I’VE considered giving up this restaurant stuff and starting my own top flight football team. Why? Because pleasing the customers of a football club is so much easier.

Think about it. We’re a weird lot we human beings. Sometimes we’re extremely difficult to please, especially here in the rich UK where we expect most things to be perfect, but at other times it’s amazing what people will put up with.

The latter’s been brought home to me in trips I’ve made to South Africa where, despite the massive changes the country’s gone through over the past 20 years since the end of apartheid, there’s still a yawning gap between those that have and those that haven’t.

Next to areas of great affluence there are townships that have developed where the people live in conditions most of us could hardly imagine. While people appear well-fed and clothed, their homes are constructed out of materials people in the UK either burn or send to the tip. I’ve dozens of photographs of shacks comprising pallets and oil drums for walls, cardboard boxes for roofs and floors, and upturned baths as kitchen work surfaces where six people or more may live, cook, eat and sleep in one room.

And yet it’s difficult to think of a more positive, enthusiastic people with a sense of humour that’s hard to beat.

Now, this is meant to be a column about food and, when I go out for a meal, I, like most people, expect to get value for money and a level of service and quality that never disappoints. If I don’t get it, the whole experience can be spoilt. But at times like that I have to remind myself that things aren’t quite so straightforward. That in reality, the service is brought to me by a team, and sometimes the teamwork, just like in football, breaks down. Yet we find that one bad element can ruin the whole occasion.

I’ve recently received two contrasting letters – one quite rightly bringing our attention to a poor experience at the restaurant following a number of very good visits and the other from someone who had never been before but loved it. Interestingly, they both pointed out areas where we could obviously improve.

The bad experience, as the customer told me, started when he and his companion were splashed as the waitress opened some sparkling mineral water. This is something that we’ve all experienced when opening such a bottle ourselves and, ordinarily, it shouldn’t have really mattered. However we, as a team, made other mistakes and, after the bad start, he was of the opinion that he should have gone somewhere else that night. And of course he was right. He contracted to spend that money with us and didn’t get what he expected.

I contrasted this episode with the other letter I received where a chap booked a table for a late Sunday lunch. It so happened that we’d been a lot busier than expected and, as a result, one or two dishes had sold out. Such is the way we do things because we generally only have fresh ingredients on the premises and once it’s gone it’s gone.

This letter pointed out how we’d coped with this; offering alternatives that more than made up for the change in the traditional Sunday menu. We made a mistake by not offering a wine cooler, but this was quickly remedied which, again, drew praise. I was thrilled that he’d taken the time to sit down and write to us, praising the team effort.

There’s a few points here. First, this latter chap was determined to enjoy himself and, despite one or two setbacks, succeeded. I’m not suggesting we got things right for the earlier customer – far from it – but without the water splash, things may have not been so bad.

Second: how come, when football is all based on teamwork, are we so forgiving of our team when they mess up, week after week with hardly a let up? And a third point: how can there be people living in such squalor that are so thankful for their lot?

I think I’ll resist the permanent move to South Africa. But starting a football team’s certainly got it’s attractions.