Nah. One soda, no apps, no soup, no salad, no dessert. As I said we were just finishing up at 10pm, so were weren’t campers. I am a very polite person and I would never have gone, in if we weren’t told it was no problem. I could not have enjoyed my meal if I thought we were putting someone out. And only a complete jerk would sit there until midnight.
Oh god I remember that from my serving days. Never use ketchup in a restaurant from a bottle. Also, think twice about salad dressing. Same concept as ketchup. “Married” over and over and over…
That’s just completely rude.
You could call this anecdote “The Trouble With Fribbles” [/Star Trek]
See, the managers won’t say anything because the customer is always right, and the server won’t say anything for fear of it affecting the tip. Hence the heavy “hints” of cleaning near the offending party, maybe call outs to someone to take out the garbage, etc.
When I worked in restaurants, the management wanted us ready to walk out the door thirty minutes to an hour (depending on the restaurant) after closing. Every minute after we were officially closed, I made less money per hour as a server because I wasn’t making enough tips to bring that time up to minimum wage.
Employees who are in a position where tips supplement their wages earn a pittance of an hourly wage. Only if your receipts are under a dollar value where 8% would bring you up to the federal minimum for the pay period (and the particulars may have changed since I was in the business) does your employer have to make up the difference.
If you keep your server, bartender or busperson much past closing, they are losing money unless you tip extravagently.
Oh gods, that was funny. 
I was in Tofino, but missed seeing this place - if I go back, I’m almost tempted.
Reminds me of the most hilariously bad short review I ever read - a hotel in New York. There were tons of long terrible reviews, but the one that got me was a one-sentencer: “There were bums defecating in the lobby”.
Bum-lookers! 
That’s just gross.
Here in the UK, this is how restaurants deal with dirty cutlery. 
Yes, I can confirm this. I’ve worked in quite a few food places (including some fairly upmarket ones), and it’s quite common to top up condiments like that. However, I have never, ever seen anyone anywhere actually empty out a condiment bottle to clean it properly. A quick wipe around the top with a damp cloth is usually as good as it gets.
Ha, we had one of these badboys, which somebody had named Oscar long before I started.
“cabinet”
j/k, I’m a flatlander. “frap”
A frappé (frah-pay) is a coffee drink. A frappe (frap) is a New England milkshake.
I went out to dinner with friends one time and had a waiter who was OK but was kind of aggressive or skeevy in some way I can’t remember anymore. So I gave him medium marks on the comment card. And he came back and asking me in a not-so-vaguely threatening tone why I had only given him those marks! Um, Exhibit A right there!
In Canada we call them both frap, eh.
So what’s the button on the blender, then?
Or the buffet “server” DH and I had one evening at a normally good Chinese buffet place near us. On this occasion, we had an abnormal amount of difficulty getting drink refills, plates piled up, etc. We even had trouble getting his attention to ask for the check.
He did get QUITE attentive, as in hovering over my shoulder, while I was filling in the card slip. This got an already low tip (for poor service) reduced some more, for just plain being obnoxious. Don’t expect generosity from customers you only care about when it’s time for that tip, dude.
I have 2…
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Ages ago when Thai food was just becoming popular and available and I never had Thai a friend and I were driving around and spotted a place and decided to try it. I ordered beef with basil because, hey, I like beef and as an Italian I love basil so this is right in my wheelhouse! The waitress asks if I want it mild and I tell her spicy if fine. We then have a literally 5 minute conversation about Thai food and how if I’ve never had it I should go with mild. I finally convince her to put the order in for spicy and about 30 seconds later a very short, elderly, angry looking Thai man in a t-shirt and greasy apron comes out of the kitchen, waves a cleaver in my face and says “White boy, you DON"T want the hot!”
I went with medium and it nearly blew a hole in the back of my head. -
Heads up, this is crude and not likely to paint me in a very good light…
I was tending bar back in my grad school days and one night I was closing up and there was a regular at one end of the bat and 2 ladies in their 40’s at the other end. The guy slides down and asks the ladies if they’d like a little toot of coke and they’re only to happy at the offer. A few hours later we all ended up at one of the ladies homes at like 4 AM reenacting every really bad porno orgy you’ve ever seen.
The next day I remembered I had a date with a co-ed I had been seeing for about a month. I took her to the new steak place in town and I’ll give you thee guesses who the waitresses were.
It was…awkward…
Maybe ten years ago I went to a Thai/Viet/Chinese fusion place about once a week and settled on a chicken noodle dish that came as hot as you wanted. I kept upping the ante until my instructions to the (little tiny Vietnamese woman) chef, through the waitress, was “try to kill me.”
She made several good goes at it, and it got to the point where I’d walk in and she’d stand on tiptoe to peer at me over the counter… and giggle.
They went out of business before lethality was achieved. I miss that place. And that food.
Heh. My Wife and a friend went out for dinner and drinks and pretty much every thing was wrong. Wrong dishes and drinks brought to the table, surly waitress, bad service. We usually tip 20%. Taking into account it’s not always the servers fault.
We paid, left a 10% tip and left. The waitress chased us out the restaurant and down the street. “IF THE SERVICE WAS SO BAD WHY DON’T YOU TALK TO THE MANAGER!!!”
We went back and did talk to the manager. Fine. You want us to come back and bitch? You got it.
Another time, my wife ordered a VERY expensive margarita. Specific ingredients. My wife got the wrong drink, and tried to send it back.
- Bartender, oh, that’s not how I make that one.
- Wife, but this is what it says on the menu. These ingredients. Its says right here on the menu.
- But that’s not how I make it. I make that drink this way.
- But… I don’t like this… This is not the drink I ordered (it was WAY off).
The guy argued about how to make the very specific margarita. It wasn’t close to what the menu said, but still he argued. It was surreal.
Wife called the manager the next day.
And please, when you order a $28 steak in a ‘steak house’ don’t cook it in a microwave. Grey inside and out. That’s another story though.
I refer you all to this oldie but goodie. 