Probably more importantly in a crush, the bartender can sling you a $12 drink in a lot less time than the kitchen can put together a plate of appetizers.
Likewise. I don’t drink very much - one a month is on the high side for me, and my partner doesn’t drink at all. But a plate of calamari and a couple iced teas might tempt us to stay.
It hasn’t happened to me yet, but I have seen restaurants give people a gift card for a discount on a future visit - rather like airlines offering travel vouchers to be bumped voluntarily.
Yeah, that’s the same guideline I learned, usually price of menu item is three to four times ingredient costs. (The place I briefly worked at pushed more towards four times, but it was a bit of a sliding scale, with cheaper items being more 4x and more expensive ones being 3x.)
It’s a sucky situation. I suppose if we left they were still owed payment for the meal but they couldn’t say we intended to leave without paying.
We weren’t actually planning on leaving. We were planning on trying to get their attention. And it worked. It was kind of the nuclear method, though, as we did make a credible threat of walking out if they didn’t bring us the bill.
Out of curiosity, was this in the US? I find it that at restaurants here, they’re more than happy to get you out the door and turn your table over. The only times I’ve had issues with getting someone to pay attention to me so I can pay and leave the damned place has been outside the US (especially when I lived in Hungary. We often commented on how we needed a flare gun to get someones attention to be able to pay and leave.)
Of course, but what if no one came with a bill? How long should anyone wait to pay their bill and leave? Should I act the fool and make a lot noise until someone comes with the bill? That shouldn’t be the restaurant’s preference.
It was in the US. It was at an Indian restaurant, and we wondered if we might be missing some cultural signal we were supposed to use to indicate “we’d like the bill, please.” But I’ve been to lots of other Indian restaurants in the US without that being an issue.
I have dined i in places in Europe where i needed to ask for the bill, but didn’t have much trouble doing so.
“Chez” in French means “the place of” so I amuse myself by thinking of “Chez Pierre” as “Pete’s Joint.”
Yeah, or better, there will be a appetizer menu there, order one on the house. But I would say one drink , not two.
Cheesecake Factory deliberately makes people wait.
A place in San Jose mailed us a Gift Cert worth two free meals to apologize. I talked that place up, gave it 5 stars on several sites (the food was fantastic also).
A free soft drink will keep us there for a short time. A hour wait means appetizer and soft drinks. (Okay, once in a while the wife likes a fruity rum drink and I an irish coffee if they make a good one, but it depends on if we are driving).
I don’t ever remember waiting anything extreme like an hour, but I’ve had to wait a half hour before flagging someone down several times, and once I was seated and had to wait a half hour (I timed it) before someone came to my table to give me a menu.
That would bother me more than waiting for a table.
Well, it’s probably good practice to offer a drink at the bar. But i prefer to drink water, and I’m just going to be cranky.
I feel like this situation happens when your current waiter’s shift ends. Your table might get reassigned to someone else who misses the notice and now there’s a table with no one serving it.
Part of that might be that outside the US, it’s often considered presumptuous to present the bill before it is requested. Sometimes, you have to physically approach a server to request the check.
I mean, I lived abroad for about six years, so I know, but sometimes servers can seem like they’re trying to avoid looking at you or approaching the table. One of the things I like about dining outside the US is that I very rarely feel rushed. On the other hand, when you’re in a hurry and trying to get the hell out and can’t find a server, it can get annoying.
I guess you’ve forgotten the Great Recession. You could walk into a good restaurant at high noon and it would be at most half full.
Eating out is a luxury. The mere fact that a restaurant is good is no guarantee that it will be busy enough for reservations to be necessary.
One thing I love about dining in the Caribbean, especially St Martin, is that you’re never presented with your check, you have to specifically request it. Sitting there, gazing at the sea, it’s easy to then order another bottle of wine. Two hour dinners are the norm.
Perhaps, but since we rarely, if ever, have either, that wouldn’t be an enticement. Even tho I’m retired, I do like to maintain a schedule of sorts, and delaying dinner for at least an hour would cascade into other delays. I make an effort to be on time for scheduled events or appointments and I expect the same from those who make the schedules. If not, I have better things to do that sit around and waste my time.
Each to his/her own. My time is mine to manage as I choose.
It’s a sliding scale for a reason. A salad that has $2 in ingredients and a 25% food cost will net you $6. A steak dinner that has $10 in ingredients and a 33% food cost will net you $20.
Appetizers are usually higher food cost, as they contribute to the margin of a table’s bill, or are ordered at the bar where people are buying the highest profit margin item in the store.
And then there’s the fact that, if a restaurant is backed up, the last thing they want to do is to add more orders to the kitchen.