Restaurant Stories : Bad Service
Well I've been gone from AI for a few days due to a self-imposed Panther-related snafu...hoping to get back in it now. I went with my parents to a Longhorn Steakhouse tonight and we had terrible service....a new young high-school aged waitress too young to have well-developed people skills. It was busy and when our food finally made it to the table it was all cold. At least we didn't find any fingertips in our salads.
Anybody got a good "bad service" story? Now's the time for Powerdoc to tell us that the French waiters aren't snooty!
Anybody got a good "bad service" story? Now's the time for Powerdoc to tell us that the French waiters aren't snooty!
Comments
I tried that once. I was on my way to Tahoe, and stopped in a small family-owned place in Dixon. Maybe 10 tables, two waiters. We ordered basic turkey or BLT sandwhiches, because we wanted to keep going, but don't trust fast food. Anyways, we place our order and wait.
And wait.
And wait.
And wait.
And then we wait some more.
And then we leave.
Sure, we each had a soda, but we payed them in the time we wasted making stupid comments about the wallpaper of the place.
And I don't even want to go into the number of times I've had my order last up near Mt. Shasta.
Originally posted by Ganondorf
I can't stand eating at busy restaurants and do everything in my power to avoid them. Waffle House has excellent service.
Then why is it not busy ?? ;-)
Sorry, had to go there
Last year a waitress spilled cheese stick marinera sauce all over one of my friends it was pretty funny...I don't think he gave a good tip for that
Also last year a waitress was bringing out our breakfast and she dropped one of the plates right infront of us...and this was after waiting a loong time for some reason so the girl had to wait even longer. So I did the only gentleman like thing I could think of and wait to eat until she got her food. Good thing I ordered two meals so I could at least eat my first one
I have nothing to do with the ass-backwards kitchen staff who can't seem to cook things right or fast enough, or with the owner-pleasing hosting staff which (usually directed by a manager) tries to seat every available table at once, regardless of whether or not the server could handle it.
On the flip-side, overburdened servers clearly can't give good service.
Originally posted by Ganondorf
I can't stand eating at busy restaurants and do everything in my power to avoid them.
I'm with you there. I live in a heavy restaurant area. Not even a heavy restaurant district, It's a string of 4 or 5 restaurant 'districts' strung together for about a mile. All price ranges, all styles and it's urban so there are some real quirky ones.
Needless to say, they are all super busy on fridays and saturdays, and the service degrades dramatically.
I really don't understand why people actually get pleasure out of going to restaurants when they are so busy. It ruins any real atmosphere and the staff are too busy to pay any real attention to you. And what up with standing in line and waiting for a 1/2 hour? If the food is good enough to warrant that kind of effort, just go on a nice evening during the week, on sunday or at 5 or 6 instead of 7-9.
Originally posted by M.O.S.T
Then why is it not busy ?? ;-)
Most of the more interesting restaurants tend not to be so busy, because people want more generic food. THey want to know that there is going to be something that they will like and that it won't be too odd. Because of this, the best, small and unique restaurants are typically not as busy as the primary Italian, Asian and steak joints.
Originally posted by M.O.S.T
Then why is it not busy ?? ;-)
Because the food is godawful.
Think of the worst greasy spoon diner food you can imagine... now make it worse. Gack.
it took ages to find places to sit, so we finally just ignored the waitress and found the places ourselves. then, we ordered vegetarian quesadillas. well, after a LONG time they arrived. after a few bites i was wondering that that they were weird to be vegetables.. it ended up they were chicken. i spent the next 10 minutes vomiting in the bathroom, i just dont want to eat any meat or chicken and getting some when ordered else is just bad. i guess the waitress was happy for a tip of a dime, and i'm not going to go to abbey's again, or at least not eat there ever.
and one airline.
the service always sucks. the hostesses are on bad mood, and i try to avoid that airline more than any other. i once forgot how bad their coffee was and when tried to drink - jsut couldn't. or drink and vomit it. and i think about FOUR times i had ordered a vegan / vegetarian meal on them, and those what i got those times include chicken salad, a roll with ham, etc etc. anytime ive told them i had a vegan stuff the answer was just unpolite. well, finnair is for sure far from an airline i like.
We could even see the little prick hiding in the kitchen doorway looking at us. I think he was scared to come over and talk to us. He had this long story about how only 3 of the 4 meals were made, so he sent them back, then the second time, only 2 meals were made for some reason, and he didn't want just 2 of us with warm meals... so he sent the order in AGAIN. It took over 2 hours for our ****ing food to get to the table.
I was cool but firm. Told the little shit I wanted the manager over. Got the meals for free but we had to pay for our drinks. We spent almost 3 hours in that place, and I was pissed. We threw down some money on the way out, about $10 less than the alcohol bill was. Thing is, if the waiter wasn't such an arrogant prick about the whole thing, I wouldn't have. I usually tip more than most people I know.
"dinner and a show!"
the same meal, our waiter (not the one in the fight, they'd been sacked by the manager in front of everyone) told my wife that her appetizer was no where to be seen because the cook had "forgotten to turn the oven on."
The last egregiously bad service I got was a place on the upper west side in New York. The service was terrible, our waitress was completely indifferent to spilling coffee on the table (and on me), getting the orders wrong (after we'd waited for an hour and a half), and finally, overcharging us. She literally just shrugged and rolled her eyes when I pointed out that she had dumped hot coffee on my shirt and could I maybe have some water to get it off. The only reason I wasn't irate was that it was a filthy New York day, about a bazillion degrees and with 100% humidity, and the restaurant had ice-cold A.C. But we ended up not paying for the meal after talking to the manager, and several other tables chimed in at the same time, so I think her career as actress/model/waitress might have been cut short.
My wife and I went there one night with a couple, the wife was 8 months pregnant, he had just finished his dissertation, we were celebrating.
After waiting 45 minutes for a table (when we *had* a reservation), and them not allowing us to grab one of the *unused* chairs for the pregnant woman to sit down in, we ended up with one of the rudest waitresses I've ever had.
She was determined to rush us out of there ASAP to turn the table so she could get another tip. At one point she actually grabbed a half full plate of food from the pregnant woman while she had the fork halfway to her mouth. We all yelped at her, and she slammed the plate back down, acting like *she* was offended. That was when we decided to have some fun.
We had a four hour dinner. And dessert (two of us). And coffee. And drinks. And more coffee. And more dessert (the other two). Then more coffee. Oh, and lots and lots of water.
The entire time this waitress was *fuming*. We could see her bitching to her manager and pointing to us. So at the end of the meal, we asked to speak to the manager, and explained the situation, and gave her her tip. $1. On a bill of about $150.
She actually turned to the manager and said "They can't do this! Make them pay me more!" And he actually *tried*.
We've never been back.
I thank my waiters and waitresses for their service and I expect that same regard from them toward me. I can tell when they're in the weeds and am careful about asking for things that might throw them off. The truth is that there aren't that many people who have the requisite people skills and management ability. It's not a hard job to get right when you have good customers and a good kitchen.
Originally posted by CubeDude
Road trip advice: NEVER EVER go of the main road.
I remember stopping at this place called "Buckaroo's Barbeque" on the way from Yellowstone to Cody with my folks many, many years ago. The town had one of those "Population 120" signs near the highway, and a slight detour lead to the BBQ, but they had a sign on the main road.
Well, the place will forever live in my memory. It was not a pretty sight, but it was a pretty decent BBQ. There was a big stable full of pigs near the parking lot, and closer to the restaurant was clearly the chopping block and a big smoke house. Awesome.
All in all, it was a good experience and the smoked pig was excellent. Not all little, rural hole-in-the-walls are bad.
Originally posted by drewprops
Kudos to you sir!
I thank my waiters and waitresses for their service and I expect that same regard from them toward me. I can tell when they're in the weeds and am careful about asking for things that might throw them off. The truth is that there aren't that many people who have the requisite people skills and management ability. It's not a hard job to get right when you have good customers and a good kitchen.
Agreed. 15% (or one dollar per person) is my absolute *minimum*... waitstaff have to work to drop below that in my book. 20% is closer to my norm. Heck, I dropped a $5 tip on a $5.80 meal one day because it was the waitresses' birthday, and I was a regular. Tipping well is how you say 'thanks' when their job is rougher that day and they didn't drop the ball, or they treated you really well. But that also means I believe in withholding it appropriately when they suck.
it took twenty minutes just to get a waiter, we got one placed our order and waited and waited and eventually our appetizer came but we still had no cutlery, i got our waiter's attention and he gave me a "man you're a pain in the ass look." and NEVER brought plates and cutlery!
i go back to the table and my wife is laughing because not only do we not have anything to eat on but the food isn't even what we ordered, it belonged to someone else.
i go off in search of the waiter, i see him, and he sees me, and get this, HE STARTS RUNNING AWAY FROM ME! well not exactly running but hauling pretty good ass.
by now i'm livid! our food has arrived, by someone else but still no knives and forks! i ask for the manager he comes and explains how he's sorry, but is unconvincing and totally indifferent to how they've ruined our night.
i swear to god, he was such a prick i wanted to hit him, it's the only time in my adult life i have felt the urge to punch someone.
i still have his card, he said he'd buy us drinks next time!
i haven't been there since and tell everyone i know not to go to the house of blues in new orleans. i'm sure everyone involved is gone but.....
DON'T GO TO THE HOUSE OF BLUES IN NEW ORLEANS!