The few times that’s happened to me we never knew how long the wait would be, because we walked out. In one pizza place, we couldn’t even see any staff to complain to. I wonder if they ever made that pizza.
The closest McD’s to me, before the pandemic, had just been renovated and was doing a sort of deli-style halfway table service, where you order at the counter or the kiosk and then you take a number on one of those little poles. You go sit down and 5 minutes later someone brings food to your table.
When we visited our son in college, he took us to the restaurant he had worked at while he was a freshman. We sat there for an hour waiting to be served before we gave up. On the way out he had a very heated exchange with the manager.
After we had already waited 90 minutes, they started telling the newly seated tables that the kitchen was backed up. Thanks for the heads up, now. A group of 14 next to us (who hadn’t ordered) got up and walked out. That was probably a $700 check the restaurant lost.
I was a little kid back in the 1960s, but I remember parts of the incident clearly. It was a sort of diner or family restaurant by the side of some highway in I-can’t-remember-where on vacation. But I clearly remember that after 45 minutes of waiting for our food, my father asked where it was. The waitress answered, “in the refrigerator, cooling off.” It turned out that my father had ordered corned beef, and the waitress thought he had asked for cold beef. We walked out.
I remember thinking at the time: It’s quite possible that she really did hear him incorrectly. But if she really thought he said ‘cold beef’ she should have asked which kind of cold beef. There were several beef items on the menu, and I wonder which one she chose to put in the fridge for my dad.
This is the exact opposite of the “Common things employees have never heard of”, when you say something nobody has ever heard of but they still try to make it for you.
Maybe 15 years ago, my family and I went to a newish pizza place (it had been open for 8 or 10 months). As we walk in, we hear a group at a table chanting ‘we want pizza, we want pizza’. But when we got closer, it turns out we knew them and just assumed they were being goofy as opposed to getting sick of waiting for their food.
Anyway, we sit down, order drinks, order pizza and wait…and wait…and wait. We saw other people come in after us, sit down, order, get their food, pay and leave before we had our drinks. Several times we asked a passing waiter/waitress how much longer it would be and they kept telling us it would just be a few more minutes.
Finally, maybe 45 minutes into this, the drinks show up. We asked again when the food would be out, but this time they said ‘they’ll be putting your pizzas in the oven in just a few minutes’. That riled up the whole table. When we asked why other people that came 20 minutes after us go their food before us, the explanation was “well, they only had a small pizza, you have 3 extra large pizzas”.
Now, I understand that they can fit more small pizzas in the oven at once and they had to wait for there to be enough space to fit extra large ones (particularly at the same time so they all come to our table hot), but it was no excuse. They didn’t seem to understand that you can’t have people waiting an hour plus for some pizza.
We paid for our drinks and left without eating.
Unsurprisingly, they closed not soon after. Looking at their yelp reviews, a number of other people mentioned waiting hours for their food.
Just a few months ago, we were at a bar in Scranton, PA, at lunchtime. We’d tried to go to a different place that had interesting reviews on Yelp - but it turned out they were closed that specific day. So we went to a nearby one. It was pretty busy, but no so busy that it should have taken most of an hour to get our orders out (a basic sandwich, and a bowl of chili). When we finally flagged down the waitress, we had our food within 10 minutes - clearly it had been forgotten somewhere.
The worse I can recall was a few years ago in Florida, near where the in-laws live. This was late in the “season”, as in most of the snowbirds had already fled north, so you’d think the restaurants would be grateful for the business. But it was ages (20+ minutes at least) before our drink orders were taken, and well over another hour before the food arrived. Loads of excuses whenever we asked someone. IIRC they gave us a very small discount. The food was OK but we never went back there - no clue if they’re still open (I doubt it).
One time after a martial arts seminar, a large group went out to a local Japanese place for dinner. Maybe 20 of us. The organizers had booked their party room in advance, but when we got there, the restaurant had no idea who we were, and the party room was in use.
Despite the rest of the restaurant being pretty busy as well, they insisted they could take us. I tried to argue that this was a bad idea, but got overruled by the organizers.
I was right. They were swamped, we had just one server for our whole table, and she was also working other tables. It took 45 minutes to even get our drink orders taken, and that only happened after I made a point of telling the server how ridiculous the wait time was.
When the food eventually showed up, probably two hours after we arrived, it was some of the worst Japanese food I’d ever had, too. Totally not worth the wait and hassle.
Now, normally, in a big group like that, I wouldn’t mind a long wait for food - so long as we at least had something to drink. Drinking and talking with the other seminar participants is most of the reason why we do post-seminar dinners. But for god’s sake, at least keep the beer flowing, even if the kitchen is overwhelmed!
I just remembered a bizarre experience at a local restaurant a few years ago. The server delivered our food and disappeared. When the check never showed up, we asked another employee for help, and she said she’d tell the server. Eventually we were informed that our server had simply quit in the middle of his shift without telling anyone. Now that I think about it, I’m surprised that this scenario doesn’t happen more often.
You know, this would be the ideal thread for internet celebrity (and banned Doper) @Springs1. She’d have a lot to say about this topic!
At the time I’d never lived anywhere that had one. I knew it wasn’t NY pizza, but I was in the mood for a sit down place and it was nearby. I don’t think I actually ate at one until I moved to the DC area; my wife’s grandma took us to one.
That’s cool, sorry about my post actually.
It reads pretty snarky and was honestly just surprise. Now if you said Olive Garden …
I wasn’t offended. Here’s a story about a place that really didn’t fit in. In 1994 (I think) Domino’s opened in Bay Ridge and tried to undercut the local places price wise. It didn’t work; I think they lasted a few months.
I went to a work dinner with about 15 colleagues at a trendy, Asian fusion place. They brought everyone’s food out except for mine…I asked the waiter several times and everytime he said it would be just a few minutes more…about an hour later, I still had no food.
Overall, it was pretty embarrassing. I didn’t feel that I could make a big stink about it because I wasn’t paying (the company was), I didn’t want to lose my cool in front of my co-workers, and that’s not really my style anyway. I couldn’t even walk out because it was supposed to be a celebratory/good-bye dinner (celebratory for my small group who had met our insane target and good-bye for 2 co-workers that were leaving.)
So, I sat there and tried to pretend that it didn’t bother me at all when actually I was infuriated and humiliated. They finally brought it out when everyone else was just about finished with dessert and finishing up their last round of drinks. I think I asked for a carry-out box and then tossed it once I got home.
I completely empathize with you, very frustrating to be in that position.
Though you did say the company was hosting the dinner and I feel it would have been up to that person to intervene on their guests/ your behalf.
There are times when I’ve had to learn to cool my jets in restaurants. I think sometimes they need to delay orders to let the kitchen catch up? Open Communication goes both ways imo. But don’t feed a diner a line of bs or abandon them after they’re seated.
I agree. Things can go wrong in a restaurant and that’s ok. Shit happens. And, as a customer, we should chill a bit.
But the restaurant needs to be clear with the customer and, if the delay is really bad, the restaurant needs to work to make it right. Free drinks, free dessert, free apps, discount the check…something. At the least acknowledge the problem and apologize.
I would be sorely tested in @Summerday’s case.
I’ve watched many, many episodes of restaurant makeover shows, and in a couple, the outside expert talks about how the front of house has to manage things so the kitchen isn’t slammed all at once. Stagger seating of the tables (or even reservation times) or stagger taking orders from tables, so they’re not all ordering at once. Give people drinks and bread or other freebie so they have something to start on.
It probably does happen more often than you realize, it’s just that it doesn’t happen so often that any one customer will experience it first hand more than once, if ever. Over the years, I’ve seen new employees literally just walk off the job. Sometimes they’ll say something to someone, but generally they’ll make it to their lunch break and just never come back*. But it’s rare. A handful of people each year only manage a day or two, but it’s only once every few years that they disappear, mid-shift, without saying anything to anyone.
*Well, they do eventually come back, some of them anyway, when they realize it’s been weeks or months since they walked off and they’re wondering why they didn’t get a paycheck (because I don’t have things like their full name or SSN yet).
There are several Nepalese restaurants in Boulder which is not too far from Nederland and has a decent-sized Nepali community. I think it is because the mountains and the elevation remind some of them of home, and others come due to the already-present community.
I’ve told the story of the restaurant visit here before but, because of the dining room (rooms, I guess, we couldn’t readily see the other diners but could hear their din) layout, we didn’t realize it was a self serve buffet.
I’ve got a funny story about my first trip to Red Apple. I’d never been and, while my girlfriend at the time had visited before, it was years earlier though she remembered it was good. So we went and were seated near the front of the restaurant in a sort of odd, empty corner. Our drink order was taken and served, then we waited and waited and waited for a staff member to come take our order or give up menus, anything. My girl had forgotten it was a buffet. Luckily, before I blew my stack on the employees, we noticed another patron carrying a plate of food and it finally clicked.