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Seth Godin would have a field day with this.

Thomas Heinicke probably less so.

Thomas runs the ever excellent Schloss Sörgenloch – a restaurant and hotel in what used to be the manor house in a village fairly close to here – together with his partner Nicole.

Nicest people, excellent cuisine, stylish (but familiar) service, great wines from our young friend Jürgen Hofmann, views to kill for.

Saw an advert for an open weekend at local winery that didn’t ring a bell, but figured that if Thomas is doing the catering, it must be pretty good.

Obviously didn’t read the ad properly, otherwise we wouldn’t have fronted up at 5pm on the dot, just wanting a glass of wine and a snack.

Got the glass of wine, asked the front of house at the catering bit (Thomas and Nicole obviously weren’t there) if they had any food ready.

“No”

That was it.

Not “What would you like?” or “We’ll be ready to serve in 10 minutes”.

Just “No”

It’s just too silly to get mad about (and I was too gob-smacked to ask “When?” ), so we finished our glasses of wine and when we left – half an hour later – there was still no indication of food being served.

It’s not as if we were starving.

It’s not as if we had no options – dinner was always going to be a broad bean, new potato, leek and pancetta frittata with a salad bouquet from the garden – but this was just so silly.

If we didn’t know (and like ) Thomas and Nicole, we’d perhaps have associated Schloss Sörgenloch with sloppy service and an absolute lack of customer orientation, never gone there and told our friends about the experience.

As it is, they only lost out on maybe €10.

But I did learn a lesson.

Don’t ask a question that can answered with “No”….