When I was at college my friends and I decided to treat ourselves to a meal out at a well known fast food chicken restaurant. My friend’s meals were prepared before mine, so they told me they will be waiting upstairs for me.
When my meal arrived I found my friends upstairs, but as I was putting my backpack down it caught the end of my meal tray that was sticking off the table edge. As a result the tray went cart-wheeling, sending my meal comprising of chicken strips, french fries, large soda, sauce cups and salt packs flying across the room. It all crashed to the floor making a big, sticky mess. I was terribly embarrassed and felt guilty for making this mess that the staff would have to clean up.
I went downstairs and explained what had happened to the staff and apologised. They were super nice about it and assured me it was no problem. They cleaned up the mess and even gave me a replacement meal free of charge! Now that is what I call good customer service.
Franklin Blackwood
Tagged as:
accident,
fast food restaurant
A few years ago my family decided to take me out for Mother’s Day Brunch. Since they did not make reservations anywhere and I wanted everyone to be able to get what they liked, we chose what I’ll call the “Yellow Round-Up.”
It was an unusually warm Spring day and half of the restaurant did not have air-conditioning and the side that did was packed. We sat in the warm side and decided to make the best of it.
I started with a salad and after eating half of it I discovered a dead lady bug lying in the lettuce. I brought it to the attention of our server who really only cleaned away the dirty plates since this was a buffet-style restaurant. He looked at it and only said, “Sorry.” I understood they were busy so I just pushed it aside and went on to something else.
After choosing my dinner and getting a roll I went to get butter from the buffet table on the non-air conditioned side. I looked in the crock and the butter was completely melted. May have been good for lobster but not for rolls.
I went back to the table with my family and my daughter whispered she needed to use the restroom. I pointed it out to her and after she came back she said she had slipped and fallen because the floor in the ladies room was wet. I went to check it out and the floor was tiled and actually had condensation on it from the lack of air conditioning. She was not hurt so we let it go.
I returned back to the table with the family which was in a half walled-in area with a small space between the walls for entering/exiting the dining area to the buffet. I got up to go back to the buffet for something but I could not leave. The heat must have gotten to someone and they had vomited all over the carpet in the enter/exit area. Which meant we were sort of trapped where we were until they could clean it up which took forever since they were so busy and it appeared no one (and I can’t blame them!) wanted to clean it.
Once we were able to leave I went back to the buffet to get my son some ice cream. He wanted the various sprinkles and such on top. When we got to the crock with the chocolate-covered-raisins I just had to laugh. At this point I didn’t know what else to do! The crock was nothing but chocolate syrup and raisins sitting at the bottom from the heat.
I told the manager before we left of all the misadventures we endured during our visit and he just shrugged and said, “We told you the air conditioning wasn’t working in half the restaurant and you chose to sit there anyway.” I did write to the corporate office a few days later just to let them know of my experience on what should have been a special and pleasant Mother’s Day. They explained that they would forward my complaint the manager. Needless to say, I never heard from the manager and I knew I would not. We have not been back to this particular “Yellow Round-Up” and it has since closed down.
Tagged as:
accident,
buffet,
bugs,
food & beverage issues,
medical & illness,
owner/manager
This is a combo: dinner AND holiday from hell story. When I was 11 years old we went to a restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner. This was in New Jersey and we went to a famous inn with roots back to the revolutionary war. My parents, grandmother, and three siblings were seated in the “ballroom” at a round table for 8 (like the kind at a wedding). We ordered and soon enough our food arrived. About 2 minutes after the food was served, I heard screams from a nearby table. Almost instantly, a giant iron chandelier crashed onto our table! The amazing thing was that the huge arms of the chandelier landed between all the people at our table. It had fallen from a 20-25 foot high ceiling and landed just right on the table so that none of us were hit. People all around us were taking pictures and the management hustled us out to the lobby to see if we were alright. Then they actually asked us if we wanted to be reseated! Needless to say, we went home. Scrambled eggs and toast was the entree that year. We never went back to that “historic inn.” This was back in the day when lawsuits were not as prevalent as they are today, and we just considered ourselves lucky not to have been brained by the chandelier!
Tagged as:
accident,
holiday,
owner/manager
My wife, mother-in-law, and father-in-law ate at one of those Japanese restaurants where the chef prepares food on a grill in front of you. The chef was showing off his juggling skills in front of us and others who were sitting at the table. He’d toss large wooden salt and pepper shakers into the air, quickly catching them and throwing them back up. He got a little too exuberant in his juggling performance, losing control of one of the shakers. The shaker flew directly towards my father-in-law who was holding a glass of water in front of him. The shaker smashed the glass, scattering shards of glass and drenching the table. Miraculously, my father-in-law wasn’t injured. I remember back in the days when chefs at these restaurants used to twirl knives! I imagine that the practice was stopped after lawsuits from injuries resulted in skyrocketing insurance costs.
Shaken
Tagged as:
accident,
chef
