So, you live in the DFW area, too? 
It’s easy to find good hole-in-the-wall Mexican food places. But’s that’s about it. Otherwise, it’s the same Chili’sTGIFridaysCheddarsOliveGardenRedLobster hell.
If you live in Fort Worth, try The Covey or Bonnell’s, but expect to pay for it. Both are upscale, and offer a wider variety of foods. For instance, my husband loves the buffalo filet, while I will choose the lamb chops or beef filet in The Covey.
Both restaurants are on the west side of Fort Worth, so Dallas diners might not want to drive that far.
This thread reminds me of one of my favorite Jack Nicholson moments. “I want you to hold it between your knees.”
My worst restaurant experience happened in an Indian restaurant. The whole place was empty except for me and the guy I was with. The waitress takes our order, disappears, brings the guy’s food but not mine, then disappears again. Wait. Wait. Wait. My friend finally has to start eating. He finishes, she reappears, and brings the check.
“Where’s my food?” I asked.
“Choo deedn’ order nothing!” she responds. She wasn’t Indian, I think she was Latino, and she had an accent. Anyway, she gave me a big old attitude. My friend vouched for the fact that I did, in fact, order something. She sighed, sucked her teeth, and offered to go get me some food, but by then, I just wanted to leave.
It’s still a joke with my friend, and we say to each other, “Choo deedn’ order NOTHING!”
I had my fifth birthday party at a local pizza place. Another patron tripped on a wrinkle in the carpet and spilled spaghetti on me. Cue me me shrieking and crying as a blister the size of a quarter welled up on my ankle.
I’ve had awful service and crappy food before, but I’ve never gotten sick or anything, so I think that takes the cake.
Wait - talkative waitresses? I almost forgot about TMI Waitress!
We went to one of the Mark’s Feed Stores in Louisville. Our meal was fine, but my wife and the waitress started chatting while I was eating. They started talking about medical issues; suddenly the waitress started talking about a problematic COLD SORE that kept recurring in her mouth! :eek:
in case you hadn’t guessed, barbecued chicken and cold sore discussions do NOT mix!
Huh, the same thing happened to me a bunch of times in Spain. I would go into a restaurant, look at the menu, pick something on it, and was baldly told that they didn’t have it/it wasn’t the time for it/the stars weren’t aligned properly, etc., in a tone asking what kind of moron I was to order food that was on the menu.
I adore Spain and most of the time I ate like a king (I still have little residual foodgasms about this one particular tapa in a bar right next to Gernika train station) but there was some pretty weird shit, too.
Anyway, reading all the above stories I realize I’ve been fantastically lucky around here, or maybe the restaurants are just better in Montreal like everyone says, or maybe I’m just completely oblivious. I did have one bad experience (at Dunn’s on Dorchester Square - I don’t go there anymore) involving waiting a total of an hour for one (1) milkshake and one (1) Pepsi in a restaurant that was about 1/4 full, but that’s it in ten years of restaurant-going.
I told my wife I posted this, and she reminded me of extra details. We were with 2 friends that night, and after TMI Waitress told us about the cold sore (actually, a canker sore), she went to SHOW IT to us, and which point one of our friends said “Oh, that’s all right - you don’t have to”. :rolleyes: How could have I forgotten that, unless it was the trauma of the experience?
Because we were talking about everything and everyone and one of us finally said ‘hey, it’s been awhile since we ordered hasn’t it?’ and we looked at a watch to find we’d been there for longer than it seemed.
I had the opposite experience at a different Boston Pizza. Was out with several friends, had a fairly attentive waiter who didn’t hover too much and we didn’t have a problem finding when we needed. Our orders came out right, we got our food timely, etc… he gave us all a percentage off, didn’t charge for non-stop pop and apologized for the slow service as his waitress had left for an emergency and left him to handle the lounge.
We were all quite puzzled, but we all left him a good tip.
Last people to be seated at an Outback. Mrs. Cad, Cad Jnr. and I order. Their meals come and mine doesn’t. The server has gone home (and didn’t tell anybody) so I have to get a manager to find out what happened to my order. It seems that the server never put it in and now the kitchen is shut down so I can’t get my sirloin but perhaps some prime rib. 15 minutes later, the manager tells me the prime rib was put away so needless to say, I could not get any food.
Why is my story different?
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The manager never offered an apology. Instead she told me that because I didn’t actually get any food, she wouldn’t charge me for my meal. She even made it sound like she was doing ME a favor.
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Despite only getting 2 out of three meals, the bill was well over $400. Seems like according to the server, Mrs Cad ordered 47 salmon and no one notice until I brought it to their attention.
Thank’s, Lynn. We have an anniversery coming up, so I’ll check these out.
While it was not a “worst restaurant experience”, two anniverseries ago, we ate at Riata downtown and we were sorely disappointed. It wasn’t a bad meal, but the drinks, food, and service were mediocre, at best. For $100+, I expect a meal better than one I could cook at home.
You don’t suppose it’s some sort of We Hate Tourists type thing, do you?
I’ve had a few shockers - but the worst was when a new restaurant opened in our small town a few years ago. We were very excited, as at that time there were no decent restaurants or cafes here. So we could have a few drinks, we left the car home & walked.
It was their second night opened & there were a few other diners. We did notice the open plan kitchen was small & only had one chef working there.Our young waitress seemed very tense & stressed. We placed our order & tried to place a drink order, but she said we would have to wait for the wine waitress. OK. No problem.
Time passed. No food. No wine waitress. We flagged down our waitress. She said she would ask the wine waitress to come over. More time passed. The wine waitress finally showed up & took our order - wine for me & tap beer for my husband. The wine, after another wait, arrived, but the wine waitress apologised & said the tap beer wasn’t working. Fine. No problem. My husband ordered a bottle & asked for it to come pretty smartly as we had been here about an hour & he was getting thirsty. More time passed & I was hooking into the wine with no food & an increasing irritable husband (kiwi males hate being kept waiting for their beer) Finally he managed to get the attention of our waitress & said “Its been over an hour can you get me my beer.” After a couple of minutes she came back, looking very close to tears & said, “I’m sorry but the wine waitress is in a really bad mood & she won’t give me your beer.”
Its not often that my husband loses the power of speech - but this was one such occassion. He asked if she could at least get him a drink of water. The poor girl managed to get a glass from the kitchen. By this stage I’m well through the bottle & feeling no pain.
Our friend Sue (who had got a part time bar job at this fine establishment) showed up to have a drink with us. She was mortified when we told her what had happened & marched behind the bar & (after a frank & free exchange with the wine bitch)got the beer for my husband, another bottlle for her & me. Our food arrived - but the portions were tiny! & it wasn’t cheap! By this time I was plastered & Sue & I my husband half dragged & half carried me up the hill.
We didn’t walk out cause we were meeting Sue & there was nowhere else to go. We had got a babysitter & wanted a night out.
This place didn’t last long as a restaurant.- what a surprise! Its now a sports bar & TAB (betting agency) & there are a few cafes in this town now - thank goodness.
Like enomaj, my :eek: restaurant story comes from the other side of the diner/staff experience. Way back when, I worked as a hostess at a Holiday Inn that also happened to be adjacent to the biggest convention site in town. There was a crusty old waitress there named Mickey who lived in her own little waitressing world and did things exactly the way SHE wanted to do them. One morning, I seated a party of 6 conventioneers in the station next to hers. One of the party held up his coffee cup as she went by after filling up the diners in her section and asked if he might have some more coffee. Mickey said, “Sorry, this isn’t my table.”
The patron who wanted a coffee refill? George Herbert Walker Bush, pre-presidency, but still a big player, in town for some Republican rally.
I swear this is a true story.
I doubt it. Spain has a very relaxed attitude about, you know, doing your job. When I lived there, businesses such as restaurants, bookstores, and internet cafes opened and closed at random hours and on random days. Professors would frequently just not show up to class with no notice. One time the university forgot to pay the gas bill in winter and we all froze in our classrooms for several days. I think what happened to me was a case of cafe owners not bothering to make sure their kitchens were stocked. But three cafes on the same street in one night? That was weird.
Bonnell’s has limited hours, they are open for lunch and dinner only on some days, only for lunch or dinner (can’t remember which) on another day, and closed on one day of the week.
The Covey is closed on at least some holidays, but when it’s open, it does tend to be open from 11 AM to 10 PM, I believe it is, and later on weekends. If you like good beer, go there, they are a microbrewery and very proud of their products. The chocolate souffle is big enough for two people to split it, and I highly recommend it, but don’t attempt it alone. The creme brulee is astonishing. I keep meaning to try other desserts, but the creme brulee always demands that I order it.
I always take a few extra units of insulin when I eat at The Covey.
Both places have websites, BTW, where you can check out the menus and such.
Walked into a Subway once. Plastered in every window were posters advertising their new Philly Cheesesteak Sub. I walked by several tables and trash cans, all with table tents advertising the new Philly Cheesesteak sub. At the countered, which was covered with advertisements for the new Philly Cheesesteak sub, I looked up at the menu, one full panel of which was devoted to advertising the new Philly Cheesesteak Sub. Told the teenager at the counter “I’ll take the Philly Cheesesteak Sub.”
Adopting her most sarcastic-teenager, OMG-you’re-so-dumb tone, complete with mental roll-eyes, she curtly informed me, “Um, we don’t have a Philly Cheesesteak Sub.”
I looked up at the menu, then the other advertisements all around me, decided it wasn’t worth the fight, and ordered a steak and cheese.
Strangely, I haven’t been back. Of course, that’s largely because Subway sucks.
She was actually telling the truth. I always order a steak and cheese and am somewhat miffed when they “correct” me to a “Philly Cheesesteak” 
(However, I do hear that Subway serves Philly Cheesesteaks in Highlander 2 and Alien 3.)
I understand that it’s not a “real” Philly Cheesesteak. But they do indeed have a "Philly Cheesesteak"sub. I have no idea if it’s anything other than their old steak and cheese with a new name, having been denied the opportunity to order it.
This happened to my family EXACTLY and it was in the Smokies as well. We did stay for the free meals though, got desert too.
I have two.
First, the Pink Pony in Old Town Scottsdale. The place has been there forever. Back in the old days, Deano, Frank and Sammy used to eat there. Now it’s a kind of a local institution, and anyone who eats there should be institutionalized.
I went there a few years ago. It wasn’t busy, being a Weds. night, I think. It was only 7:30 or 8 but the entire back half of the dining room smelled like cheap bar bathroom disinfectant. We asked if we could move away from the chemical stench and were put at a tiny table nearer the front.
Our waitress took a looooong time to get our drink order. The drinks came and were short pours, then our steaks were complete hockey pucks. I’d ordered medium rare and my wife had ordered medium. We had to send them back twice before they were even close to edible, then my baked potato was rock hard in the middle.
It took a good half hour to get our bill, even with asking twice.
On the way out the manager asked us how our meal was. I told him, “Sinatra may have loved this place back in the day, but if he were here tonight he would put a contract out on the manager.” You’d have thought I slapped the man’s mother in front of him he was so mortified.
The other was a joint in Tucson I can’t remember the name of. One of my company’s major channel partners was having their annual reseller convention down there and we were exhibiting. I was tasked with finding an interesting locale to have our own reseller dinner the night before.
There was this old west kind of place that was large enough to hold us all, no mean feat to find a dinner location for 100 in freakin’ Tucson. I drove down from Phoenix to check the place out, meet with the manager and do a tasting menu. Everything was pretty good. Not great, but good enough.
The night of the dinner everything went off the rails. I’d put together a four entree option menu: Steak, chicken, ribs or grilled portobello. Even though the number in attendance was exactly the number we’d contracted for, they didn’t schedule enough floor, bar or kitchen staff.
Everything took forever, came out in weird sequence and people were getting pissed. Then came the piece de resistance: I was sitting next to our product manager, one of only two people to elect for the vegetarian option, fortunately. When her salad came out she looked at it kind of puzzled. She said, “It’s moving.” I looked at it myself, then waved my hand over it and a good dozen fruit flies launched themselves into the air. Needless to say, she skipped dinner.
I pulled the manager into the back room. It was all I could do not to physically drag him, and explained in clenched teeth detail why the bar tab was the only part of the meal we would be paying for. He tried to argue, but when I told him I’d be happy to use part of my marketing budget to take out a full page ad in the Tucson Citizen detailing why people should stay away from his restaurant, he caved.