The Restaurant Test: Lessons from a Tex-Mex Kitchen

Life’s Unexpected Lessons

Life works in funny ways. Sometimes, the best lessons don't come from expensive courses or intricate frameworks but from the trenches of a busy Tex-Mex restaurant on a Saturday night.

For all the product and design training I've received over the years, I've realized that most of what I needed to know about building great experiences, I actually learned while waiting tables at Pappasito's in Houston.

What Makes a Great Restaurant?

Ask ten people in the restaurant business what makes a great restaurant, and you'll get ten different answers. The chef might highlight perfectly executed dishes. The server might emphasize timing and attention to detail. The manager might focus on covers and returning customers.

They're all right—and they're all missing something.

The mistake is thinking that any one metric defines success. This same mistake plagues software teams, product teams, and really anyone building something complex. We love to slice our work into neat pieces, optimize what we can measure, and declare success when our component works as intended.

The Bigger Picture of Success

But success isn’t binary. A customer who cleans their plate hasn’t necessarily had a great experience, just like a user who completes a transaction hasn’t necessarily enjoyed interacting with your product.

I learned this firsthand at Pappasito’s. Sometimes, a table would clean their plates, pay the bill, even leave a decent tip—but never come back. Meanwhile, another table might send their food back, but end up becoming regulars because of how we handled it. I realized that success isn’t about any single interaction—it’s about the entire journey.

End-to-End Thinking

Consider the lifecycle of a restaurant visit. The kitchen might see a clean plate and think “mission accomplished.” The server might focus on whether they received a good tip. The manager might be watching to see if the customer returns next week. Each perspective captures a piece of the puzzle, but none tell the whole story.

The truly great restaurants—the ones that endure—understand that success is orchestral. Every component must work in harmony toward one goal: creating an experience that satisfies the customer so fully that they can’t wait to come back.

This is the essence of end-to-end thinking. It's not enough for your part to work; it must contribute to the larger goal. The kitchen’s execution supports the server’s service, which supports the manager’s goal of building relationships—all of which serve the customer’s desire for a memorable experience.

The Challenge for Product Teams

In software and product development, we face the same challenge. It’s tempting to declare victory when our component works or when a metric improves. But we need to ask ourselves: Are we optimizing for clean plates, or are we creating experiences that make users want to come back?

The Restaurant Test

The Restaurant Test is simple: Would you be satisfied if your users treated your product the way you treat a restaurant you’ll never visit again? If the answer is no, then there’s more work to do.

Creating Great Experiences

Great experiences, like great meals, are the sum of countless small decisions made with the end goal in mind. The chef who tastes every sauce, the server who remembers every preference, the manager who notices every detail—they’re all working to create something greater than the sum of its parts.

So next time you’re tempted to declare victory because your piece is working, ask yourself: Am I thinking like a chef who only cares about clean plates? Or am I thinking about the whole experience, from the moment the customer walks in until long after they’ve left?

Because in the end, it’s not about the food, the service, or the ambiance. It’s about creating something that makes people want to come back. That’s the true measure of success—whether you’re running a restaurant or building software.

And just like in a restaurant, if even one component fails to support that goal, the entire experience suffers. Your code might run perfectly, your metrics might look great, but if the customer doesn’t want to come back, have you really succeeded?

Key Takeaways:

1. Success is about the entire journey, not just isolated metrics.
2. Every role and component must work in harmony to create a truly great experience.
3. Always focus on the end-to-end experience to ensure customers want to return.

Think about the last product or service you stopped using: Was it because of a single bad experience, or a series of small misalignments? What could they have done differently to keep you coming back?