As with most customer service threads, I came into this thread with great trepidation, prepared to see restaurants getting blasted left and right for daring to be imperfect in catering to some piddling-ass personal preference. I must say I was pleasantly surprised…most of the things that have been brought up here are, in my opinion, signs that the server and/or restaurant are in serious need of improvement.
With one exception.
Litoris: you get angry when servers dare to treat you as an independent human being by confirming that, when your husband says you want “nothing to drink”, you actually want no beverage whatsoever? If you really did wait tables, you’ll know the reason that they feel compelled to confirm it is that absolutely no one ever requests this, and the sort of people who order singularly bizarre shit are, with great regularity, the ones who become absolutely incensed should the server misinterpret the request. And if your request is not only bizarre, but A) open to misinterpretation (“nothing to drink” in this context could easily mean “nothing alcoholic” or “nothing but water”) and B) not actually made by you personally, I’m absolutely going to make sure – from YOU, provided you appear to be a sentient individual – that it’s what you actually want. Now, if the server then reacts to your weird order by giving you a funny look or acting disbelieving, then you have grounds for complaint, but your primary issue seemed to be that they would dare to address you in the first place.
Also, if your husband ever actually dared to throw an object at one of my servers in either of the restaurants I’ve managed, he’d earn himself a one-way ticket out the door at the very least, and the server could very well file assault charges, in which case I’d happily serve as a witness. Throwing things at people over a simple mistake? Are you fucking kidding me? I’d ask if he was five years old, but my 5-year-old cousin has outgrown that kind of behavior.
I do not drink with my meals, either. I’m a gastric bypass patient and most surgeons do not like patients to drink with meals as it tends to push the food through and not allow the feeling of fullness. Others may have different reasons, but that’s mine.
Peppers and I don’t get along very well. My biggest complaint is when peppers turn up in places I hadn’t expected them, so I don’t think to ask the server, and of course they’re not listed on the menu - or where the menu lists the 14 other vegetables in the salad, so I make the not unreasonable assumption that it’s a complete list and I’m “safe”, but when I arrive I discover the menu failed to mention vegetable #15, which is, of course, red peppers.
Sitting around flicking peppers out of my food like a picky little kid gets old after a while. Look, I’d just shut up and eat 'em if I didn’t know I’d pay for it later
I threw something in a restaurant once. I’m not proud of it (abjectly ashamed would be a good description) and perhaps I was an unstable asshole at that time in my life. It was a long time ago, and I’ve worked, with a good deal of success, on my temper.
Here’s what happened:
I was in a kind of hip place (not the kind of place I usually go – it was chosen by friends). We were in the lounge. We might have been waiting for a table. I can’t remember.
I ordered a Bushmill’s on the rocks, and my two companions ordered whatever they were drinking. The waitress arrived with the drinks, put them on the table, and left. I tasted mine. It wasn’t Bushmill’s. It was Black Bush, the Bushmill’s premium whiskey, which I don’t particularly like.
I caught the waitress’s attention, and said something like “excuse me, this isn’t what I ordered. Sorry to be a pain, but could you bring me a Bushmill’s?”
She said (I swear it’s true. I’ll never forget this) “we’re out of Bushmill’s. That’s Black Bush. That’s what we have, and that’s what you’re going to drink.”
My glass went flying. Not at a person (I wasn’t that much of an unstable asshole), but across the room.
Needless to say, I was deservedly banned from that place for years to come.
OK, I was a jerk, but I could not believe the incredible rudeness of the waitress. And I’ve lived in New York all my life, and gone to any number of fashionable restaurants, where attitude and rudeness are the norm. This really took the cake, though.
monstro – I have had gastric bypass, which means I do not have a pyloric valve. Drinking while eating flushes the food straight into my intestine, not a good thing.
For those who think that perhaps my husband or I are unclear when we tell the wait staff that I don’t drink with my meals, most of the time what my husband actually says is “and my wife will have nothing to drink, not even water, thanks.” In 99% of the time that we go out, I will follow-up with “I don’t drink with my meals, thanks.” Those are the times that it really ticks me off to have the server say “what about water? Can I at least bring you water?” Or even worse, when they just bring me water after I expressly told them not to – even though I can happily eat without drinking, if that glass is there, I still might reach out and pick it up out of habit.
I know a couple of recovering alcoholics who are concerned about this, and always try to make sure that their food is not prepared with wine (although you may have different reasons for not wanting your food cooked with wine - I have no idea).
On the other hand, I know a couple of chefs who swear that the alcohol in wine evaporates in the heat of the cooking process and that only the flavor, not the alcohol, remains in the final dish.
Still, for those who are concerned, I agree that it would be helpful if dishes cooked with wine were described as such on the menu.
The part I don’t understand about the “no water” thing is, why get mad if it arrives anyway? Just don’t drink it. You didn’t pay any extra for it. Just let them bring it and ignore it. Problem solved.
The chefs are wrong. For example, if you put alcohol in a dish and simmer it for 15 minutes, 40% of the alcohol remains in the final dish.
Granted, that’s probably going to be a pretty small amount of booze in the end, but for some folks, that’s way too much.
As for the rest of the complaints, you’re gonna have to deal with incompetent people throughout life, and I figure the best way to adjust for others’ incompetence is to become extra-competent yourself. Unless you can afford to dine at places with premium wait staff, it’s gonna be helpful to figure out how to phrase your requests such that even incompetent people can handle them, and then to have backup strategies for dealing with their incompetence if they fail to handle them properly. Getting outraged at the fact that there are stupid people around you is like getting outraged at the change of seasons.
Not true. Once I bought vegetable egg rolls, ate them, threw up after. Checked the ingredients closely - chicken broth, chicken fat. I did that to myself with some other food product as well. On probably 3-4 occasions, I have had inlaws sneak meat/meat products into my food because they were convinced I was faking my intolerance of meat. I became ill while at their house (unaware of the adulteration), and went home ill, or sometimes after returning home. After I became ill, the culprit fessed up to what they’d done - the first time, it was my father-in-law, and he was calling our house as we walked in the door (with me running to the bathroom to vomit), with my husband picking up the call. My father-in-law was gloating, “See? She can eat meat!” and my husband’s tirade included the fact that no, my stomach was rejecting the food without my even knowing it was in there.
I also have no qualms about making meat for others, and cook it nightly for my omnivorous husband. I’ve even hand-made sausage on a number of occasions; I debone chickens without a thought. I am not one of those “dead animal - oh I’m gonna be sick” shrinking violets.
I will add the side note that I know much Thai food includes a small amount of fish sauce, but I can eat that - either the very small amount of sauce used in a dish or changes to the meat proteins from fermentation seem to make it acceptable to my gut. I’ve been lucky so far, and fish sauce is pungent, so one would easily be able to detect large amounts of it.
I know, I just don’t like making a fuss about it. The way I figure, a restaurant will have selected those items to go together for a reason (good restaurant: because the chef feels that is the best culinary experience; bad restaurant: the frozen item comes premixed that way), and so if I have any doubt, I go with something obviously “safe” rather than cross-examine the waiter. I worked in a restaurant long ago and I vowed - successfully so far - that I would rather work in a factory or in retail than go back to food service, should circumstances require. I know what kind of time pressure waiters are under, and my asking about the soup, this particular entree, oh and that appetizer, etc., would be a pain in the rear.
Typically the most I’ll do is ask about one item, and rarely ask if it can be substituted. At one Italian restaurant I saw some lovely-sounding butternut-filled ravioli but the sauce was poultry based. I told the waitress straight out that if it was possible to substitute the broth in the sauce for something vegetarian I’d love that, but otherwise I would be absolutely delighted with the gnocchi and they shouldn’t go to too much trouble. She came back with the news that the chef would be making a veg version; I thanked her graciously, the food was wonderful, and we gave her a very good tip.
Actually, just a week ago my husband and I went to a restaurant for the first time, and I tried ordering a pan-Asian noodle dish without any meat (said “neither” when prompted for the choice between two meats). When the - obviously new by other cues - waiter looked confused, my husband interjected that I didn’t eat meat, and the waiter recovered quickly and asked if I would like tofu. I said that would be fine. Our entrees took longer than I expected, but when I tasted the tofu in mine, I figured out why - it tasted like they had taken the time to press fresh tofu back in the kitchen, then lightly batter it and fry it. It did not have the texture of frozen tofu (chewy, stays together well, but better for simulating “ground meat” - would be an easy way for a busy kitchen to fry tofu that would hold together), nor of unpressed (too soft) tofu. I was very impressed by this attention to detail.
“Yes, there are booths for two open, but I’m seating you at a table for two. Yes, I know you wanted a booth for two, and yes, there are 3 open ones just 8 feet away, but that’s not my section. Why do you think you even deserve a booth? So you and your quote-significant other-unquote can do something immoral to Jesus while nobody’s looking? So fucking sit at your table and shut up, yuppie cunt.”
“No, we don’t clean tablecloths here. What is that…a bit of tomato sauce? A gift of love from the baby that was changed on the table before you sat down? Fuck you! In the days of olde you would have sat on the ground in a swamp and been fucking happy for the privilege. Oh well, SIGH, I’ll wipe down the table with a single desultory swipe from a filthy rag, and then give you an attitude the rest of the night for being a fucking yuppie bitch.”
“Sigh. So all it is is a lemon seed? In your water glass? And a piece of pasta on your fork? Well, of course, your majesty, we’ll get you a ‘clean’ glass and ‘clean’ silverware. After all, if you think your lips are too good to touch those of a fellow human being, then we’re happy to accommodate you. We are all stardust and billion year-old carbon, uppity yuppie scum…”
“Sorry, it is an abomination to God to have separate checks, regardless of how much it will inconvenience your group, make it hard to get corporate reimbursement, and turn a happy time into a time of arguments and bickering. After all, we want you to take bad memories with you! Oh yeah, die yuppie scum!”
“I don’t care if you’ve been waiting an honest-no-exaggeration 20 minutes for your bill and are going to miss your flight, if you leave without paying your bill we WILL call the police and you WILL GO TO JAIL!!!1111one. No, we have no idea where your server is, and no, some how, no one else in this entire restaurant can ring up your order. So sit there and shut up until your server comes back from their weed break in the walk-in freezer. Fucking unreasonable yuppie scum.”
and finally
“Um, aren’t you going to leave a tip, quote-ma’am-unquote? No, that’s a mandatory 18% gratuity, not a tip. Don’t you know the difference? Fucking yuppie scum…as soon as my shift is over, I’m going home to post about you on customerssuck.com, or even…the SDMB Pit!”
Came across that one recently, with the explanation “no, we can’t do that, you should have said when you ordered, I can’t change it now”. Interestingly, it wasn’t the slightest problem for another group, who had a clearly more senior member of staff serving them. (And fortunately, one of our group was the person responsible for processing all of our expense claims.)
Yep. Lesson learned. It was just frustrating trying to read Sagan by the light of the setting sun barely peeking through the window.
Yeah, that was me last night. Most of my gripes in my OP come from one particular place, but normally I like it. I keep going back for a reason. Lats night, however, the place was particularly busy. I live in College Central, and this is parents’ weekend. It took me approximately 4 hours to get the check because my server was busy taking orders from tables of ten. Not her fault, of course, but damn that sucked.
Also no one’s fault, but I hate being seated in a high traffic area. This place has indoor and outdoor seating, and I was seated right next to the door. I don’t know how many people the outside part can accomodate, but from my impression, it must be approaching a million or so. It was like eating at a subway turnstyle at rush hour.
I had a douchebag bitch do this to me just a few weeks ago while I was working at a volunteer community fundraiser gig. I was serving pasta dinners (which by the way I cooked, took orders, served, and cleaned up essentially alone). She said “no garlic bread”, and by the time she finished her salad and I brought the plate out, I’d forgotten- I neglected to write it down. It’s called a mistake.
Queen cuntrag looks at it, looks at me and says “YEP, and she BROUGHT IT ANYWAY!!!1111ELEVENTY!” I didn’t even know what the fuck she meant. Then she’s gesturing at the bread like it’s a cockroach. I was pissed. I told her to please just not eat it and that I was terribly, TERRIBLY sorry for the inconvenience that the slice of bread had brought into her obviously already stressful life. Holy FUCK I was mad. What an entitled bitch. God forbid someone forget something or make a human error.
Bouv, I’ve been Lactose intolerant for 20 years. I go out to eat a lot more than I should, I’m sure, and usually with friends. I get pretty darn self-conscious about setting the whole ordering process back by asking the waitstaff “are you SURE there is no dairy whatsoever in any part of any of this?” They have to go to the kitchen, every time. I’m willing to do it in a small restaurant, but your average chain is a wreck.
Why shouldn’t I just be able to order off the menu, and have a smooth evening? If you describe the salmon as herbed and grilled in olive oil, but neglect to mention the butter sauce drizzled over it, THAT is a no-no!
I hate having to send the waitstaff back to the kitchen for each choice - Nope, the soup has cream, so I’ll have the salad. Nope, the salad has a pre-applied dairy filled dressing, I’ll skip it. I’m a pretty astute person, and a good reader. Just tell me what is really in it.
(An amazing amount of waitstaff, while knowing the ingredients, do not know what constitutes dairy - for instance, I had somebody suggest that, because I couldn’t have dairy, they would gladly exchange my eggs for buttermilk pancakes. Yup, to them, eggs were dairy, but pancakes couldn’t be.)
On that note, a friend of mine owns and is the chef for one of Minneapolis’ best restaurants. I love going there (even though I can’t afford it) because I can just order “anything the chef wants to fix, Fetch-style” and I know it will be great, and completely dairy free. Yum!
So basically, you’re saying that you fucked up and she should just live with it?
I mean, I agree that there’s no need to be a total bitch, but to me, the attitude of “Like I can be bothered to get your order right. Shut the fuck up and deal.” also falls into the “total bitch” category.
