Must’ve been high up on the ladder to be able to do that and not get hauled into some manager’s office for spamming 7k people over a crappy waiter.
Applebee’s headquarters is in Overland Park, Kansas.
I have two stories, one from both sides of the fence.
Okay. I worked at a Domino’s for two years, part of that as a manager. One busy night one of my employees comes up to me in tears because a lady on the phone was yelling at her about something involving her chicken wings. I calm her down and tell her to transfer the phone call to my phone in the office. I turn over slapping out dough to someone else and go into the office. At this point I’m hot, sweaty, and covered in corn meal, so I’m feeling a little disgruntled, but I sit down and calmly answer the phone.
This woman starts ranting at me about how my delivery driver forgot her ranch for her chicken wings. Just pissed. And I can sort of sympathize, because wings just don’t taste good without ranch. I don’t even bother correcting her, because the driver isn’t supposed to put ranch in the wings - the oven person is. Anyway, I tell her I’ll send her ranch out with the next driver. Before I even get a chance to tell her that’d be in a few minutes, she launches into this huge rant about how that’s not soon enough and she wants three free pizzas over forgotten ranch. Oohhh boy. One of those.
I explain to her that the driver’s leaving very soon and he’d bring the ranch to her before he took out his other deliveries, so she’d get her ranch in perhaps five minutes. I’m looking at this woman’s order screen while we’re speaking (which she isn’t, apparently, aware of) and she lives in an area of town not too far from the Domino’s, and approximately one block away from a grocery store.
She screams at me that THIS ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH AND SHE WANTS FREE SHIT. This goes on for almost thirty minutes. And in all honest, I probably would have given her some free shit if she hadn’t started out by making my employee cry and then yelling at me when I’m covered in cornmeal. But by the time I was getting ready to hang up with her, this is what I had to say:
“If you’d have let me send you the ranch when I wanted to, you’d have already gotten it. Now, not only can you not order from Domino’s again for being verbally abusive, which, by the way, I could have you arrested for, but you can walk over to the grocery store around the corner from your house and get your own damn ranch.” In Nevada verbal assault is a misdemeanor. Long story short, if she’d have been polite and understanding, not only would the problem have gotten taken care of real fast, but she’d have gotten a ton of free shit too. Now she’s blacklisted from the only cheap delivery pizza place in town.
In an aside to that story, a coworker who still works there told me she tried to call in a pizza a year later and was told that she was no longer allowed to order from there, ever. Again. and that the statute of limitations still hadn’t passed on that verbal assault charge so she’d better just not try. My coworkers loved me.
Anyway, on the other side of the fence:
I’m a big tipper. Always have been. I figure that if I don’t have the money to tip I shouldn’t be eating out. But the problem is that my tipping depends on the service I get. Great service, I’ve been known to give up to fifty percent. Mediocre service, standard tip. Bad service? No tip. I’m not exactly the nicest person on the planet and I’ve got a temper like whoa, and if I can still bring myself to smile and grin and bear it (for the most part) at work, there is no reason for anyone else to not do the same. My big thing is customer service.
So there’s this casino here in town with an all-night coffeeshop. A friend of mine was in town on leave from the Marine Corps, so a huge group of us got together and went to this place. There was eleven of us. For those of you that don’t know, an eleven-top is a chance for a HUGE tip. And while we can get a little rambunctious (there were two army kids, three marines, an air force pilot in training, and the rest of us just-graduated babies) we do tend to make up for it with monetary compensation. This was a Tuesday and there was hardly anyone in the restaurant.
The lady who takes our order starts out by just being pissy with us. She’s elderly, so while I could understand that us young’ns probably annoyed the crap out of her, there still wasn’t any excuse, in my eyes. But, I thought, that’s alright, maybe she’s just having a bad night.
Well, lady comes out, forty minutes later, with our food (we hadn’t complained, either, because we figure - hey, they weren’t expecting a large crowd and eleven huge meals at once?). She goes to put my salad in front of me and drops it. Right in front of me. I was covered in beans, lettuce, and italian dressing. Doesn’t apologize, and throws down someone else’s salad, getting it mostly all over them, like it’s my fault she dropped my fucking salad. Doesn’t get me a towel or anything to wipe myself up (boy am I glad I wasn’t wearing anything nice). Doesn’t CLEAN the mess up, we had to do that. Just goes in the back and gets me another salad. Then when she came out with our main courses she almost dropped my spaghetti in my lap. And to top it all off, none of our drinks were refreshed unless we flagged down a busser, and honestly, that’s not really their job, although they were more than obliging about it.
With an eleven top, with the size of our order, she could have easily made like thirty, forty bucks off of us if she’d just been decent. Even with the whole salad thing, if she’d just have apologized and taken care of it in a timely matter. As it was, we left her nothing and made a complaint to management for her being a grade-A bitch. The manager was MORTIFIED that she’d dumped food on me and hadn’t even apologized, and apologized in her stead.
I understand that people live off their tips, but in my eyes, just like wages, you have to earn them.
Same restaurant. I’d left my wallet at home because I’d driven over with my parents. I’m still a young’n, but I don’t think I look like I’m under 18. I never get carded to buy booze, even. I go in with my parents and we sit in the smoking section. Some ballsy manager walks over and asks me for my ID when I light a cigarette. I tell him I don’t have it on me and as far as I can tell he’s not a cop or selling me something illegal, so he can’t card me anyway. Tells me I can’t smoke in his restaurant without proving that I’m over 18. My dad at this point is PISSED and starts yelling at the guy that even if I wasn’t 18, he’s my dad and I’ve got his PERMISSION to smoke in the SMOKING SECTION of the restaurant. I was more pissed that the guy got my dad all excitable and we had to calm him down than him denying me permission to smoke. Guy called security on us and the security guy laughed in his face and told him he can’t ask for my ID if I’m smoking, he can just call the cops because he’s afraid I might be a minor smoking. Which I’m not. Funny shit.
I’m not going to say that the customer is always right, because that’s not always the case, but you should always give them the benefit of the doubt, and always be as polite as possible, because they’re essentially paying your paycheck.
~Tasha
I used to work at an Arby’s. One day, due to poor planning and a bus full of high schoolers, we ran out of cooked roast beef. The roasts take a few hours to cook, and the ones in the oven weren’t nearly done. Almost every person I told that we were out of roast beef thought I was joking.
Slightly off topic, this reminds me of a very stupid woman who tried to scam the pizza place I used to work at. She called up after her pizza had been delivered and said that the driver put a booger in her pizza. I knew the driver, and he would never have done that, nor did he have a reason to be mad at this random woman. I asked her what made her think he had done such a thing. She said “I saw him do it as he was walking to the door.” There was a very long pause.
I then said “You’re telling me, that you watched my driver pick his nose, place a booger in your pizza, and then you paid for that pizza?” She then paused, and decided to stick to her guns and say “Yes.” I said “Look lady, this isn’t my first day, you’re not getting any free food. Goodbye.” I hung up. She called right back and threatened to have her lawyer call me. I told her to have him call me. Half an hour later, I get a call from a man saying “My name is so and so, and I represent Mrs. so and so.” I said “Which law firm do you work for?” There was a pause. I said “Nice try jackass.” and hung up. We never heard from her, or her “lawyer” ever again.
Here’s one from the other side of the spectrum.
I went into a place to order a hamburger. The waiter seemed a little excited, but he did his job fine and took my order. I saw him watching the door intently. About five minutes later another guy walked in and the waiter immediatly went and talked to him quickly. The other guy then walked into the back room, and my waiter went into the kitchen. He came running out in street clothes, put my burger infront of me and said “Juan will take over service”, Then ran out the door. I ate my Burger(good and rare) and was still finishing my second beer. When Juan came up to me appologised that the first guy had an emergency to take care of, and apologized for the confusion and time it had taken for my meal as he handed me a burger. I said that I had already gotten it, and apparently the first guy had been in such a hurry he hadn’t acknowledged pick-up and delivery, so they thought my burger had gotten lost before I got it and made another one. I explained, and he said that they couldn’t serve it to anyone else anymore, so I might as well doggy bag it for tommorrow.
Juan then walked away, and I overheard him say to a manager standing by that there had been a mix up and they would have to give me a burger out of the comp account. Ten minutes later the manager, who misunderstood completely walks up sheepishly, appologizes for all this mix up and hands me my comped burger.
Three burgers for the price of one 
Last month, I went to a Krispy Kreme, which I rarely do because it’s a 20 minute drive, but I was in the neighborhood. They were out of Original Glazed. One of the machines was broken, so they couldn’t make anymore, either. They thought they might be getting some shipped in later. This was mid-morning on a Saturday. I’ve never seen so many grown men cry!
About 10 years ago, there was this restaurant in Santa Cruz that had great food and lousy service. They served Asian fusion that was really, really good and they were always packed on the weekends, especially for Sunday brunch. Problem is, they only seemed to hire surfers as waitstaff, so every time the surf was up - no waitstaff. So the restaurant would open late (well after their posted hours) and only seat about 10 tables at a time. We didn’t mind the wait, but we sure didn’t go there if we had plans for after brunch. One particular Sunday, we were determined to eat there if it took all day, so we waited and waited and waited to be seated, probably 45 minutes. The line was out the door and they finally just started seating people, even though there was only 1 waiter for the entire restaurant. This poor girl was running through the restaurant with her arms full of food. And then it happened. One of the rolls (they were out of naan that day, too - the horror! I think some of the cooks were also out surfing) fell off the plate and bounced across the floor. She picked up, dusted it off, put it back on the plate and ran into the next room and served it! Karen and I looked at each other and then decided that what we ordered was hot enough to kill anything that might have been picked up off the floor. 
No one was terribly surprised when they closed a year or so later, but I sure miss their brunch. Well, as long as it didn’t visit the floor before it got to my table.
You are my hero.
I stand corrected as I was either misinformed or simply misunderstood what coworkers told me at the time.
These corporate honchos coming into the restarant all the time were from Thomas & King, the company that owns the franchises of all the local Applebee’s restaurants. Applebee’s does seem to have much influence here; for example, the minor league ball park, Applebee’s Park, bears the company’s name.
I think the most ‘interesting’ service I ever got was at place known for after-concert and other music-scene-related clientele. I’m pretty sure you can’t get hired there without at least 2 piercings and 4 tattoos.
Some friends and I were there for lunch on March 17th. The place was quiet, and the cute 22-ish girl who was serving us had time to chat a bit. I mentioned it was St. Patrick’s Day, and she was wearing all black (the place doesn’t have a uniform policy, but black with stainless steel spikes is commonly worn by staff). She pipes up, “I’m wearing green underwear!” Then she pulls down the hip of her jeans and pulls up the hip of her panties to show us they were, indeed, green.
My friends and I, all men in their late 30’s, tipped heavily.
IIRC, yes. I figured everyone should know that one place really went downhill and going there could well be a waste of a lunch hour. This was a few years ago and it’s possible that my memory’s faulty; it could have been just the couple hundred in my division.
No, just a mid-range Federal employee with a decade of experience.
Which Applebee’s? If it was the one on Nicholasville, I’m not surprised.
:dubious:
3 Tb (50 ml) fresh lemon juice
3 Tb (50 ml) water
1/2 tsp (2.5 ml) salt
3 eggs
6-8 oz (200 g) unsalted butter
1 Melt the butter in a small saucepan. It should be warm, but not bubbling hot.
2 Combine the lemon juice and water in a small sauce pan. Bring to a simmer, adding the salt.
3 Meanwhile, place one egg and the yolks of the other two in a smallish saucepan. Vigorously beat the egg and yolks with a wire whip for a minute or so, until they are pale and thick.
4 Set the yolk mixture over moderately low heat and whisk in the hot lemon juice by driblets. Continue whisking, not too fast, but reaching all over the bottom and corners of the pan, until you have a foamy warm mass. Remove from heat just as you see a wisp of steam rising. (Do not overheat or you will coagulate the egg yolks.)
5 Immediately start beating in the warm butter by driblets, to make a thick, creamy, light yellow sauce.
6 Taste carefully for seasoning, adding salt, pepper, and more lemon juice to taste.
If you are more or less ready to make it, and have made it a couple times previously, it takes all of about 5-7 minutes to make.
Hell, I used to make crepes benedict when camping - bsaic crepes, scrambled eggs, crumbled crispy bacon and hollandaise sauce. I think the largest ‘party’ I made them for was an SCA event called Dragonflight back in 93 or 94 - for 35 people. I had access to the long grill so I had 2 14" skillets making scrambleds, and I prestaged and made about 100 crepes while the scrambleds were being cooked, and then while mrAru and another person rolled I made the sauce.
There’s a nice little Chinese food place in a local mall’s food court. My husband and I eat there often. Never had a problem until one day I ordered some Orange Chicken, and the server said “We’re all out of Orange Chicken. If you want some you’ll have to wait twenty minutes until they’ve cooked some more.”
I looked at the steam dishes in front of the server, and I saw that there was a nice portion of Orange Chicken in one of the dishes. I pointed toward it and said “Isn’t that Orange Chicken?”
The server said “Yes, but that isn’t enough to make a serving.”
I said “Well, it’s enough for me. I’ll pay full price for that amount.”
The server frowned, as if he though I was trying to pull a fast one. “We can’t do that.”
I said “OK, maybe you can give me a plate with the Orange Chicken and add a little spoonful of Sweet and Sour Chicken to make up the full portion.”
The server said “We can’t do that. No mixing.”
I said “OK, so the Orange Chicken in the dish can’t be sold. What will happen to it?”
The server said “We throw it away.”
I said “Can you maybe throw it away in one of those styrofoam containers and scoot it over here?”
The server, feeling mocked, gave me the finger and retreated to the kitchen.
I left the area and drifted over to Chick-Fil-A, where they weren’t out of anything.
Not mine, but this is a story from one of the funniest ladies on the 'net! Delswife, the pizza delivery gal, and Mr. Kaki pants. Delswife is a Disney World maven, as you will be able to tell if you read her other stuff. Highly recommended!
My mom had a server that was terrible (left to chat with friends, brought cold food out after looooong wait) that followed her out into the shopping mall (this restaurant was in a mall) and into the grocery store to inquire why she didn’t tip more.
I went to a restaurant with my dad and we lost our bad server (she forgot about us for a long time) when it was time to get the bill. Finally we had to go and find her. She was drinking in the lounge with friends. When we asked about our bill we got “Sigh, I guess I need to get up and get it.”
A new seafood resturant opened in town last year and I was stoked. I love seafood. Hubby and I went a few days after the Grand Opening.
I decided to have the orange roughy. Hubby wanted the swordfish. Our waitress returned a few minutes later and said in an embarassed tone of voice that they had no orange roughy. I shrugged it off. New resturants can have supply problems. I looked and the menu again and settled for the Shanghai Trout.
Moments later, she returned, flushed and nervous-looking. They didn’t have the trout, and she had just discovered that they didn’t have the swordfish, either. The menu was rather short to begin with, so as gently as I could, I asked her to find out what they *did *have, and I would chose from that. She came back from the kitchen more confident. “We have this, this, and this, but we don’t have that, that, that, that or that.”
In short, they didn’t have any seafood.
We decided to give them another chance a month later, figuring they’d have all of the bugs worked out by now. We ended up with the same waitress, though I don’t think she recognized us. She handed us menus and began a recitation of what they didn’t have right off the bat, which was most of the menu. “Well,” I told hubby when she left to put in our orders, “At least they eliminated the embarassing confusion.”
A few months later, we gave them one last chance. Guess what happened? I wasn’t surprised in the slightest when the place went out of business a month or so later.
I almost forgot my worst service experience. It was at the airport in Detroit, a layover on my way to Vegas with friends. We got off our first flight in the late evening and found a bar that was open so that we could kill the hour before our next flight.
We seated ourselves, as there was no staff in sight. After almost ten minutes, we were “greeted” by a surly bitch. She asked us what we wanted “whadya want?” were her exact words. Since it was kinda late (11:00 pm or so) I asked if they were still serving food. She looked at me like I had just asked what year it was and said “The kitchen closed at 11:00” with quite a bit of 'tude in her voice. My bad, that’s why I asked. I looked at my watch, it was 11:04. I was waaaay off. What an ass am I. So, we decided to order beers.
Rather than ask miss evil-incarnate what beers they have, I survey the signs on the walls and the neon. One friend orders a Bud, one orders a Bud Dry, I order a Bud Light (which I still liked back then). She comes back with our beers ten minutes later, I guess the beer wasn’t done fermenting. Again, there was much needless 'tude in the delivery of three beers. Whatev.
Queen of the bitches seemed to have taken a loooong smoke break. We were done with our beers for almost ten minutes when I decided to just go to the bar and order. I placed a duplicate order with the bartender. He told me that they didn’t serve Bud Dry (this was all draught BTW). 
I said that I had ordered it from the waitress because of the enormous sign on the wall, and she made no mention of this, but she did give my friend a beer. He said he was sorry and offered alternatives.
The hateful whore finally comes back as we’re about halfway done with our second beers. She realizes that we went to the bar, paid cash for beer, and that those beers would not be included on our tab, which she expected to be tipped on.
She asked where we got the beers. I resisted the urge to say that some passing pilots gave it to us, and said that we’d gotten tired of waiting and just ordered at the bar. She gave me the stink-eye and stormed off. Did I mention that there were only two other people in the place, that and all three of us.
The evil woman came back with our check long after we were done with our second beers. She made it clear that we were an annoyance to her, even though they didn’t close for another hour.
My friend that ordered the Bud Dry and got (presumably) a Bud Light, suggested that we not tip her. “No, we have to tip” I said. My friends looked at me like I was crazy. Our tab was an even dollar amount, which we left. I also tipped her $0.07. Then, I took a couple of the pretzel packs given to us on our flight, crushed them in the packets, sprinkled them on the table, and added a little beer backwash to make a paste. Did I mention that the money for the tab was under this?
That was a mean thing to do. However, it was nowhere near as mean as that sorry excuse for a “server” was. I’d have paid in pennies if I had them.
Oh, I’ve got a couple of these.
Waffle House: The waiter who brought everyone else’s food but mine. When I asked about mine, he acted as if he had no idea I’d even ordered. (Surprisingly, if I’m out with my friends and one of us doesn’t get our food, it’s always me. It’s weird.)
Yesterday’s: Which went like this:
Waitress: Can I get you guys something to drink?
Me: Do you have grape juice?
Waitress: Oh, ugh. No. That’d make an awful drink!
…
A few minutes later:
Waitress: Have you guys decided [on your meals] yet?
Us: We still need a couple minutes.
not even 30 seconds later:
Waitress: Have you decided yet?
Us: Um…no. A few minutes please.
10 minutes later:
Waitress: Have you decided yet?
Me: I’d like the chicken fingers platter.
Waitress: You needed all that time to decide on that?
:rolleyes:
Oh, and every time she made one of these rude little comments to me, she’d give a look to my boyfriend as if to say “How do you put up with her?”
As some have surmised, this thread is primarily about bad service, but can also be about good or just amusing service.
This one time, at band camp, I went into a sub shop. I think there were three guys behind the counter. One of them was young, and… well, EAGER. He was thrilled to be working at such a high-end establishment, which served both pizza and subs.
While I was waiting, a guy walked in waving a ten dollar bill and asked if he could get change. “Can I get two fives?”
“Right away, sir!” ejaculated the eager counter person. (Ew! Never use the word “ejaculated” in a restaurant thread.) And he promptly diappeared to the back room.
Change guy got his two fives for a ten, and left. I waited to place my order, placed it, then waited for it. This took a good fifteen minutes. Then Eager Boy emerged from the back room with order of freedom fries in each hand. “OK, who ordered the two fries?”
Seren, you do realize Yesterday’s survives on location, location, location, right? I can’t imagine anybody would ever go there if it wasn’t a local institution and didn’t validate parking. Every time I’ve ever been there it’s consistently mediocre.