaw, although I couldn’t see or taste the red wine jus that was promised.
My girlfriend opted for the fish of the day, which was perch, and apparently supposed to be battered, but was actually pan-fried. Nonetheless, it a really well cooked dish, and did not disappoint. Accompaniments were mussels, creamy mashed potato and, from memory, some vegetables.
The wine, a chardonnay, wasn’t anything special, but was quite drinkable.
One of the keys to a successful campaign with one of these group buy sites is to make people taking up the deals feel welcome, and on this note, the Yorkshire Hotel gets a big tick. At no point were we made to feel any less for using the voucher, and one of the owners even came along at the end of the meal and had a chat.
Hopefully they do well out of the deal, and manage to convert some of the 750+ vouchers they sold into regular business, because they certainly deserve it.