How To Generate Restaurant Loyalty The Old-Fashioned Way

There’s something special about Morrisville Cafe, and it is not their company website.

Morrisville Cafe isn’t even a company. It is a small diner along Chapel Hill Road owned and operated by Naomie Jenkins. She bought the business 30 years ago, during that time she redid the menu only four or five times, and replaced the countertop once just four years ago because the old one had worn out.

Do you still feel like asking Ms. Jenkins her online marketing plans to go viral?

And yet, Morrisville Cafe has timeless appeal.

According to Ms. Jenkins, the business maintains strong restaurant loyalty among patrons by simply giving them what they want: good food. No tricks. No antics. No gimmicks. Just delicious old-style home-cooked American cuisine.

As a restaurant operator, here’s what you can learn from Ms. Jenkin’s way of doing things.

1. Serve food the way fast foods don’t
The food at Morrisville Cafe is a part of it. A big part of it.

Jimmy Davis, 67, goes to Jenkin’s for breakfast at least once a week. He’s been doing it since 1979, when Ms. Jenkins first opened the place. His friend, Jimmy Winters, 45, spends his breakfast and lunch time there everyday. A true picture of restaurant loyalty.

He says, “I like the old-style home cooking. I don’t like fast food.”

2. A meal should be satisfying, not pre-cooked
Nobody likes to eat pre-cooked food at home. So why should you pay twice as much to eat them at a restaurant?

“Nothing is pre-cooked,” says Harold Heath, Ms. Jenkin’s only employee. He says when people come in asking what’s quick on the menu, the only answer he has for them is, “We don’t have nothing quick.”

Freshly-cooked meals are a specialty at Morrisville Cafe. And their success speaks for itself.

“If you don’t want to eat it at home, I won’t serve it here,” Ms. Jenkins says.

3. Maintain a personal atmosphere
The comfortable feeling of home goes beyond food preparation.

The main dining room at Morrisville Cafe can hold around a dozen people, just about, and maintain a relaxing atmosphere. It’s a hit among Ms. Jenkins’ patrons. Some of the diners, when Jenkins is busy, go right ahead and walk behind the counter to refill their coffee.

“I guess they’re not supposed to do that, but they do,” Ms. Jenkins says. She doesn’t mind.

It’s small touches like these that distinguish Morrisville Cafe from the uptight high society restaurants that continue to shut down one after the other in the face of the on-going recession.

Restaurant loyalty is something Ms. Jenkins can be proud of. Sadly, it’s more than what I can say for the rest of us. Ask yourself and the next person what it is you really expect when you walk into a restaurant, and eventually you’ll discover we all have the same answer to that one: fresh and delicious meals, and a nice place to enjoy it.

Ms. Jenkins sure taught us a thing or two about restaurant loyalty.