Partly inspired by this Pit thread, and partly inspired by something I heard on the radio that I’ll discuss in a moment, I’d like to ask, are there any business with rude customer service that you go to anyway?
For example, radio talk-show host Mike Gallagher mentions a place in Greenwich Village, New York City where the employees are downright hateful. They will refuse to serve you if they don’t like the way you look, or if you ever-so-slightly step out of line in the way you order, or whatever. BUT, they have unbelievably good food, so he keeps going back.
Back here in my world is a Korean seamstress who is absolutely mean. She’ll snatch your garments out of your hand, she demands payment in a hateful tone (“You pay fouh dollah! Fouh dollah! Hurry up! Fouh dollah!”), and is generally a menace to be around. BUT she does damn good tailoring and her prices are reasonable, so I keep going back. Call me a glutton for punishment.
So, are there any places that are rude to you but you do business there anyway? For this discussion let’s leave out restaurants like Ed Debevic’s in Chicago, where the employees are rude to you as part of the restaurant’s overall shtick.
Oriental Cuisine is the name. Wonderful food, really mean owner. I went for lunch today. I’ll continue to go because the food is just that good, even if they do look at you like you’re bothering them.
There’s a place in Myrtle Beach called Dick’s (or something like that) that is similar to Ed Debevic’s.
My old Colorado mountain haunt, the Bucksnort Saloon, had signs saying “If you’re in a hurry, go to McDonald’s” and “you’ll get it MY way or you don’t get the damn thing”. The place is always packed (in the summer anyway).
It’s not a restaurant, of course, but there are loads of us who have been treated rudely but keep coming back to…
Rude service, to me at least, isn’t worth it. I’ll do without my (whatever) rather than be treated rudely for having the nerve to visit a business and offer them money for a service that THEY are supposed to provide.
There’s a bookstore here that I no longer visit, although they have a good selection and good prices, because the owner is a b*tch and rude to everyone. I’ll do without or go to another store rather than deal with her.
When I visit a restaurant (almost always the same ones) they usually know that I’m deaf, but they don’t write out anythiing. They just point & stuff. I always thought if they were going to be polite they would write out the specials or sign them. Then I could give them a nice tip. My friends always tell me to tip nicely even though most of the time I don’t have a clue what the waiters say. Im sure hearing people wouldn’t tip if the waiter didn’t talk to them. But that’s life.
Fry’s Electronics in Southern CA is kind of famous along these lines. Finding someone who knows something about your particular interest is spotty at best, and I’ve been flatly mis-directed before. Their return/exchange line is a fine example of customer torture.
BUT… I now live about 1.5 miles from it, and it’s the only place in 20 miles that will almost always have four selections of the electronic/computer item you want, and will have a decent price on it, right now! I’ve heard morning DJs talk at length about Fry’s bad service, but despite all the people walking around in there with name tags, it still pretty much sucks.
There’s a particular pub in Brunswick (Melbourne) that on my first visit had the most abysmal staff-attitude that I vowed I would never go back.
However, curiosity got the better of me and I returned a few months later only to recieve the same disdain (particularly from the female bar-staff). Now I go just for the entertainment of being sickeningly polite to them so that they HAVE to be polite in return. It almost breaks their faces to do so.
Well, I need to partake in SOME sort of sport don’t I??
If someone in a commercial establishment is rude to me (and I mean outright and intentionally, blatantly rude, rather than just a bit clueless or spacey), I will never set foot in the place again, no matter how great the merchandise. I hold this type of grudge for a reaaaaallly long time. I refuse to give assholes my patronage, and I also let all my friends know.
There is one Italian restaurant here which made the yummiest grilled octopus I’ve ever eaten, and it pains me terribly, but I went back there the next day and got the rudest treatment of my entire life from the maitre’d (he actually seated my party and gave us menus before deciding that he didn’t think we could order and eat fast enough for the table to be free for a reservation 90 min. later, although we swore up and down that we had to be somewhere else before then anyway; I was on crutches at the time, and he kicked us out anyway).
It’s really too bad, because I love grilled octopus, and the rest of the food there is great, but I will not set foot in that place again unless they change ownership.
I get terrible service at my university. The registrar people are unhelpful, one of my professors gives us opinions as facts, the financial aid office was unable to tell me how much financial aid I could get, the university police (allegedly) harass my black classmates, one of the dorms is literally falling apart, the library people can’t find their own books, and I recently got blocked from registering for next semester because I didn’t sign up for a required class that I signed up for. Yet, once again, I’m going to give these people a couple thousand dollars . . .
Also, I continue to go to a doctor with an evil receptionist because I get good medical care there. It’s sort of a Soup Nazi situation, only with drugs and blood tests and things.
Give me bad service at a restaurant and you’ll never see me again, though.
There used to be a restaurant here in my part of Dublin called La Baguette. I wouldn’t say the servers were outright rude, but they certainly never seemed very interested in actual service. You really couldn’t go there unless you had a couple hours to kill because you’d be waiting that long just to get a menu sometimes. The food itself? Standard fare. Nothing they’d win any awards for. It really had nothing particular going for it, but it was a great place to go in on a Sunday morning with a newspaper and a hangover and just chill for awhile.
