No.
Fudruckers. Horrible menu system. I’ve been in a lot of restaurants and can order just fine with several systems, but something about their menu board made the whole thing extremely confusing. It’s similar to the Cheeburger system, but it wasn’t clear to me exactly what I was supposed to be doing and how to get what I wanted. It didn’t help that they have the slowest service known to man. We waited over an hour for what was essentially an over priced fast food burger and fries. We got an apology and a gift card (for a measly $5) which I never intend to use because it would mean dealing with their restaurant again.
It might be worth it, though, to just go for a fountain drink. They have those new computerized Coke machines that are awesome.
Donato’s Pizza has some of everything. Some of them you sit down and they come to the table to take your order. Others you order at the cashier and they call your name. Others they will bring to the table. And in one I was in, you sat down and ordered with the phone at your table and they brought it to you. You also called for refills.
I don’t see how you had a hard time understanding how to order. First, there’s a food display line that runs in order. The first things in the line are the rice/noodle options. Then come the entrees. More importantly, there’s a big board overhead with a sign that spells out how to pick what you want.
You didn’t tell her if you wanted a single bowl or a two-entree or three-entree plate. You didn’t mention if you wanted fried rice or noodles or steamed rice. So she looked at you blankly and then tried to interpret your ourder - a single bowl of kung pao beef without any “side”.
Do you want a hamburger or cheeseburger? Do you want mushrooms? Onions? Lettuce and pickle and tomato? What sauce? Those are almost always options, whether they are spelled out in a checklist or left to the option of the customer when they see a single entry on the menu - “Burger”. Spelling out all the potential options just makes it easier for the customer to see what is available. So your complaint is that the customer has choices? 
It’s supposed to be an old-fashioned drive thru. The ones I’ve seen do have a couple external tables and an order board next to those, so you don’t have to sit in your car. But no, they don’t want you to go inside, they’re not that kind of place.
That doesn’t make any sense. According to the description of how the system works, the ticket is the running list of what you ordered, but the customer pays at the end when they hand in the ticket. If you find a lost ticket, then you could turn in to order that food again, but you still pay when you hand in the ticket, so you shouldn’t be getting extra food that you’re not entitled to.
Rather, the lost ticket fee protects them from somebody eating 27 orders and then “losing their ticket” at paytime and only paying for 4 orders. That’s why it’s a stiff fee - don’t try to cheat the system.
But it’s stupid to use a system where the only record of what was ordered/consumed is left with the customer.
How do you end up with a garbage concoction? Do you not know what you like and don’t like?
Berkeley institution Top Dog (tiny little sausage take-out). There are always 2 guys at work: one does nothing but put links on the grill. The other takes supplemental orders (ie, chips, soda) and handles the money.
Their system: walk in the door, yell your grill order (“Two kiels and a brat!”) to the grill guy. Several minutes later, the money guys say “two kiels and a brat…anything else?” and you give your chips & soda order and hand in the money.
Newbies always try to give the full order to the money guy, and chaos ensues. Especially on football game days when everyone is packed in like sardines and onto the sidewalk.
Well, thanks for clearing it up.
Since I was the last to reply, it seemed that it was, as I’m sure you could imagine.
I love it when things work out. Kumbuya.
I think you’re overthinking it. The joke is funny because Starbucks baristas were that snooty back in the 90s. I used to get dragged to Starbucks by friends back then and I got the snooty attitude every time because I couldn’t remember the sizes (and they didn’t even have the display cups like they do now). The day that shit stopped, I actually started going their willingly by myself.
I think you missed WhyNot’s earlier posts that essentially says exactly what you said. I had said that I’m surprised, because I never got the snooty attitude at Starbucks , even in the 90s, and thought it was greatly exaggerated. I mean, what’s there to be snooty about at the McDonald’s of coffeeshops, even back then? You were far more likely to experience that sort of haughtiness at one of the local independent coffeeshops, but, even then, it was very, very rare. Alas, it seems that some people have actually experienced this snootiness, but it’s completely foreign to me.
*Didn’t read the whole thread, but when I saw the title, I knew I finally had the chance to get the huge chip off my shoulder that I’ve been carrying around for YEARS about La Madeleine. *
When I first started going there prolly more than 10 years ago, I had no idea how to order. You stood at the beginning of what looked like a cafeteria line except that there was a cook and a grill and also pre-made dishes in serving containers. Then someone would come up to you and take your order. Huh? And there was also a menu? Huh X 2? Apparently for some dishes, you ordered with the order person and they passed the order on to the cook and then you took your tray and went down the line where you could also select pre-made things like fruit salad. Or you could eschew the ordering process and just choose pre-made items. (This knowledge gleaned after several visits and considerable trial and error.)
There was also a separate bakery section where you could get baked goods like loaves of bread and croissants (and some really excellent bran muffins as big as your head) to go OR eat them in, in which case they gave you the food on a plate instead of in a bag, but you had to walk down to the condiment bar to get a napkin–and you could also get coffee, plus the bakery had its own register.
But that’s not the worst.
It seems like every frickin’ time I went in there, the method of ordering had changed.
For a while it was printed-menu-only. Then it was chalkboard-menu-only. Another time it was order anything you wanted at the bakery (including egg/bacon breakfast, which heretofore had been accessible only at the grill area) and pay there and they would bring it to your table.
And I used to complain about this regularly to anyone behind the counter who would listen, suggesting they have weekend workshops to train customers how to buy food. This ensured that they would always be glad to see me.
I haven’t been in several years, even though I do love those bran muffins and almond croissants and endless coffee. I dunno. My car is due for an oil change soon and there’s a La Mad next door to the garage where I take it. I might check in again.
There was a fast food place (I think Wendy’s) that had two drink sizes: Medium and Large. I asked for a small soda. “We don’t have a ‘small’, sir. We have a medium and a large. Would you like a medium?”
I thought about explaining to her that “medium” in a list with 2 entries is an invalid concept, thought better of it, and simply replied “Yes”, silently weeping for America.
In her (their’s?) defense, I’d say medium is more an absolute side by industry standards than it is a relative one by their own menu. That is, if you had ordered a medium with no knowledge smalls don’t exist there, you would have gotten the exact size you expected.
I would have ordered an “extra medium.”
This may be a surprise but cashiers don’t control cup sizes.
Loved the sign that said “we don’t speak Starbucks” and then translated two of their sizes into Starbuck-speak. :smack:
I know that. Somebody with a college education made the decision that, while there were only two menu items, the smallest would be called “medium”.
Actually all four of their sizes have the equivalent starbucks-ese names. By, “we don’t speak starbucks,” they must mean, “We refuse to speak starbucks.”
So why would you bother explaining that to the cashier? Did something give you the idea that she didn’t understand the implication of small, medium and large? Why would her dedication to customer service as mandated by her employer make you weep silently?
No, I read them. I’m just saying that WhyNot’s explanation for why those jokes were funny is a bit off the mark. It’s not the exaggeration people were responding to, it’s the fact that the jokes were true. Starbucks baristas did act like that and a lot of people experienced it.
The joke wasn’t the exaggeration, but the general tone of “Can you believe these guys?” that a business would do something so clueless.