That’s your nomination for “worst restaurant experience ever”? That’s some weak shit. How slow is slow anyway? How busy were they? And it’s a steak joint… did you by chance order steak? Steak takes time to cook, especially if you ask for it well done.
I can top that.
Once, after all day working on moving stuff into their new house, my sister, her husband & I got cleaned up and went out to eat at a fairly nice restaurant. It was late, around 8pm, and we were all very hungry. We were seated, looked at menus, got our drinks, placed our orders, and … waited. And waited. And waited more. We consumed a basket of the appetizer (breadsticks, crackers, etc.) and a refill of it, and talked at length about the new house & moving into it … and waited.
Waited for nearly 2 hours. Finally the waitress came by, looked at us rather exasperated (nearly all the other tables were empty or had new parties by then), slapped down the check, and asked “will there be anything else?” My brother-in-law said “Yes, we’d like our meals, please”.
So your waitress forgot you and went home. Ours forgot to serve us our meals, but remembered to give us the bill.
I used to love a local place called the Wheatsheaf until they closed the kitchen mid-way through my eight-person pre-booked birthday meal. And the waitress went home and left us sitting with our uncleared plates like complete lemons for forty minutes. And, actually, cracked me over the head at one point* (I assume that was accidental, but it certainly put the tin lid on things at the time). And they ignored all follow-up contact from myriad sources. And, and! Oh, they were out of sixty percent of everything on the menu. I think that’s it. Rad birthday. Rad. At least there was wine.
(* It’s not exciting - she was doing a windmilly coat-donning maneuveur, I walked past at elbow height, etc etc. Still, though! An unfortunate detail. In hindsight, the coat donning should’ve given me a clue and I should’ve tackled her on the spot, but I thought she was being replaced! I am restaurant-naïve!)
Also there was a terrible meal in a particularly cack-handed Chinese place in Manchester that also used to be nice but had evidentially swan-dived down the pan since our last visit. We waited, and waited, and waited. Several people left. Stars formed and died. My proto-husband actually ran out of things to say about servers. And, when it eventually continental-drifted out of the kitchen, my squid looked and smelled like a bowl of foreskins. I went “D:”. And then we left.
I went into a Tim Hortons (which is like a Dunkin Donuts for those who don’t know) with my two small kids and a wicked hangover. It was 10am exactly on a Sunday morning. There were three people ahead of me in line. I got to the cashier, ordered, paid and moved aside to wait. I got my coffee, kids got their muffins and juice, but the B.E.L.T. I ordered was really slow coming. (A B.E.L.T. is a BLT on a bagel, with egg. Not hard.) After 10 minutes, I asked one of the women behind the counter what was up. She says there’s no egg, she’s waiting on the eggs. Ok, whatever. But then I see that several people who came in after me had ordered things with egg, and gotten served. I go back to ask about my food, and she tells me the drive-thru is really busy, and the drive-thru customers have to be served in less than a minute. I have been exceedingly polite this whole time, and rather patient, considering. But I have a hangover. My head is pounding, my stomach is twisting, my kids are finished and bored, and this cunt (yup I said it) is being rude to me instead of doing her job. People who came in thirty minutes after me had ordered what I ordered, ate, and left. And lucky for her, I was still being nice, because you don’t cuss out people who are making your food. Finally, after FIFTY minutes my fuckin’ sandwich is ready. The woman tells me, “I gave you extra bacon because it took so long” So I sit down, bite, the whole thing is cold and the bacon is floppy, rubbery grossness that I have to pull off, and that’s when I notice there’s no egg! I kindly point this out to her, and she hands me a cold peice of egg on a napkin, that’s still frozen in the middle. So that’s the last time I went to a Timmy Ho’s.
Not bad, exactly, but we used to go to a particular Bertucci’s because they would almost invariably (like 4 in 6 times) screw up toppings on a half and half pizza and then offer us a free one.
This isn’t my story, but I doubt anything I’ll ever have one even close to as bad.
Three years ago a friend of mine went to a local family-owned place with her daughter and granddaughter. Food was fine, everything was going well, the three of them were having a great time. Suddenly a waitress came charging through the dining room carrying a large bucket of water. Boiling water. Got near my friend’s table and inevitably tripped. The bucket of boiling water went all over her granddaughter.
My friend’s granddaughter was in the hospital for three days with second-degree burns. She spent several months having her skin scrubbed hard. She still has scars. Fortunately not many of them are on her face.
Now that, I think, is a bad restaurant experience.
Originally posted by t-bonham@scc.net
What happened?
As for my story, like others have mentioned, I don’t know if this is the worst thing that has happened, but it was memorable. After ordering drinks and appetizers at a Fatz Cafe, we were conversing at the table. The server returned with a tray of drinks and proceeded to dump the entire tray (7 full glasses and two pitchers) on my (at the time) six month old son who was sitting in one of those removable car seat carriers.
The entire restaurant froze. Once the shock wore off, she went to get some towels to dry off the floor, table and my son. The manager apologized, but the waitress thought it was “funny.” She was a ditz. Annoyingly enough, they offered no gift certificates or freebies.
We’ve never been back.
My cousin told me this story. She, her best friend and their boyfriends went to a Chinese restaurant a couple of hours before a show. The place was pretty full and a couple arrived and complained that their reservations hadn’t been kept, so the restaurant kicked out another couple that they’d just seated.
Because the waiter didn’t speak English well my cousin pointed at the menu items when ordering. They waited half an hour for their meals and when they came out my cousin and her boyfriend’s orders were incorrect. So they sent them back, waited fifteen minutes, and the waiter brought out the same incorrect order that had just been sent back only this time they’d inexplicably added chillies.
At this point my cousin complained to the manager/owner who didn’t know who the waiter was. She went around asking “who is the waiter with the glasses? Who is the waiter with the glasses?” and when she found out his identity she started screaming at the lady manning the phones because the waiter was her son. They got another waiter to retake the orders and this time they finally got it right.
When it was time to pay the bill the restaurant had added the two incorrect orders to the tab. Cue arguing with the owner/manager. The restaurant then crossed off two items on the bill, but they were the two cheapest meals and not the two incorrect ones. Then when they finally crossed off the unordered meals, the restaurant added the total wrong and tried to overcharge them. There was more arguing about how they’d added it up wrong, and finally the restaurant brought out a calculator.
Then to top it off they were late for their show.
Not the worst, but the oddest. We went to a restaurant, ordered, ate, and waited for the waitress to bring the check. After about fifteen minutes of waiting with no sign of her (who waits hours?), I went to the hostess:
Me: Our waitress seems to have disappeared.
Hostess: What is your table number?
Me: 5 million. Why would I know my table number?
Hostess: Where are you sitting?
Me: [Points to table]
Hostess: Oh. She had to go to the hospital. She…
Me: I don’t give a crap what happened to her. Get me my check.
I didn’t believe for a second that she had to go to the hospital, by the way. I’m sure she simply quit in the middle of her shift and nobody took over her tables.
My worst experience is probably when I bit into the charbroiled cockroach in my cheeseburger at Burger King. They offered me another cheeseburger, “even though you’ve eaten half of that one already.”
A waitress had an emotional meltdown in the middle of serving us and got fired on the spot. This was at a white-tablecloth restuarant where two meals with no alcohol cost close to $100 with tip. I don’t recall all the particulars but it was abysmally slow service compounded by the waitress’s bipolar behavior – apologetic one moment and accusatory the next. She was out in front crying on the steps as we left.
I also recall eating at a Denny’s once where the waitress was so bad that I did not leave a tip. In fact I never got a check from her and just went to the woman at the register to pay the bill. When I said the service was really poor, the register woman said they’d been getting a lot of complaints about that waitress.
I once had a waiter bring me a bowl of soup that I hadn’t ordered, then argue with me when I said I hadn’t ordered it.
I have a bad service story and a funny story, both from different Hooters.
The Bad:
Some friends and I went to a Hooters in Puerta Vallarta, Mexico. We walked in the door, and there’s a goup of 5 or 6 servers sitting in the waiting area chatting. We wait at the “Please wait to be seated” sign for quite some time. Every now and then one of the girls would look our way, then quickly look away when we made eye contact. Finally one of our group walked up to them and asked if we could please be seated. As one, the servers turned and gave him the dirtiest, most hate-filled look, then went back to their conversation. We left.
The Funny:
Different group of friends, at the Hooters in downtown Baltimore. We ordered, received, and ate our food. The server cleared our plates away, and we stayed chatting and drinking for a bit. About 15 minutes or so after clearing our plates away, the same server came running over with a burger and fries and gave it to one of my friends. She was incredibly apologetic about forgetting his food, and promised to take it off of his bill. Except he had already gotten his food. He had already eaten it, and she had already cleared his plate. He took the extra burger, but insisted that she leave it on his bill. So he ended up with two burgers for the price of one.
That wouldn’t be The Wheatsheaf on Manchester Road , Altrincham would it?
'cos if it was…
:eek: I hope they bankrupted that restaurant.
Not bad, but this:
was much better.
Anyway, one of my worst “experinces” was at a Mexican restaurant near Universal Studios of Hollywood. I don’t remember what dish I ordered, but it took almost an hour to arrive, and it tasted somewhat like raw sewage smells. Unfortunately, I was so damn hungry by then I couldn’t wait for another dish to be prepared. I ate as much as I could stand. The next day I had to stay home all day so I could be near the bathroom.
My only vindication came when I went back to the area a few months later and found the restaurant was out of business.
Here’s mine. Quite a few years ago, but it still stands out in my memory.
A group of friends and I (I think there were six of us) planned to meet for dinner at a high-end Vietnamese restaurant on Spring Street, in New York City, called Mekong.
My then-girlfriend and I arrived first. We were early, so we went to the bar and ordered a couple of drinks. I put a twenty on the bar, and got ten dollars in change (this was a long time ago, obviously). We drank and talked, and everyone else showed up, and the host said our table was ready. I turned around to pick up my change, and it was gone. I called over the bartender, who denied that there was any change. She was lying through her teeth. I saw her take my twenty and return ten. So that’s strike one. The bartender is a thief.
We sit. We order. We order appetizers and dinner, and wine. The delivery of the food is not synchronized. Dinner is showing up before appetizers. Dinners are showing up twenty minutes apart. The food is good, but the service is a disaster. At one point a salad, if I remember right, is actually spilled in the lap of one of our party.
Finally, we’re done. The check comes. This is one of those places that adds a mandatory tip for large parties. I go to the manager and explain that in light of the shitty service I’m not going to pay the tip, especially after being ripped off at the bar. He insists that I pay. I pay the check, without tip, in cash (so they can’t add it to my credit card) and tell him to call the cops or do whatever he’s going to do, and we all leave.
Out-of-court settlement, and the restaurant paid for all her medical expenses (which as you can imagine were heavy). My friend’s granddaughter, who was eight at the time, is doing a lot better now but it was a bad time for a while. A brave little girl, she is.
So-so:
My wife and I had just spent along day packing for our move. I suggested Outback. We got there near the end of the day (9:45 PM, but it was a Saturday). Our section was nearly deserted, and we were the only patrons left in our area by the time the main course arrived. The meal was fine, but then a worker started cleaning our section with one of those automatic brooms - except this one was incredibly squeaky and quite annoying (granted, we were pretty cranky, but still…). When the worker came up to our table, my wife asked if he could wait until we were done before cleaning that close to us. You could see the wheels spinning verrrry sloooowly inside his head, and then he spoke: “No. I have to finish this.” We were flabbergasted. A complaint to the Outback home office resulted in an apology and a $50 gift card.
Better:
We were at a Cracker Barrel in New Hampshire (dead giveaway- they only have one), and were eating a meal. I had just finished mine and the waitress (they changed waitresses in the middle of the meal) came over and took my plate, and also took my wife’s plate, and left. The only problem is that my wife was not close to finishing - in fact, she was holding her fork and chewing on food when the waitress took the plate! To top it off, we complained to the manager on the way out, and his ENTIRE response was a mumbled “Sorry about that”!
Bonus story: This didn’t happen to us, but involved the same Cracker Barrel. The head of my office at the time has a disabled daughter, and they went to eat at the Cracker Barrel shortly after it opened. They found it to be terribly set up for disabilities (narrow aisles in the store portion and badly arranged tables in the restaurant), so he mentioned it to the manager. The manager’s response was - “Don’t eat here”!!! That turned out to be an answer that cost Cracker Barrel $400,000. Shortly after, it was discovered that the Cracker Barrel building had accidentally been built several feet into the utility easement- they applied for a variance, which should have been easy to get - except Office Head was on the town Planning and Zoning Board! No variance for them, and they had to tear down part of the building and rebuild it on the other side!
Best:
Years ago, a new restaurant opened near my apartment in the Bronx. My then-girlfriend and I decided to try it one night. As we arrived, a couple was leaving, and the man said “Get out now, while you still can!”. We didn’t take his advice. We were seated at a table, and in short order, a waiter came to take our order. However, before he could do so, a waitress came over and chased him away, angrily proclaiming, “That’s MY table!” We didn’t see her again for over 30 minutes. After finally ordering, our food came out - my girlfriend had ordered chicken strips, and that’s what she got. TWO chicken strips - way less chicken than is found in the typical small order of McNuggets. I had ordered pasta, and when I tried it, the spaghetti was crunchy. Not just al dente, but outright raw in parts. It was all too amusing for us to believe. That restaurant didn’t last long. I wonder why?
A few years at Swingers in Santa Monica. After leaving the club next door, we went there for a late-night bite. The waitress was very rude. She threw the napkins and utensils on the table, gave attitude when taking the orders. When the check arrived, we didn’t leave a tip. As we were walking out, she yelled at us. Yeah, that was a crappy experience.
I can’t reveal my other bad restaurant experiences for fear of being snuffed out…
actually, the two worst slow-wait restaurant experiences do have to do with shady characters. Two restaurants that, despite hardly anyone being in there, took well over an hour for the food to be delivered. Both of which later turned out to have alleged mob connections. The food turned out to be pretty good in both instances, though.
I guess they had too much pride to serve bad food even if they were trying to drive away customers from their money laundering by intentionally giving bad service. Or maybe the wait just made everything taste better.