No Noodles for You!

Recently, a friend of mine has gone to war with the Thai noodle place in his neighborhood.  He and his wife had been ordering from this shop at least once a week.  They served, by far, the best Thai noodles in a 20 block delivery radius of their apartment.

One day, when they called to place their order, the woman on the other end of the line said, “We no deliver to you no more.  You no tip!”

Here is the thing, my friend and his wife, who I personally know to be fine tippers, did tip.  “Always,” they say (and I have no reason to doubt them).  Naturally my friend protested, “What are you talking about?! We always tip.”

“We know you! You no tip. We no come no more!” she insisted.

They went down to the store to plead their case. The conversation went pretty much the same as on the phone. They were cut off. No chance for appeal. My friend left the store saying something along the lines of, “you are all out of your minds and you can shove your stupid noodles and go out of business because crazy people should not run businesses.”

They began trying some of the other Thai places nearby. None of them came close. They were mourning the loss of their favorite noodles. Occasionally, they would have a friend order them and have them delivered to the friend’s place if it worked out somehow, but basically they were cut off.

Then they moved. And they moved within the same neighborhood. They started blocking their number and ordering noodles again. When the noodles were delivered, they had their little boy go and pay for them and sometimes even went to answer the door themselves in baseball caps and sunglasses. Noodles were back on the menu!

Then disaster struck. They had a friend visiting and sent him to pay for the noodles they had ordered. The delivery person saw my friend and his wife sitting in their living room through an open window. He recognized them. He stuck his head into the window and said, “You no get noodles no more!” He left on his bicycle with the noodles in the basket. Now the noodle shop has their new address too and it has been added to the blacklist.

My friend is seriously considering another move. They really love those noodles.