Servers & Chefs
WAITRESS' NAMEThis is event happened while I was the chef at a restaurant on Cape Cod.
One busy summer night two restaurant waitresses, Kelly and Mary, were trying to help each turn tables so that we could accommodate another seating before closing time. Kelly asked Mary to add up a check and drop it at a table that was waiting to leave. Mary added up the check and wrote a salutation to thank the diners for their business. Kelly then went to the table to pick up the check. The diners commented on what an interesting name she had and did it run in her family. She brought the check back to the kitchen and read Mary's salutation. It read, "Thank You Anus." 6/08
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THE CASE OF THE DISAPPEARING SERVER
Dining experience that definitely was NOT kosher...or.... server in need of a GPS! Well known chain kosher style deli in Tampa Bay area. Husband and I have eaten here often, and have found the service to be somewhat inconsistent, but never this bad. We started with an appetizer - which came out fine, but we still did not have eating utensils, and our server magically disappeared for the longest time. I had to get up, walk over to the hostess station, and then waited there for what felt like 5 minutes for someone to appear. Finally, utensils are brought to our table, but food is now room temp. Salad and soup arrives next. Salad dressing on side in cup has white scum on top. Of course where is our server? Who knows.
I sit there and give it exactly 10 minutes, when I have to get up AGAIN and go to the hostess station. This time the manager is there and I explain to him that our server just disappears and I show him the tainted salad dressing. Some time later the server shows up to ask what other type of salad dressing I want....again he disappears for some time, and I flag down another server who brings me my salad dressing. Next our meals come.....and Oh My God. My husband had ordered the brisket on top of potato pancakes, with NO gravy. Of course, the meal is swimming in gravy. I ordered the salmon cakes, but asked for potatoes instead of rice. And what did you think was on my plate? Rice, of course, and it was cold. And worse yet, the veg of the day was supposed to be green beans. Instead we get creamed spinach - to which our server says they ran out of green beans. Now, my husband is lactose intolerant and can not eat this...and I just plain do not want to. We were never told nor asked if we wanted to substitute the veggie. Or it should have been taken off the bill.
Well, again our server disappears before we can protest our dinner, and I had to get up once again, find another server and demand that the manager come to our table. Before the manager arrives, the server comes back and asks what is wrong (seems he could find his way back quick then). We told him to look at our plates and see if that is what we ordered. He said yes it was and we said no it wasn't, and that we couldn't eat creamed spinach. He just looks down, says sorry, and walks away never to be seen again.
Manager arrives, we explain very patiently, and to the manager's credit he comps our meal, but we decide to leave anyway since we now are completely disgusted with the whole ordeal. We believe this is a good lesson in why you should stick to local eating joints, because the chain places do not train their staffs to get it right or care to get it right. We will heed our own advice from now on. 1/21/08
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SELF SERVICE RESTAURANT
Back when I was working on my undergrad, I played in a band to make money to pay my bills. One night, around 2 am, after playing a gig in a medium-sized town several hours away, we decided to stop at an all-night dinner in a small town on our way home. When we first arrived we were told to pick any seat we wanted, but that it would be about 15 minutes until we would be served because they were having a shift change and had to close out the registers. The group I was with agreed that this would be fine and patiently waited.
After 30 minutes of waiting, our server finally comes over to the table and takes our order. None of us ordered a big meal; just soda, coffee, hash-browns, and eggs. After waiting for 20 minutes, I try to flag the waitress over, but she was preoccupied with a phone call. After several more minutes of waiting, one of our group gets fed up with the service and gets our drinks for us. About 10 minutes later the waitress comes over and says "Good, someone brung yall, yall's drinks" (it was in the deep south and she really did say it this way); apparently not noticing that she was the only waitress in the place. At this point, we ask if we could have some refills and if she knew when our food would be ready. She responds by saying that she has yet to turn in our order to the cook but she was on her way to do it.
My group and I were fairly frustrated by now, but with no other eating options for two hours in either direction we agree that we should just wait it out. A few minutes later we see our food come up in the window from the cook and still the waitress is chatting on the phone with no interest in serving us. After waiting long enough that we feared our food would be cold, we just went and got it ourselves along with our own refills. After finishing our food we chatted for another half hour about the poor service, especially noticing that we were the only people, although many had come and gone, who actually had anything to eat or drink. After this we decided that we were ready to leave, but the waitress showed no interest in taking our money (we had intended to pay with a credit card). So we figured out what our bill was and left the cash on the table, along with three pennies from the take-a-penny jar for a tip, just to be spiteful. 11/07
THE WITTY WAITRESS
The information board at the front of the hotel-based diner proudly proclaimed, "We have borscht every day," should have given us pause. But we had been driving for 3 hours without breakfast, and it was 10:00 a.m. with another 3 to go, and on New Year's Day, there wasn't a lot open. The restaurant was packed - usually a good sign.
When we sat down the waitress immediately told us a long, rambling story about gambling, leaving me wondering if she was extremely hung-over or perhaps mentally ill. Coffee and toast appeared immediately. And then the wait began. After 30 minutes, an indescribably inedible breakfast (including sausages of an unnatural greenish color) was placed in front of us. During this 30 minutes, we started to notice that NO ONE in the restaurant had anything except coffee and toast.
After we were served, the lady with four children at the table behind us meekly pointed out to the server that they had nothing but coffee and toast, and they had been here longer than our table. The server stated that they had only ordered cereal. "No," says the hapless mother, her voice breaking "remember, I gave you a coupon for two farmer's breakfasts. And we haven't gotten the cold cereal either, and it's been almost an hour." "But if you'd ordered eggs," says the server with infallible logic, "I would have asked you what kind of toast and how you wanted your eggs." "I did," said the frazzled mother, "I said wheat toast (which we've eaten) and scrambled."
"I honest to God don't remember that," said the server. "Never mind," says the diner, "just bring me the check for what we've had." "Oh," said the server airily, "I couldn't charge you for just coffee and toast."
As we were leaving, my mother hit the restroom. On the way back, she heard a father telling his teenage children that they were leaving, "But," says the 15 year-old boy, plaintively, "we haven't eaten. We only had coffee and toast." 11/07
FINGER-LICKIN' GOOD
This formerly famous Baltimore restaurant is no longer in business, thankfully. I was not the recipient of this disgusting story, but I witnessed it. I was at dinner with my husband, our 2 1/2 year old son and newborn daughter, and my mother, who had come to town to help with the baby. We took her to dinner at this wonderful restaurant which was famous for its floor to ceiling artwork...
We had a nice dinner, no problems. However, the large birthday party table behind me was about to, and they never knew: the waitress who was cutting their strawberry shortcake pushed each piece of cake onto a dessert plate, licked her fingers, and cut and pushed the next piece - over and over again. Her back was to their table, so they could not see what she was doing. I found the first person who looked like they were in management, and ratted her out. You kind of wonder why places close. Perhaps persistent food poisoning did this one in??? 11/07
A SIP FOR THE SERVER
My sister and I dined at a well-regarded French restaurant in Providence, Rhode Island, where the food turned out to be excellent but the service something less. The coup de grace came when our waiter brought the (rather expensive) bottle of wine we ordered. Declaring that he wasn't sure if it was properly chilled, he poured some in a glass and drank it! Then he left us with the rest of the bottle. I guess we should be glad he didn't want to make sure our food was warm enough! 11/07
RESTAURANT DISHES OUT RUDENESS
This story is short and not really that sweet...
Three friends and I went to a steakhouse one Saturday night, and the waiter took our drink order first, like usual. We all ordered flavored soft drinks that the bar would have to mix for us. The drinks did not come until an hour later...after we had gotten our meals. Then, as we were eating our meals, the waiter began to bus the booth behind us (the restaurant was packed and we ended up sitting at a table that was made for six, leaving two extra chairs at one end of the table) and proceeded to put the dirty dishes on the empty end of our table. We looked on in utter disbelief, and even the people whose table was being bused looked shocked. I have no idea why we didn't get the manager. 10/07
CALAMARI CONFUSION
Not long ago I went to a restaurant to celebrate Oktoberfest with my boyfriend and a friend. We ordered few beers and some appetizers. Fifteen long minutes later we received our drinks, and it took an additional half hour for the food. Apparently there are two calamari dishes, the appetizer and a sandwich. We thought we had ordered the appetizer, but were given a large sandwich. Explaining the confusion, the waiter took back the sandwich and offered to bring the calamari appetizer. We decided this would be a good time to order another round. We got the calamari fairly promptly, but apparently they had run out of clean glasses, so we had to wait for other patrons to finish their drinks before we could receive ours. Due to this extremely slow service, we asked for the check...which was given to us...$35 dollars on beer and appetizers. I paid with my check card and we were just about ready to go when I received my receipt... I had been charged $651! How does that even happen?! I ran over to the waiter and showed him the receipt. He fixed it, but needless to say, I won't be returning there any time soon! 10/07
Signed, Slow and Overcharged
WOULD YOU LIKE TOAST WITH THAT?
My father wanted to have lunch for the purpose of making an important announcement, he had decided to remarry, and so we went to a restaurant near my sister's home. It was a nice enough looking place, I'd describe it as a step up from the "flare" type of eatery, and since it was lunch time we ordered sandwiches.
First, Dad orders a tuna salad sandwich which earned him a lecture from the haughty waiter that it's not "tuna salad" but just tuna. Sorry, but anyplace I've ever gone that made shredded tuna with mayonnaise has called that tuna salad. Whatever, he should have known what was meant and held his tongue. Then he asked if he wanted the bread toasted. This guy was real big on pushing toast.
For myself I ordered a ham sandwich. I was asked if I wanted it toasted and I said no. I can't remember what my sister ordered.
So my food shows up and it wasn't ham and it was on toast. I pointed out that it wasn't what I ordered and the waiter offered a weak apology but then added "you did ask for toast, though". No, I did not ask for toast. It was this pony tailed passive-aggressive "server" who was all about toast, not me.
Dad was paying, so the waiter earned his standard 15% before taxes tip. If it was me, I would have stiffed him. Dude was definitely in the wrong business.
I don't think that restaurant is around anymore. 10/07
SURLY WAITER, WON'T YOU BE MY VALENTINE?
My wife and I were long looking forward to a romantic Valentine's Day dinner at a fancy Italian restaurant in Tampa. We were promptly seated at a candlelit table that had been reserved for us. As we reviewed the menus, a tuxedo-clad waiter came to our table and asked if we were ready to order. I told him that we were just given our menus, and that we planned to take our time for the special occasion. Sporting a slight curl in one of his lips, the waiter said in a haughty tone that we only had an hour to spend at the table since another party was due to arrive at that time. My wife and I looked at each other in astonishment as he brusquely walked away from our table. I found the maitre d' and told him about the rudeness, and how much the special occasion meant to us. He said the waiter was new, and that he'd speak with him. The waiter said nothing the rest of the evening about us having to leave early, but he was clearly peeved. Just to spite him, we remained at our table for nearly 3 hours. I usually tip well, but I gave the waiter 12%, which actually was too much. If I spend my money and my time at a restaurant, I expect to have an enjoyable experience, especially with my wife on Valentine's Day. 01/07 Signed, Spiteful Hearted
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