Reflecting upon my dinning out experiences something occured to me. There seems to be IME a strong correlation between two things. If the combination of food price/quality/volume/service was particularly good, enough that I was inclined to give highly positive reviews, there was a much higher chance that we were asked about our experience by the manager or the owner or the chef/cook.
Places with meh food? Not nearly so much.
So, if places that are meh can’t be bothered to be proactive…then meh.
I’m way less timid in my old age and while I won’t read the riot act, I will address specifics if they’re really bad. If I don’t feel like getting into it, I’ll just say “It was OK” in a tone that suggest it really wasn’t OK but it’s not worth dealing with.
If it’s a place I patronize regularly, I’m more inclined to be specific, both positive and negative. When I’ve gotten coupons for a return visit and things were greatly improved, I make sure I say so. I’ve also found that in family-type restaurants where you pay on the way out, if the cashier asks “How was everything?” and you say “The service was slow.” it’s meaningless - I think they just blow it off. But if you go to a website and cite specifics, you often get a response and may actually see an improvement in a future visit.
That’s exactly what I would do.
Unless it’s something like a foreign object in my food and/or something unclean I don’t complain.
Oddly went through this this past weekend. Anniversary for wife and I and went to an chain Asian place (sorta sounds like BD Wong’s but not really) downtown. Food was standard and consistent, but the service was ridiculously poor. The server seemed to be extermely offended by our presence to the point my wife asked if I had said or done something while she (my wife) was in the restroom. The food was literally thrown on the table as the random servers ran by and the manager walked by our table at least a half dozen tiems without so much as a glance. We rushed through our meal as quickly as possible, paid our bill and ducked out quickly and almost apologetically.
At the end of the meal the almost openly hostile server asked how the meal was. We said, “Fine, thanks.” When we got home, we used the contact page on their website to re-tell the story. That’s kind of our approach. DOn’t fan the flames. Use a different route to express dissatisfaction.
I had this happen a few weeks back. Brand new place, very busy… the service was uneven (sometimes approaching rude, sometimes ok) and the food was mediocre. A manager type came by and asked us how everything was. We answered with an unenthusiastic “fine” the first time he asked but then he tried to engage us, asking what we had ordered, how we liked it, etc.
At this I looked at him and asked “Do you really want to know?” and when he said yes I gave him my review. At one point I even picked up a limp vegetable from a plate and said “this is called a sugar snap pea - it should not bend in half, it should snap”. I used very neutral language, never raised my voice, kept it all as impersonal and professional as I could while telling him what I thought. He thanked me, apologized and left… after which my friend just looked at me and said “I love you. Never change.” 
My friend and I agreed that speaking up was the right thing to do - especially since this is a new place. How will they ever know what’s up if no one ever actually tells them? I didn’t go home and write an angry Yelp review, I actually told someone who could fix it.
For the record - we didn’t get a dime off the bill or a complimentary dessert to share or anything. I wasn’t fishing for a freebie but I’ve never had that happen - if something goes wrong I’ve always had someone try and fix it in some manner. I won’t be going back - I’m in Manhattan, it’s not like there is some lack of places for me to spend my money.
Sometimes I’ll take my cues from the waitress/waiter- if I’ve been getting the kind of service that makes me think she actually cares, I’ll let her know if I’m unhappy with some element of the meal. “Actually, I’ll be honest- I was sort of looking forward to the potato croquettes that were supposed to come with this, so I’m disappointed in this- tri-color noodle, I guess- which frankly, is pretty bland.”
But if the guy is sort of just going through the motions and asks how we’re enjoying everything, I’ll assume he doesn’t give a rusty rat’s ass and is just asking because he was trained to, so he’ll get “It’s fine, thanks”.
:dubious:
My question is why do they ask this five minutes into the meal when you’ve barely started. Then you never see them again until the check is delivered.
I didn’t vote because the answer I would have selected would be, “It depends.”
If the server seemed sincere in asking and had no idea how shitty it might be, I might ask, “Are you serious?” If he/she acted serious I would list my objections.
If the server were just going through the motions of asking a pat question, I would just mutter something or not reply at all. I might even lie and say, “It’s okay.” Then I would leave no tip or an insulting minimum. And never go back.
I can’t help but think of the joke where four little old ladies were having lunch at some swanky restaurant and after they had all been served the waiter asked, “Is anything okay?”
Which is?
Sorry. That was it! 
I’d better quit trying to get a laugh out of that “joke.”
See Are You “High Maintenance” in Restaurants? starting at this post and following.
Dr. Righteous, I definitely try to say something at a new place if it seems like they’re aiming for better-than-average-diner fare. (I usually end up going to diners with my inlaws.) I went to a “gastropub” where about a third of the way through it, I gave up and stopped eating my tiny, pricey entree just because it was really bland and boring. When the waiter came by, I decided I had to speak up. I found out from a waiter who went there a month or so later that the two main chefs were straight out of culinary school and seemed to be flailing around a bit in trying to find the place’s “theme.”
I thought it was funny.
Aha! So you’re the one!
I say I wont be back
I would think for most people 5 minutes is enough time to taste all of your food that has just arrived. But never checking in again after that is just bad serving, the only exception is if they are slammed, and are busting their ass. If they can keep my drink filled during that sort of chaos, they get big tips.
If the food or service is bad I’ll be honest. If it’s mediocre I usually say everything is good when what I really want to say at times are “it was acceptably boring, thank you.”
They always seem to time it for when I’ve just put a possibly-too-large piece of food in my mouth, often after some sauce has somehow found its way somewhere it really shouldn’t in polite society.
If there’s a specific problem with some aspect of the food I’ll raise it.
But if it’s more of a general ‘not up to the standards’ I would have expected, without being really bad, the server gets a polite ‘It’s OK thanks’.
I don’t know if this is just an Aussie thing though, but I find if you do speak up sometimes they’re not prepared for it. Eating out a few months ago, my wife got a vegies with her meal and they were seriously undercooked. This was after they’d made a mistake of bringing her salad instead of vegies in the first place. We told the waitress, it was almost deer in the headlights, I think we got a “Oh I’m sorry” And nothing else - no “let me replace them”, no “we’ll take them of the bill”. :smack:
On the flipside of complaining though, if we get something exceptional we do seek out the manager to let them know. Out to dinner last week at an American-style BBQ restaurant, we not only left a tip for the waiter (pretty rare here in Australia), because he was bloody fantastic at his job, but found the owner and spoke to him for a minute about both the great food and the fantastic waiter.
The one time I complained the first time I went to a restaurant, I had gotten a steak that wasn’t done right. But for steak, it’s very specific what “medium rare” means, and I said something when I realized it was more medium-well, I didn’t wait until the meal was over. And they replaced it, no problem.
But in general, for a new restaurant, I’m not invested in it, and for something more subjective, I’ll just say “fine” and never go back. For one of my regular places, though, I’ll say something.