Fort Pierce · 4 min read
Five Different People Walk Up To This Window
They want completely different things. Remarkably, they all want the same plate.
Most restaurants have one customer. They design the menu for that customer, price it for that customer, and quietly become invisible to everybody else.
This kitchen sits on Kings Highway in Fort Pierce, close enough to I-95 and the Turnpike that the door swings for five completely different people in the same afternoon.
The locals
People who grew up around here and have strong opinions about greens. They are the hardest audience and the most valuable one, because they are not comparing this to other restaurants — they are comparing it to their family. When a local says the greens are as good as their mother's, that is not a review. That is a verdict.
The travellers
Passing through, usually south or north, usually behind schedule. They want one meal that does not feel like a highway meal. They will remember it for years and mention it to people who live nowhere near Florida.
The truckers
The most discerning food critics in America, and nobody treats them that way. They eat every meal on the road. They know exactly what reheated tastes like. They have a network, they talk constantly, and they are fiercely loyal to the handful of places that treat them like people instead of like a queue.
The families
Sunday people. Repast people. Somebody-got-a-diploma people. They are not ordering one plate, they are ordering nine, and they need it to feel like it came from a kitchen rather than a catering company. This is also where catering starts — a family orders once for a birthday and then calls back for the reunion.
The food hunters
They heard. Somebody told them, or they saw a video, or a review stuck with them. They arrive with expectations already set and they are the fastest-growing group of the five, because that is simply how people find food now.
Five audiences. One plate. The only thing that has to stay constant is that the plate is worth the drive.
What that means in practice
It means the phone matters as much as the counter, because three of those five groups are calling ahead. It means catering is not a sideline. It means the sign, the hours and the location have to be findable by somebody who has never been to Fort Pierce and is making the decision at sixty-five miles an hour.
And it means nobody should have to be a regular to order confidently. The regulars have the Chrissy-Missy memorised. Everybody else should be one sentence away from the same meal.
I Know It's Good.