The Tuna Cheddar Quest

For the past 10 months, with the exception of a handful of major holidays, I have weighed, measured, and assessed the nutritional information of every morsel of food and beverage that I have consumed.  I have tracked this information using a variety of different criteria, alternately counting Weight Watchers points, calories, carbohydrates, fat, fiber and protein.


When eating out, I find it helpful to go onto a restaurant's website to choose my meal ahead of time.  When I was planning my visit to my local family restaurant chain known for its reasonable prices and friendly cookies on Easter Monday I discovered that I could have the Tuna Cheddar Melt, which was listed on the website as a "NEW" item.  

I have obviously always enjoyed food (or I wouldn’t be in this predicament to begin with), but when you watch every bite, the food you do eat (or plan to eat) takes on a new special kind of import.  I cannot even begin to tell you how eagerly I was anticipating enjoying this tuna melt - my mouth was watering thinking about it.  I thought about it all day long.

My waiter let the air out of my balloon when he informed me that the Tuna Cheddar Melt was no longer available because it was actually a Lenten Special and Lent was now over.  I was despondent.  I was one of those tiresome customers who requested the nutritional information pamphlet so I could choose an alternative meal, none of which had any appeal to me in place of the Tuna Cheddar Melt I had wanted so badly.

Later at home, the thought occurred to me that I may never be able to have a Tuna Cheddar Melt from this restaurant again.  My blood ran cold.  Someday before I die, I want to enjoy this sandwich again.  Would that be an item for my bucket list? 

Remember the olden days when you wrote letters of complaint to businesses?  You would read it over in the light of day, and then decide whether you actually wanted to send it or not.  Well, nowadays, it is all much more immediate.  You can fill out the feedback section on the restaurant website and then hit the “send” button before having a chance to think it over.

Here is the feedback I sent to the restaurant:

1)  If a menu item is available for a limited time, the menu item should be removed from your website the MILLISECOND that it is no longer available to the customer.  Otherwise you are advertising a product that isn't really available, setting yourselves up for disgruntled customers (like I was yesterday).

2)  If you are planning to offer a dish for a limited time only, you might want to think twice about advertising it as "NEW."  This implies that it is an item that will continue to be offered.  Perhaps you could replace that with something like "LENTEN SPECIAL" and maybe even state that it is for a limited time only (e.g. "*Only available through April 6th!").

3)  Finally, I remember a time when Tuna Cheddar Melts were a regular menu item at your restaurant, and the store manager verified that this was true, and that it was actually a pretty popular item.  May I respectfully suggest that you reestablish the Tuna Cheddar Melt as a regular menu item?  How hard could this be?  I assume that you have everything on hand for the sandwich already except for the tuna, and how inconvenient could it be to stock some canned fish in the store?  It doesn't go bad.

I am still waiting for my reply.  Maybe they didn't take me seriously when I told them that their restaurant would be the place for my smiles again when I am able to order a Tuna Cheddar Melt from their menu.