Yep, can't blame you, you need to know you can trust them and trust often is most about perception. I have seen it in many businesses that the smart owner hires the best front person, some probably are the reason some shops succeed alone! Some of the people in coffee shops, stores etc. that can show the patience, understand the gibberish they might get from a customer (ex. "that frothy milky nutty coffee" = hazlenut latte) to translate to something the others can understand and still smile because, let's face it some customers are just jerks but if you treat them like that the perception (which is often worth more than the reality) of anyone nearby is negative to the shop as much as the customer but a jerk handled calmly and their needs met gives a huge positive impression about the stores competence. No, some customer facing people are probably worth their weight in gold. That family run business the guy might have answered the same question 100 times and just wants to do the work... luckily he is smart and his wife has the right skills. IF I went on the first 10 minutes and didn't try to chat him up I would have had a big negative impression too, the last 5, still not a good impression on his personality but not a negative one too.
He very badly needs a good staff to talk, organize and track and he should just hide in the back to just do the work which it sounded like he seemed to like even if it was repetitive sometimes.