Betrayed by my favorite restaurantt!

I like, every once in a while, to live the good life.

In particular, I enjoy a good Italian meal at a nice restaurant every once in a while.

My SO and I found a wonderful restaurant in San Francisco that we go to whenever our pocketbooks allow (not to often considering our poor college student status). They have superb food and we have always gotten above and beyond wonderful service.

So, I decided to take three close friends there.

Now, a word about my friends and I. Our main form of entertainment (when we are poor) is to go to Denny’s, order cheap food, get to know the wait staff, and leave 40-60% tips (no kidding). We do this for a variety of reasons. Because we tend to order cheap food, our bills end up small, but the waitperson still did the same amount of work. We are poor college kids and we are able to recognize the hard work that wait people do, and we are able to sympathize with their meager wages. I’d even go as far as to say we have socialist tendencies, and want to “spread the wealth”, and what better wealth to redistribute than your own?

We tip well.

So we went to the restaurant. The first thing that happened was the doorman led us in like he was taking us to a table, but then, he suddenly veered off into the bar, and told us to wait there for “just a second”.

We are not of legal drinking age. We do not even look like we are of legal drinking age. One of the people involved was barely eighteen, much less twenty-one. We don’t even have fake IDs! Obviously his ploy to jack up the profits by selling us drinks was fatally flawed. So we sat there quietly (and had to explain to the bartender why we weren’t buying anything) for far longer than a second. It was quite a while. Quite an uncomfortable while, as the bartender was staring at us menacingly.

When we ordered, the waiter seemed distinctly displeased with our order (Two of us got delicious appetizers in liu of entrees, and we shared two desserts). We know it was an unusual order, and would usually make for a smaller tip, but we always tip as if we had ordered full meals instead of the cheaper options. I am loyal to this restaurant, and usually order full three courses. I thought that a cheapskate order just once would be forgiven.

Apparently not.

Not once did they fill up our water (was this our punishment for ordering “just water” to drink with our meals?) The waiter would pass by…glance at our parched cups…walk over and fill up other people’s water…but not deign to provide us with life giving H2O to wash down our spicy penne pasta and rich chocolate gelato.

Needless to say, not once did they ask if we were doing okay.

Needless to say, we waited patiently for half an hour after dessert until we gave up and flagged our waiter down for the check.

When we paid, we requested that they bring us the change, so that we could make sure that everyone in the party was able to contribute equally to the tip.

We were supposed to get something like 3.75 worth of change back. They gave us three crumples dollar bills. Where did our .75 go? I don’t know. Perhaps it got eaten by galactic interstellar monsters hiding in the kitchen. Perhaps they were mugged by a patron on the way back to our table with it. More likely, they assumed (considering our young looks and their terrible service) that we were not going to leave them a very bountiful tip, and decided to take what they could when they could.

I don’t even remember what we left as tip. Something along the lines of ten or fifteen percent, bleeding hearts that we are. I would have stiffed them completely, but there is no use giving kids like me an even worse name.

I had to apologize to my friends about my restaurant choice.

I don’t know if I will go back there. I love their food, and they have always always treated me wonderfully before.

But San Francisco is full of Italian restaurants, and I am sure I can find one that will not betray me!

So? Are you going to tell us where it was or do we have to show up and get the same shitty treatment to find out? They’ll find out how many other Italian restaurants there are in SF when they lose all their business to them.

You ought to send a copy of your OP to the manager or owner.

Denny’s it is! Could I get some more of that lovely cheese sause… please.

Sven, Please take my chastisement with the good humor it is intended.

One of the pleasures of young adulthood is learning the skills that will be needed later in life, and if your college or university offers a continuing education course on assertiveness, you and your friends should all sign up. Numerous opportunities were offered you to enlighten someone at the establishment that you were a regular there and because you liked it so much you were showing it off to your friends. Rather than giving you poor service, therefore, they should give you better than standard service. After all, if your friends like the place they are liable to come back, too. The fact that you are young and poor should be immaterial: soon you will be older and wealthy.

Opportunities you missed:

  1. Tell the maitre d’ or hostess that you don’t have much time, but “because I like your place so much I have brought my friends for appetizers and dessert.” Any host worth their salt will understand your point and shouldn’t sit you at the bar.

  2. Talk to your server: “We’re just poor college students, so forgive us for only ordering appetizers, but I love your food and wanted to bring my friends.” Again, any good server will get your gist. In my experience, the vast majority of foodservice people get there because at some point in their life, they have been young and poor, too.

  3. If you don’t get water or a check when you want it, ask for it. They’re servers and that’s what they’re there to do.

  4. If the server brought the wrong change on purpose, that is unacceptable. On top of bad service it requires that you talk to the manager. Explain your story exactly as you did in the OP followed by, “Because I know the servers work for tips, we are going to leave one, but it won’t be as big as it could be. And I’m not certain that I’m coming back.” If that doesn’t get a response from the manager, then the place doesn’t deserve your business.

Finally, there are two ways of being assertive, rudely and politely. I would suggest the latter, after all, as the old saying goes, you will catch more flies with honey than you will with vinegar. Good luck and practice, practice, practice.

I have found that as I get older I get better and better service. Waiters are often bigoted against young people. Why? Because many young people don’t tip well, it is assumed that all young people don’t tip well and service reflects this.

I had a similar incident with a group of friends in a Denny’s once. Nobody wanted to help us. Some people got their meals before others got their soups and salads. It was awful. Guess what? The waitress did not get a good tip! Thus, it was proven in her mind, I am sure, that “Young people don’t tip well.” Self fulfilling prophecy.

2 years ago I was in New Orleans on a business trip with a co-worker. We were walking around downtown looking for a restaurant (we were obviously in the wrong part of town) in shorts and t-shirts. We found a restaurant called Wollenski grill, a fancy place (30 dollar steaks and such). They treated us like we were businessmen in suits. I had the best steak I’ve ever had (2 lb ribeye soaked in bourbon) and the waiter got a nice tip.

Waiters have an obligation to treat every guest with the same level of respect regardless of appearance, regardless of “assertiveness.” Being quiet and polite and enjoying a nice meal does not mean that you deserve worse service than a loudmouth jerk.

I wouldn’t bet on that-I know plenty who say that their elderly customers are the worst.

I guess it all depends.