Noah’s Inn wins SCoBE for Customer Service Excellence
May 13, 2010 - Lynne Turner
Bryan Schenk, owner/operator of Noah’s Inn in Neustadt accepted the 2010 Saugeen Community Business Excellence Award (SCoBE) for Customer Service Excellence on Wednesday evening.
“Wow! This is really an honor. I’m just delighted to be the recipient,” he said.
There are several reasons the casual fine dining restaurant and inn in downtown Neustadt is a success, he said, and topping the list of reasons is the staff. Several – Ruth Schwartz, Cindee Fenton, Andrea Jahrig and Christine Clark – joined Mr. Schenk and Ann Heggie at the gala awards dinner and ceremony in Mildmay. Also in attendance were Mr. Schenk’s sister Lorraine Morrow and her husband Al of Hanover and his brother Bev Schenk and wife Suzzane who live on the family farm outside of Neustadt.
Winning the Customer Service Excellence SCoBE was “such tribute to my staff (who) work together really well, and with me,” he said. “You can have the best strategy in the world but it’s nothing if you don’t have a talented team behind you to implement that strategy.”
“The staff is the front line, not just the serving staff but the kitchen staff as well. I encourage the kitchen staff to come out and talk to the people from time to time,” he said.
The people in the photo, left to right are Ruth Schwartz, Cindee Fenton, Bryan Schenk, Andrea Jahrig and Christine Clark.
The restaurant, which opened on July 2, 2006 in a building that has housed one reincarnation or another of a commercial hotel for 150 years “is still evolving,” Mr. Schenk said. Meals are planned using as much in-season local produce as is available as well as meat from West and fish from the Bruce Peninsula. Nothing frozen is used, the bread is baked fresh for Noah’s Inn and all soups are made from scratch.
“It makes our food unique to the area,” Mr. Schenk said.
The inn and staff are also “green to a huge extent”, he said. “The staff is all tuned into the environment and what kind of a carbon footprint we’re leaving. We’re into recycling and composting and although it takes a real effort for the staff to separate everything, we are down to putting out only one bag of garbage a week.”
He thanked the people of West Grey for nominating Noah’s Inn for the SCoBE.
“West Grey is a great municipality in which to do business,” he said.
Runner up in the Customer Service Excellence category was Eckhardt’s Floral Treasurers of Durham.
Also nominated in the category were Hanover Natural Medicine Clinic and Pioneer Snack Express, Hanover.
Original article from the Mount Forest Confederate can be found here.
More information on the SCoBE award can be found here.