It’s no big news that folks are getting more savvy to monitoring their brands on social media. Even the little guys.
On a recent food-binge Sunday (Metro, The Mission, Caffe Boa, Classic Italian, Caffe Boa again,) we chose Classic Italian Pizza for dinner. As usual, I checked in via Brightkite (which updates both my Twitter and Facebook statuses.) I happily tweeted praises and photos of our perfect pies.
Halfway through the meal, a young waitress stops by our table and asks, “Which one of you is Ty?”
I sulk in my seat and slowly raise my hand.
She smiles and explains that the owner was monitoring my activity from home. He called and asked her to find out who I was. Yikes!
Another example: This past weekend, I was downtown at Hanny’s during another binge night (Hanny’s, The District, and St. Francis.) I checked in with Brightkite and ordered a classic Sidecar.
The drink earned my signature and dreaded “Cocktail Abortion” tweet (too much Cointreau turned it into a froo froo sweetsie drink.) It’s a nasty tweet, I know.
Disclaimer: Here’s where I speculate… but my observations were confirmed by my cocktailing friend.
A few minutes after the tweet, we saw the server and bar staff pointing our direction and talking. Sure enough, the server appears minutes later with two new cocktails for us.
His explanation was awkward as he nervously set down the glasses. He claimed that the bar mistakenly made extra drinks of our exact order. No charge.
We thanked him and he walked back to join the bar staff as they watched us drink the reattempted offerings.
Coincidence? Or maybe I was just over-sensitive from my recent “outing” at Classic Italian. I’ll never know because I didn’t ask. I was pretty freaked.
Regardless, I’ve prepared myself for future incidents resulting from my public eating & tweeting. I’ll be ready to stand by my comments. I’m sure as hell not a journalist, but it’s probably a good idea for me to establish ethics and rules of engagement with businesses, owners, etc.
I’ll be ready next time. Bring it on.
Do you have a similar story?
P.S. Jay W., I know you stalk me too. 
