Walked out of a restaurant tonight for the first time in my life

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Boyfriend and I went out tonight to celebrate Valentine’s day (I’ll be out on the boat starting next Tuesday so that’s why it was early).

The place was really packed, very busy and loud, so I didn’t expect the most stellar service. But last time we were there we got great service and the food was great, so that’s why we chose it for our special meal.

Anyhow, waited for a while to get seated. The greeter person tells us our table is ready, we get up and start walking over, then she gets told the table got given to someone else who had just come in, so we go back and wait some more. Ok, little mistake, no biggie. A few minutes after that we get seated.

Our “waiter” came around shortly thereafter and we had our order ready because we knew they were bustling, so we just ordered it all at once instead of doing drinks first, etc. This was the first and last time we saw our waiter for the night, which is why I put the word quotes!

The service was kind of slow but not so bad especially considering how busy it was, but everything that came out to us was given to us by other people, not the original waiter who took our order. Nobody ever came by to check on us and ask how things were, or to ask if we wanted anything else. Nothing. Just random help that would come by and drop the soup, salad, and eventually entree in front of us.

We ate everything and the food was good, and eventually some other random people came by and collected our plates, again not speaking a single word to us to ask how things were. Someone boxed up our food, and then we sat there at the table and waited. And waited. And waited… and then waited some more.

We were waiting there for a LONG time, and all the waitstaff and such were just walking right past us, ignoring us… even our original waiter! I was pretty upset at a certain point. Eventually, my boyfriend and I just totaled up our meal in our heads and left what we thought was the appropriate amount with a little bit left over for tip (though they really deserved nothing).

I seriously wonder if they even ever figured out what our ticket was.

So, what should we have done, if anything, differently? Everyone was just hurriedly ignoring us as they walked by. I guess I could have tried grabbing SOMEONE’S attention but I don’t even know what our waiter’s name was or where he was and such. I don’t feel so bad because we did make an honest attempt to pay for our meal by leaving the cash on the table, but it probably resulted in a headache for them somehow.

2

I’ve left payment on the table and walked out a few times. It really bugs me to get ignored when I’m ready to pay. I recall one time when the food had been good, got reasonable service and then no one came with my final check. Like you, I did a rough estimate and rounded up to the next dollar.

It’s a shame your special dinner didn’t go as planned. Hopefully your Valentines Day will be better for you.

3

Thanks aceplace… it just blew me a way that not once did anyone come by to say “how is everything?” NOTHING. Not a single word. Not even the people who gave us our food or took our plates away. Not a single “enjoy your meal” or anything. It was very bizarre. It was also nothing like the first time we went there, where we got very attentive service and even the manager came by unasked to see how we were doing and how we liked the place.

4

Just snag someone, anyone, who works there and ask if they can please find your server for you. If the person you snag doesn’t already know who has your table, they can glance at the section chart in the prep area. As a former server, I would have much, much preferred for a coworker to tell me to cart my arse to table 12 already than to have them just leave cash on the table for the bussers to potentially steal.

5

This is what I would have done—have done, in fact—in a similar situation. If you can’t nab someone on the fly, just walk up to the host station and ask if they can locate someone to check you out. This is obviously not the way your service should have been, but sometimes it’s just the way it happens in a busy place.

6

Sounds to me like the place was new when you went the first time, now the staff has shaken out a bit and some for the worse and some for the better. You got one for the worse tonight. Sorry you had such crummy attention on a night that was special for you.

But - do in the future make your dining experience yours. In a place like that, where different people deliver drinks/plates and such, just ask them for what you need. Either they’ll get it for you themselves, or they’ll get your server to get it for you. Of course that doesn’t help feeling ignored, but at least you get refills and dessert and condiments and things like that in a timely manner. Same with the bill. When the random person comes to clear your plates, if you know you’re ready to go, just tell them then that you’re ready for the bill. If you weren’t ready for the bill but are shortly after, just raise your hand toward the next person buzzing by the table and tell them you want the bill. They’ll know by you asking that your server dropped the ball and will usually get it taken care of pronto.

7

I nearly always pay by credit card, so I can’t just leave money on the table. The only times I pay cash are a few very cheap places that don’t accept credit cards which expect you to pay at the register, and those places have someone at the register nearly all the time. If I’ve waited more than I think necessary for the check at any other place, I make a big deal of getting up, putting on my coat, gathering everything I have with me (since I usually have a book that I’ve taken out of my bookbag), and taking my credit card out of my wallet. If that doesn’t bring a waiter to my table, I walk slowly toward the register. If that doesn’t work either, I say loud enough that someone working there can hear, “I need to pay and leave.” I don’t care if that makes me look conspicuous. What are they going to do, tell me never to come back? If they don’t want my business, what do I care? There are lots of restaurants in the world. I’ve never had to walk out without paying. Someone always notices, takes my credit card, and runs it.

8

The waiter messed up here by not checking on you at some point. Especially after he noticed your done eating, he did notice. “too busy” isn’t in a waiter’s vocabulary. As he walked by I would of just said excuse me can we get our bill, with a smaller tip to reflect the service.

As far as other people bringing you food, this will happen in a busy restaurant when it’s slammed. The cooks don’t like to see food sitting under hot lamps for very long. The longer it stays there the better the chance it comes back, because the food is too dry and they have to cook it over again. When it’s busy this really bothers them. I’ve had awesome service in restaurants where I can tell my server is busting their ass, my tip also reflects that as well.

No excuse for the waiter for ignoring you for sure.

9

I’d have found a menu, added up the meal to the penny, added the approximate tax, and left a note as to why there was no tip. I would also call to comment when management was available.

10

I have developed a theory. If you are served by a shitty waiter you have a shitty waiter. If you are served by a bunch of shitty waiters you have a shitty host.

And that’s the smoking gun of a shitty host.

Nobody in the place had any idea which table was whose , and you never had a waiter at all , just got sent who was closest anytime they noticed you existed.

11

On the business of not knowing for sure who your waiter was…My wife and I went out once and saw, across the room, a man I had worked with for years, and, I suppose, his wife. They had recently been seated.

To have a little fun, that escalated as it went, I draped my towel over my white shirt sleeve, took out my pencil and went to the table, greeted them and asked for their drink order. They each ordered a glass of wine. I went back to my table and sat down. After a time, another waiter approached them and I saw the man tell her another waiter had taken their order. She left and came back later to get their food order, and they were obviously complaining about the drink order. She immediately went to get it. After a while, I saw they had been served, then went over and posed as the host, asking if everything was to their satisfaction. We talked for a bit, with the man finally making eye contact. At first he wasn’t sure, then realized I had punked him.

the point is, that even when we eat out, we should pay a little more attention than we think we have to to who is serving us, call them by their name tag name, ask after their day, etc. They will treat you better than if you remain aloof.

Waiters are often trained in techniques that lead to getting enhanced amounts of repeat customers and higher tips. When a joint is very busy, a lot of that training has to go out the window. Knowing and finding the exact right number of waitstaff for any given sales period is as much art as science. Waiters want huge tips/hour and prefer to have a table more than they can easily cow-tow to. Hosts want one too many waiters to eliminate customer dissatisfaction. Most of their pay is in tips, anyway.

12

You sound like a wonderful human being, and someone I definitely want in my life. :rolleyes:

13

Paying with credit cards make this trickier. A couple years ago we tried out a place that we had heard about. Big mistake. Lousy food, lousy service, blaring TVs all over the place. The focus was on drinking which we don’t do.

After forever, the waitress finally took our CC. Then wandered around serving other people, all while holding the card in her hand. I finally had to walk over to her and personally escort her to the cash register to get the bill and sign it. No tip of course.

I find it all too common that once they find out we’re not ordering drinks, the service goes downhill. The worst offenders are the ones who stall delivering the meals so you order more rounds of drinks, which just wastes our time. If ran a restaurant, people occupying a table are a waste of a table. Get them their stuff: drinks, food, bill, whatever, ASAP, so that the table is earning money at the fastest rate.

14

I have had far more problems lately with noise at restaurants than with servers ignoring me. I go out once a month with friends to sit around and talk and eat. Lately it’s been hard to find a restaurant that isn’t too noisy to talk in. The music is often so loud that it seems to deliberately discourage talking. I asked a local restaurant critic in his online chat/blog about this. I wonder if it’s because the restaurant wants fast turnover in its tables, so they deliberately discourage people sitting around talking. He thought that it was that a lot of people like to have a nightclub-like atmosphere in restaurants, with things going on around them and lots of noise.

15

I think you did okay but I would have asked the next employee I saw to please send the manager over and explained it to him/her. No way I would put up with that without a comment to the manager.

16

**Wendell **- I agree with you about the noise levels. Some years back, I went to an Italian chain that had recently opened in our town (thinking it was Carrabba’s, but I’m not sure) - the kitchen was open to the restaurant, so we were treated to all the clanging of pots and pans and all the other cooking noises. The food wasn’t all that great, and I never went back.

We’ve also been in a few places where the music was ridiculously loud. I’ve asked to have the volume dropped, and thankfully, they complied. I don’t mind background music, but when I have to ask a server multiple times to repeat a question, that’s too loud.

Regarding the OP - we went out once and we were literally standing up and putting on our coats before a manager spotted us. Our server was slow to show up in the first place, and slower still to return with our drinks and take our order. As we sat and sat and sat, a party of 5 or 6 was seated next to our booth for 2. They finished their meal and were also getting ready to leave when we finally decided to go ourselves. We had literally not seen our server at all anywhere after she took our order!

Anyway, the manager came over all apologetic and said our food would be right out. We said no, we were leaving. The restaurant was a fair distance from home and it was getting late, so we were done. We were going to pay for our soft drinks and go, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He immediately had them package our meal to go, refused to take any money from us, and gave us a card for a free meal for 2. Our food showed up in less than a minute, and we took it home and ate at the coffee table.

A month or so later, we went back with our coupon, and it couldn’t have been the same restaurant! The service was amazingly attentive and quick. The server was congenial, more than competent, available when we needed her, and out of the way otherwise. She got a *huge *tip as a reward since we were getting our second free meal from the place.

We’ve only been back once since then, and it was a pleasant, if not exceptional, evening. With more choices available closer to home, we haven’t really wanted to go back.

17

I had this problem once in NYC, (where disappearing waiters is an art form). We finally decided to stand up slowly, put on our coats and act like we’re really ready to go. Nothing happened. I said, “I bet if we start walking towards the door they’ll notice us.”. Nope. We just kept walking. I actually feel guilty about it, 25 years later. There were better options but I was pissed.

18
  1. You saw they were crazy busy.
  2. You ordered and got what you wanted.
  3. Somebody obviously came when you asked (thus things were boxed to take away).
  4. Nobody came to give you your check.

OK - so playing Devil’s Advocate:

  1. Maybe they were short staffed/under-staffed for the night.
  2. The waiter might have been covering for the normal waiter in that section when he took the order - and maybe forgot to mention your order to the waiter in that section.
  3. Food is often delivered by others who see it backing up in the kitchen and just grab and deliver while it is still hot, rather than wait for crazy busy waiter to take it to the table.
  4. Everyone was doing what they could to get food out and tables cleared as fast as possible.

So far - they have done what they could with the number of staff and the high volume of customers.

The fact that you didn’t get your check immediately is not a good thing for a business, but hardly the worst thing that could have happened (no service at all, wrong food, cold food, no drinks, etc.).

So - all in all - I think it sounded like they did more than a decent job in the circumstances. I would have gone to the checker and said, “They haven’t given us the bill yet.” My guess they could have snapped fingers and gotten your check immediately and you would have paid the full amount.

Granted - leaving the bare minimum of tip would probably be fair (after all, it is not like you built up a relationship with anyone in there that night) but it was certainly not the worst restaurant experience I have ever heard of. And to be quite honest, I am usually more annoyed with the waiters who hover and ask 30 times “Is everything OK?” and usually ask the question when your mouth is full.

19

You did nothing wrong, and were, in fact, much nicer than many others would have been I’m sure. Most would not have been concerned about any gratuity, some would have left nothing whatsoever. So please don’t beat yourself up about it.

As a long time server I can tell you that the server knows why you bolted and knows they screwed up large, I promise. If it helps, chances are they feel badly as well.

Restaurants are hard to manage when they are getting slammed. Even with pros, and a wicked kitchen staff, and even when you manage to keep all the balls in the air for a time, they are also subject to Murphy’s law. That’s the moment when something goes horribly wrong-er! Someone quits - just out the door gone, from the kitchen, or the floor, someone breaks something, drops an entire tray of food, etc, etc , on and on in endless and unpredictable ways. When this happens there is no time to explain to your tables, or someone else’s tables which have been flung onto you, what’s going on. Truth is everyone is just reeling from thing to thing trying to keep everything moving forward.

I mention this because when such things are happening, is when mistakes start to occur, like seating the wrong table. When you’re getting slammed you have to keep the food going out, they are just getting it to you as fast and hot as possible, no reference to who served you. The other ‘tell’ in your story, for me, is that noticeably no one ever asked how everything is. They don’t want to ask because, in part because they know it’s less than ideal, and in part because they don’t have the time, and in part because they are painfully aware of how likely it is something else could easily yet go horribly awry.

I’m sorry you had such an awful experience, were I your server, I would both be feeling bad, knowing you we’re disappointed by my service, and grateful for the compassion and patience you demonstrated. You did nothing wrong, feel good, you were very kind considerate.

20

I never quite understand threads like this. Whenever you need any kind of help in a setting where someone should serve you in some way, track anybody down and tell them you need help. Sure, you don’t do that in the first 20 seconds, but if you’ve been waiting 10 minutes for your drink / update to your order / bill, speak up. You’re not doing anything wrong by asking for someone to assist you. Color me confused.