More to the “Clark Gilpin” portion of the title after the jump.
Props to Panera Manager Colin (W Boughton in Bolingbrook). Heidi and I ordered dinner there a couple of nights ago. I’d been searching for much of the afternoon for black drinking straws. You wouldn’t believe how hard they are to find. Target doesn’t have them. The Jewel-Osco grocery store doesn’t have them. Even the Factory Card Party Outlet doesn’t have them — and they have full sets of black plasticware for “Over the Hill” parties. I couldn’t find them … until Panera.
So seeing cups and cups of these straws around the restaurant, I decided to ask the cashier if I could have about 100 of the straws. I even offered to pay. She said, “Hold on, I don’t think I can give out a box without my manager knowing about it.” She went to the back as they prepared our food and then came out with an anxious-looking guy. (I don’t think he’d ever had such a request). He pulled out a box of the straws from a cabinet, came up to me, and said, “You want 100 of these?!?” Then he counted them out halfway and doubled it. (I ended up with 121).
“Can I pay you for these?” I asked him. After thinking about it for five seconds, he asked us if we had family in the area that ever needed catering. I said “No, but she’s a local priest” and pointed to Heidi. He gave us the catering brochures and asked us to use their service at some point. And I’m pretty sure we will! This Panera is already Heidi’s default place to meet her parishioners, and if St. Benedict’s ever did cater (instead of eating pot-luck style) they’d probably use Panera. But when Heidi and I were walking to the car and talking about how smart and friendly of a manager Colin is, we realized: we’re going to need food for the rehearsal dinner for our wedding! This is the start of a beautiful case of patronage to our local Panera …
