I’ve never sent anything back. I have been in situations, however, where I’ve taken a bite or two and realized something was wrong. Maybe wrong ingredients, unexpected flavors, something like that. The last time was at a Mexican place and the mole sauce on the enchiladas tasted horrible, when I had had the exact same dish at that restaurant two weeks prior, and it had been great.
In those cases, I just set the plate to the side to be picked up as finished. If they ask if something was wrong, I’ll tell them the truth. They usually offer a replacement, but I refuse for a couple of reasons. One, by the time a fresh dish comes out, the people I’m with are at least half done eating, and I don’t like speed eating to catch up. Besides, I’ve been that friend before and it’s kinda awkward eating while someone at your table is waiting with nothing. And two, I’ve usually lost my appetite by eating bad food.
Sometimes they take it off the bill, sometimes not. Doesn’t matter to me. I’m there primarily to socialize anyway. I always tip as if everything had been okay.
Twice that I can recall. Both times because the food was literally inedible. The first time I cut open my baked potato only to find a black void the size of a golf ball. The second was a chicken fried steak where the steak had gone way bad. I’m surprised the cook didn’t smell it when he was battering it.
Just did it last week when I ordered my eggs so well done they bounced, and got over easy. Twice. I felt bad for the server, who clearly knew they were wrong but said she was required to bring out what they put in the window.
I never understood the idea of taking it out of the server’s check if the error was clearly in the kitchen. Does that really happen when the order was placed right but the food is totally wrong? If the server put the order in right, then just carried the plate of food to the table, how is it his or her fault the cooking went wrong?
Extremely rarely and only if I won’t eat what I get. To me, it’s like a game. I had an opportunity placed before me that I had not planned on. Am I going to take this opportunity and eat something I had not planned on or am I going to pass? I know the taste of what I ordered but I may like this as well or better and maybe I will have a better dinner than if I hadn’t.
I don’t like to gamble but I’m a sucker for this kind of thing and the adventure of it trumps the meal I wanted ( which is rarely super important ). Curiosity trumps comfort is another way of looking at it.
It helps that I don’t feel like I have a sophisticated palate so I could very well like a taste that I’d never consider trying if I was choosing what to eat especially with toppings and condiments. This has happened to me a few times. Oh, that tasted better than I thought it would.
This is a dead horse at this point, but that’s pretty much the summary of the pizza delivery business. The cooks, managers, and cut table staff, phone taker, all get a guaranteed salary and are the only ones who know what the customer ordered or get to see whether or not it is correct. Pizza drivers in especially busy stores are not encouraged to check inside all the packages to ensure accuracy. Taking it out of the delivery bag, placing them on a counter one by one, opening the box and letting more of the heat out, delaying delivery of the order, that’s not in their job description. They are supposed to read the ticket and see if there’s a proper number of packages, and that the sodas and sides are included, but, the manager or the cut table person or whoever is bagging the order is supposed to do everything but the soda.
I’m saying this as someone who worked inside of the store just as much as I delivered. Without question, if the order is wrong, it’s the inside of the store staff’s fault, unless the driver literally accidentally switches the tickets between two different orders in his car. That can be avoided simply by having only the current delivery order’s check in your hand and leaving the other attached to the bag, and it is rare.
It’s typically the driver whose income is impacted by it.
I can report that over time, the customers have grown more aware of this and are more likely these days to (correctly) pay the driver, and then call the manager of the store and get a credit or a refund. If the entire order is wrong or it is wholly unacceptable, it’s still fine to refuse to pay and simply ask the driver to bring it back. Those two things send the message directly to the manager on duty who fixes it. A stiff never does. We can’t tell the difference because half the customers stiff anyway. No message is heard. They just think the customer is being a jerk. Often such a stiff doesn’t even come with an explanation, and by “often”, I mean 95 percent of the time. An actual explanation wrongly blames the driver, but would be understandable if misguided. And they’re the ones who earn a wage similar to a server at a restaurant.
I will give the waiter the third degree about what you asked for and ask the waiter to explain the cryptic notes on the ticket to me if i as the chef “failed” read the waiter mind and understated the conversation you the guest had with the waiter … you know chefs should not only be able to read the moron waiter’s mind but read yours via the dumb fuck waiters…
Rarely have I sent food back. It’s happened more than once I’m sure, but the only specific time I can remember involved Red Robin leaving a sheet of parchment paper (or whatever it is) on my burger. That was … Unappetizing.
Chipped a tooth yesterday on a bbq pulled pork sandwich that had bone fragments in it. Told the owner and showed him and that was it, didn’t finish it, didn’t want my money back, just won’t ever go back. I consider informing him a favor from someone who has also been in the food business. Mistakes do happen, but a refund or a new meal is irrelevant in the scheme of things to the pain and expense of getting your tooth fixed.
Everyone I know has worked in the restaurant industry (pretty much a requirement where I grew up), many for life. I don’t know of anyone messing with anyone’s food. Yes people get mad, cuss, etc, and plenty of people show up for work wasted and are not the greatest people, but I don’t know anyone who would do that and it would not be tolerated anywhere.
I’ve also never heard of a server being charged for a mistake. I have seen plenty of servers get free food, though.
Recently, we went to a local Mexican place that was not great the first time we went there, but we we back again, hopeful that is had been a bad night or just the wrong order. We started out with queso fundido, which is a hot cheesy appetizer with salsa that comes in a small cast iron skillet. The cheese is well done, brown and chewy on the bottom, melty in the middle and brown on the top.
What we got was a skillet of cheese soup, not even close to melted cheese. It was cheese whiz, in some kind of bechamel, like the sauce on mac n cheese, only runnier. In a word, awful.
I called the waitress and asked, “Is this the queso fundido?”
She says, “Are we not liking the queso fundido tonight?” :dubious:
In my mind, I was thinking, “I’ve had queso fundido. I like queso fundido. This, however, is no queso fundido”
What I said is, “We didn’t care for it, it’s not what we expected”. And she took it back, and took it off the check.
The rest of the meal was not great either. We are not liking this restaurant.
Now that I think about it, it happened on our vacation recently also, though I didn’t actually send the food back. It was at a very swanky italian place, and I got linguine with clams and mussels in a garlicky olive oil. The clams and mussels were fresh in the shell, and as I was eating them, I came across a clam shell with a large chip out of it. I thought, I better watch out, that chip is probably in here somewhere. But the food was so good, I got immersed in pulling the delectable morsels out of their shells and enjoying the pasta and garlic sauce. Suddenly, I found that piece of shell, and nearly broke a tooth.
Fortunately, I am a dental superman, so there was no ill effect, and the dinner was in all other respects terrific. So when the manager came to our table to ask how everything was, I praised the dinner and the service. Then as an aside, I showed him the piece of shell I had found, just so the kitchen staff could avoid a bad outcome with other guests. He apologized profusely, and comped the whole table with free desserts. I know it was a just a mistake, and we would go back there in a heartbeat, the food was so good. We still left a very generous tip.
McD’s recently, I asked for xtra ketchup and no pickles. The drive thru lady typed in in backwards but she assured me that by the time i got the food, it would be right. Asked numerous times before I took the food. Needless to say it wasn’t right. I marched right back in.
Breakfast the other day. My wife will not eat egg unless very well done. No runny (or even moist) yellow. First meal delivery, “hey that egg doesn’t look cooked”, nope, wrong. Next egg, no better. Wife said I wasn’t nice enough, but really it can’t be that hard. Sorry to take it out on waitress, but it’s not like the cook is delivering the food and manager was too cowardly to deliver.
That or he just lost his shit after the 76th thing beyond his control went wrong that night. There are few things as frustrating as working someplace where you get in trouble with the management for the things they failed to manage.
once in a while I send things back, I have to top 10 food allergies so when a meal comes with both and I order it with neither and it arrives with both I kinda have a problem with eating it.
Once, and it wasn’t the main dish, it was an extra vegetable.
My girlfriend and I went to a restaurant we’d been to several times before and ordered our usual meals. One of the specials was an artichoke appetizer for $5, about the cost of a glass of wine at the time. A dish of hollandaise and a steamed artichoke on a small plate arrived. We tried pulling the outer leaves on the bottom loose and couldn’t; they were still quite firmly attached to the thistle.
Hmmm. Maybe it’s a little underdone, so we sent it back. Ten minutes later it was back but we still couldn’t get anything loose. We combed down the outer leaves to see if something a bit closer would be better; nope.
Back to the kitchen again but the same story when it returned a second time. I don’t know if the cook was trying a test tug or not before sending it out again. By then the main meals had been there for some time so we gave up. They didn’t take it off the bill but did give us a dessert to share. The hollandaise licked off a fork was pretty tasty, too.
If the food is at least edible, then this is generally considered good manners in situations where the food has been prepared by a personal friend or family member and is being given gratis. It’s absolutely essential behavior if you’re a minor and your mom is the one making dinner.
But if you’re a grown-up, and you’re paying for a meal at a restaurant, then it’s a business transaction, and it’s entirely reasonable to expect that you receive what you paid for, and that it be prepared according to your wishes. Moreover, if the restaurant has screwed up, informing them of their mistake is usually helpful feedback. If a cook or waiter is consistently fucking up orders, they’re probably pissing off a lot of customers, and management will want to know so they can take the appropriate action.
Having said that, I can only think of a few occasions where I have sent food back:
10 years ago we ate at a Texas Roadhouse. Ordered a burger, well-done. It arrived rare. I sent it back, and it was returned to the table some time later, inexplicably still rare; I’m not even sure it ever made it back onto the grill. I sent it back a second time, and this time the manager came out and apologized in-person, comped me for the burger and had a new one cooked, this time well-done. So dinner was delayed a good bit, but in the end it was free, so not such a bad resolution.
-A few years ago I ordered filet mignon at a high-end chop house. Somehow a plate of lamb chops arrived instead. I can’t eat lamb; it just tastes gross to me. So I had to send it back. The filet arrived soon after, and all was well.
-A few weeks ago I ordered a particular omelet from the menu, but asked if they could make it without mushrooms. Waitress said “sure,” but 15 minutes later delivered an omelet that was covered in mushrooms. Had to ask them to remake it without the shrooms. Again, the right order arrived soon after, and all was well. (the waitress was an airhead; she asked if wanted ketchup or tabasco sauce, we said “ketchup, please,” and she returned literally seconds later with tabasco sauce. :smack:)
Where my daughter works, there is a heavy clientele of frequent diners. One guy, Brian, is in twice a week like clockwork, has been since she started working there almost three years ago. Tuesdays he orders the liver and onions, Thursday is burger and fries. He knows all the waitstaff and cookstaff by name. A month ago he finally complained that his burgers are never right, he wants them well done, they always arrive med-well. The menu specifically states all burgers are served med-well. Almost three YEARS of being unsatisfied!
For myself - it depends on the situation. If I order something without tomatoes and it comes with tomatoes? I just pick them off. I always order eggs over-medium and can count on one hand when they’ve actually come out that way. Unlike Brian, though, if I order a burger med-rare and it’s well done? That sucker is going back. I hate well done beef.
I can’t eat lamb; it just tastes gross to me. So I had to send it back. The filet arrived soon after, and all was well.