Reservations for 6:30 pm, seated promptly. So far so good. Ordered drinks (draft beer, no biggie). Thirty minutes later, the hostess stops by asking if we were finished with the drink menu, as she ran out at the stand up front. Let her know we were done with the menu, but hadn’t received our beers. Only then did the drinks show up. That was red flag #1. Waitress took our order. Already prepared soup and salad plate came 15 minutes later. Our dinner actually arrived at 8:30 pm, two hours after we were seated.
I’m pissed that we didn’t leave after the first red flag. Never again am I waiting 2 hours for the main meal. It wasn’t an 8-course meal at a fancy restaurant, either.
Went to a local restaurant a couple months ago. It wasn’t busy, and there seemed to be quiet a few servers. We were promptly seated outside next to another couple. Five minutes went by… nothing. Another five minutes went by… nothing. Another five minutes went by… nothing. We got up and left.
But an experience about 7 years ago takes the cake. My son and I were in Indianapolis to go to Lucas Oil Raceway. We went to a Cracker Barrel for breakfast. We were seated, and the server took our drink order. 40 minutes went by and… nothing. We watched another couple come in, order food, eat, and then leave. And we didn’t even have our drinks. I finally complained to a different server who was walking by. She apologized and took our order. And didn’t even give us a discount or anything.
I’ve had a few long waits for food to come out. I recall being ignored completely by waitstaff but that would be nipped in the bud early by getting another staffers attention to find our waiter please.
We have walked out before and avoided the agony of waiting forever for service.
Fast food establishments have the worst record imo.
Lol Can you imagine if they were required to provide table service too but in all fairness it’s usually employees in need of training. A quick phone call to the restaurant manager to let them kn ow they’re backed up is usually appreciated.
I just got back from a vacation to Colorado and was in a small town called Nederland (pop. 1300). We stopped there for lunch and there were not many restaurant choices (although one was a Nepalese restaurant which seemed pretty obscure for such a small town but whatever).
The three of us ordered. Nothing weird or complex. A sausage, some sliders, a sandwich.
I think it took an hour…maybe a bit more. I doubt the place sat more than 35 people.
Dunno what the deal was. We did not complain (although we were getting close).
But, I gotta say, the food was amazingly good. That was a wonderful surprise. It was really, really, really good. Waaay better than anyone would expect without knowing better. Worth the wait (especially since we were in no rush to be anywhere).
I think we’ve pretty much given up on sitdown restaurants (outdoor seating or not) for the foreseeable future. Our few recent experiences during the pandemic have not been…good. And prices have skyrocketed.
When I was a kid, we went to a Pizza Hut after a football game. It was pretty busy, but we had our order taken relatively soon-ish. We flagged the waitress down a couple of times and eventually it became clear that they had given our pizza to another table. It was at least 2 hours before we started eating. That’s the only time I can think of where I saw my dad get really angry. No discount or anything, just a half-hearted apology.
Not that dramatic a wait, but an odd one. I went to a Starbucks in a suburb of Chicago (Naperville, I think), and it was the usual drill. I placed my order, paid, went to a table and started working on my laptop. It was maybe 10 a.m., few customers and no one came in after me, yet 20 minutes passed and they hadn’t called my order. I went up to see what was going on and it turned neither of the baristas knew how to make a white chocolate mocha, and couldn’t find the little spiral bound recipe book they keep around. I walked them thru it and got my drink in about a minute.
It was odd because I’m pretty sure it’s made the same as a bunch of other espresso drinks, (steamed milk, 2 shots, whipped cream) with different flavors added. It’s like someone knowing how to make a pepperoni pizza getting befuddled when asked to make a sausage pizza.
For me, it was a two hour ordeal of getting drinks then nothing and the manager getting mad when we got up to leave. He happen to be standing there delivering an order for a couple that came in and was seated after we were and asked us why we were leaving. I explained and he just sort of melted down on us into some sort of tantrum.
I’ve had a few experiences of being completely ignored after being seated. I (and my party) simply left after about 15 or 20 minutes. I didn’t bother to flag down a server to complain. Being treated as if you’re invisible is hugely insulting, and once that happens I have no desire to stick around.
Some of you are much more patient than I am! These stories of people waiting hours for service remind me of the post-credits scene in Airplane.
Recently had decided to go to Chili’s since I had a coupon that was about to expire. I ordered online for pick-up. They quoted me 20 minutes so I expected it to be ready by the time I got there. I get there within 20 minutes and parked in the designated “Pick up mobile orders” spot and an employee came out and asked me my name, I told him and he said that it would take 20 more minutes for the order to be ready and he went back inside.
I waited 40 minutes parked since I was doing something on my phone and I assumed he would bring it to me when it was ready. After 40 minutes I went inside and had to wait an additional 10 minutes for an employee to actually talk to me instead of telling me “I’ll be with you in just a moment” then when I finally talked to them turns out they never actually made my order. It was in their system but they just forgot and skipped my order in the queue. I asked them how long it would take to finish it and they quoted me another 40 minutes so I just left and got my money back. Wasted an hour and ten minutes over a meal they didn’t even attempt to make.
It was a breakfast place. The waitress brought us our coffee and then her shift ended. No one took over her table. We figured there was definitely something wrong after 20 minutes. LOL
We decided to check out a new place in St Martin one year, having heard some raves about the food. They were very busy, but we were seated, brought bottles of water and menus.
Our table was right on Simpson’s Bay, with a beautiful view. I had my vape pen and my gf asked for a taste. We drank our water, chatted, generally relaxed and enjoyed the setting.
At some point the owners (a very cool couple) recognized that we’d been there a long time and were still just sipping water. We’d been there 90 minutes. Things were slowing down and the owners were apologetic. I explained that we’d been enjoying their decor, so no troubles.
The owners ended up moving us to a bigger table and joining us for our (and their) dinners, which they comped. We’ve been back every year until COVID-19.
We had something similar happen in a Chili’s or Applebee’s once. Apparently we got seated right during a shift change, the waiter on the previous shift left, but they somehow never got the table assigned to anyone on the next shift. Nobody even bothered to bring waters to the table. After about a half hour one of us went up to the hostess to see if anybody was going to take care of our table, and it finally got straightened out.
My husband and I went to a local restaurant. We were the only ones in the dining room and a few people at the bar. The waitress took our drink order right away and then brought them to us in a timely manner. Then we sat and sat and sat. She never came back. We waited for about a half-hour. I threw a $5 bill on the table for our drinks (just pops) and we walked out.
I’ve never had a crazy long “unexplained” wait, because I’m typically fairly comfortable complaining to staff when expectations aren’t met. I understand restaurants are often chaotic, people no show shifts, things happen, so I’m not overbearing but if I was down by a host and no waiter had come to the table within about 15 minutes, I’d flag a manager or staff member to see what was going on. Once food/drinks have been ordered I’d give more leeway, probably 30 minutes before asking where things were.
A well-managed restaurant even when food is delayed can avoid trouble by having proactive waiters. Continuing to take drink orders (alcoholic or otherwise) or even just swing by to give the table updates can make a 45 minute wait a lot more tolerable for most patrons. Not communicating or updating tends to upset people.
I’ve probably waited a couple hours before in a restaurant where they were clearly communicating there was some problem and it wasn’t a big deal. In the one situation like that I clearly remember, a group of us were at a sports bar type place right after we’d just gotten out of a football game, so like most bars downtown near a major sports venue, they were slammed. They kept shoveling drinks our way and kept us apprised of where our food orders were at–it was probably two hours after we were sat at our table before the food came out, but we were in post-game partying mode anyway so the food wasn’t that key to the experience.
