We all have favorite restaurants for different reasons. Of course the food is one of the main drivers of positioning one at the top of our lists. There are, however, other qualities that contribute to appealing to diners - atmosphere, location, service, cleanliness, and attitude of management and staff. What are your criteria?

Here's the latest listing from TripAdvisor. Is your favorite restaurant on the list? Do you think they got it right? Tell us which one and why.

TripAdvisor Best Restaurants in Lafayette

In 1933, my father opened a Sinclair service station. In those days stations like his provided a broad array of services to motorists who came to "fill 'er up", including greeting customers with a smile, pumping gas, cleaning the windshield, sweeping the floor board with a whisk broom, adding water to the radiator, checking oil and fluid levels, and offering a genuine "thank you and please come back" after collecting for the gas - which was about $0.18/gallon (around $2.50 in current dollars). All this while offering other services like engine tune ups, brake adjustments, and tire repairs.

Recently, I ran across the letterhead for Reggie's Service Station. Under the name was the tagline, "We Serve to Serve Again". That was my dad's lifelong philosophy in every business he owned and one that he insisted his employees embrace as passionately as he did. He walked the talk. He lived this philosophy in everything he did - every day!

Oh, how I long for and seek that philosophy...

Most people feel that charisma is a gift with which great communicators are born. It is often enviously perceived as a "natural ability" to own the room and exhibit a commanding presence when engaging with others. 

It is quite the contrary. Like tennis, painting, photography, and woodworking, charisma is a skill that is perfected through study and practice. Charisma is the mastering of the art of engagement that draws others to us. It is developed by focusing on being passionate, present, and confident when in the company of others, whether in a social or professional setting. 

Facial expression, eye contact, body language and movement, vocabulary, articulation, and elocution are critical elements that contribute to charisma. While it is true that these may come naturally to some, it still requires awareness, focus, and practice to perfect and execute.

If you are interested in learning more about how to be a more engaging and effective presenter, speaker, or...

In my work as a business coach, Customer Service remains the most critical element of customer and client retention. At the core of customer satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) lies the timeliness of the response to a complaint, concern, or need. The quicker the response, the higher the satisfaction. It's that simple.

When taking scuba lessons, I was taught to deal with certain stressful situations that required an expeditious return to the surface. The instructions delivered were four words . . . "Stop. Drop. Go. Blow." That meant to stop whatever I was doing, drop my weight belt and tank, go  straight up to the surface, and blow all of the air out of my lungs on the way up. The point was to not delay and to pursue the remedy immediately.

So it is with customer service. When faced with a complaint or critical situation, it is essential that those issues be handled directly and in the most timely fashion possible. Failure to do so will cost your company money, damage your...

I love oysters! Ever since I can remember, raw oysters on the half-shell were something I craved and eagerly anticipated eating once those welcomed cold fronts moved in to drop the Gulf water temperatures and signal the beginning of the year's harvest.

Nothing beats standing at a bar on a brisk January afternoon with a cold Abita Amber, a paper cup with my own made horseradish cocktail sauce, chatting with the shucker and hoping he will throw in a few extras for good measure. After eating what seems like four dozen, I settle up and discover that I was charged for only two dozen of these delightful bivalve mollusks - about $27 - ensuring a very nice tip for Cyrus, my shucker and, now, best friend whom I have named "Lagniappe".

Sadly, this may be changing this year in a very big way. Excessive flooding along the Mississippi is creating an overabundance of fresh water pouring into the Gulf of Mexico, upsetting the delicate balance of brackish waters off the Louisiana coast in which...

Okay, it is now 2019. It's a new year, a time for new beginnings and a focus on new or renewed objectives and goals. It is a time when conversations are dominated by our lists of "New Year's Resolutions". We create a plan of action to lose weight, eat healthier, read more books, be more productive, watch less television, be kinder to others, complete those unfinished chores, and. . . well, you get the picture.

While these resolution check lists are noble and well-intended, most of us (myself included) fail to achieve any of the items at the level intended when the list was made. It is practically inevitable that, by February 1st, we all fall back into the previous routines we set out to abandon - just see how much easier it is to find an available treadmill at your health club. Why is that?

The answer is relatively simple. We spend time creating the list and a course of action that will produce the results we desire but we don't make the commitment to follow through on the promises...

I am a Boomer. Growing up, my father was my business role model. Like many Boomers, as a kid, I would follow him around my small hometown as he met with customers, friends, business associates, bankers, and strangers.  He was always the first to extend his hand, greeting the other party with a genuine smile and kind word with a demeanor that was both charming and disarming. He would always emphasize how important it was to be the first to initiate a handshake because it represented trustworthiness and...it put you in control of the encounter, even if only momentarily.

Most millennials have not had the benefit of such a mentor. In most instances, they are digitally self-taught by a system designed for electronic communication. Absent are the nuances of eye-contact (Skype, Zoom, and FaceTime don't count), voice inflection, body language, and the warmth of a genuine handshake and of taking time to get to know the person who they are encountering. Immediate execution and...