This was about a week ago in a local mom and pop restaurant (where by the way Hilary Clinton once visited). It was our first time there and we asked the server, “Do you have any Hillary pictures? Her response was, “Just look around.” (With a “duh” expression on her face). We laughed and said oh yeah… lol!!!
Next, she served our breakfast entrées like a deck of cards – really fast, and then remarked, “I’m sorry… I tend to throw plates when my hands are on fire.” So we started to eat our meals when she said to my friend, “Do you want me to hold your coffee and keep you company while you eat?” (He didn’t even realize she had his coffee cup). My friend noticed a hair in his coffee cup and nicely asked for a new one and she replied, “Are you sure it’s not yours?”
The server brought our bills and all I had was a $50; I joked that I didn’t want to break it because then I would just spend it all on my friends. She said,”What if I don’t want to take your fifty?”
I replied, “What if I don’t wanna pay my bill?” Being a server myself I could not believe what was happening!!! We told the manager and he said she has worked there for 5 years and we must have been being disrespectful in some way…
Tagged as:
food & beverage issues,
owner/manager,
server
This incident happened at least 10 years ago. I was in a food court in a local mall with my niece (she was about 6 at the time) for her dance class. After dance class she wanted a frozen fruit juice from the new stand that just went in (not part of a chain). The girl who took our order looked like she was about 16. She was obviously new and so it was taking a bit longer than it should have, but it was okay as we were just patiently waiting and chatting. She even turned to us once and said she was sorry for the delay but she was still trying to get the hang of things. I told her it was fine, we had no problems waiting.
A little bit later an older woman comes out from the back and asks very curtly, “What you wait for?” I explained that we were already taken care of and everything was just fine. The lady (and I use this term loosely) then literally stomped over to the girl and proceeded to scream at her for taking so long. The older lady then grabbed the drink from the girl’s hand rather roughly and spilled half of it. She then screamed at the girl some more for making her spill the drink.
I was in shock and my niece was now standing behind me. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore, and so I said “Excuse me, Ma’am.” When the lady whipped around to face me, I asked who she was. She explained that she was the owner. I said something to the effect of, “And you think it’s good for business to berate your employees like that?” I went on to tell her that we had been patiently waiting and that the girl had been extremely nice and apologetic for the delay. But the lady just stared at me.
The poor girl who waited on us was in tears. So I turned to her and told her that no job was worth the abuse she was taking, to just walk out and go tell her parents what happened, they’d understand. And I turned back to the owner and told the owner that “We do not tolerate the kind of workplace hostility I just saw and that if you keep that up you will not have any customers.” I then told her that if I hadn’t already promised my six-year-old niece a juice that I would get my money back because of how SHE acted, not because of how long it was taking. The owner seemed taken aback by my words, mumbled what could have been an apology and quickly got my juice.
When I gave the juice to my niece, I told her in front of the owner that we would not be back to this place because the lady was mean to the girl. My niece said it was okay because the mean lady was scary.
A few months later, I went again with my niece to her dance class and then to get a treat afterwards, and the juice station was gone.
- Auntie
Tagged as:
fast food restaurant,
owner/manager,
server
This happened back in the 1970s. I was working a summer job as a gas pump jockey on the New York State Thruway (back before self-service.) For the first few days, I went next door to the cafeteria (back before they became fast food outlets) for lunch. Then one day, the cafeteria manager came up to me (granted, I was wearing my gas station uniform) and said to me, “From now on, please sit at a dirty table.”
I looked up in astonishment and said, “Huh?”
He repeated his request and added, “You don’t mind sitting at a dirty table.”
I just looked at him in disbelief. From then on, I brown-bagged my lunch from home.
Tagged as:
owner/manager,
seating
I went to a local chain Italian restaurant a few years ago with my sister. This was a restaurant that we frequented about once a month up until this incident. Over the years we had become “friends” with the manager in that he would come over to chat when we were there. What happened was as we were sitting and eating our lunch, the manager came over to talk to us for a bit. Then he was pulled away to the kitchen. We turned back to our lunches and were happily chatting when all of a sudden there was a great ruckus from the kitchen area. Loud voices and what sounded like a fist fight broke out. We were all bug-eyed as we silently listened to the ruckus. We clearly heard a very loud male voice yelling “F@!# you, man! F@!# you.”
A large, muscular man stormed out of the kitchen, still yelling obscenities. He was followed by the manager, who we noticed now had a telltale bruise forming on his left cheek that wasn’t there previously. It was very scary to see this big guy all upset and yelling, especially when we could see from the bruise forming on the manager’s face that he had no problem getting physical. The manager was calmly telling the large man that he did not belong there, he had to leave, he had been fired last week and was no longer allowed on the premises, and the police had been called.
So they took the fight outside, and we proceeded to continue our lunch. A few minutes later my sister pointed out that the police were indeed here. I turned so I could see out the window and there were two police cars parked out front. We both gave each other that “oh no” look and continued our lunch. When we were just about finished and had already asked for the bill, the manager came up to us. He asked if we had heard anything that happened in the back, and we said we did. He then asked if we would be willing to give the police a statement about the incident. After a little hem-hawing on my part (I could just see this big guy turning up at my house and I’m single unlike my sister, so no husband to protect me), we agreed to each fill out a statement. The good news is we were never called upon after that to testify or anything, so thankfully the written statements were apparently enough for whatever legal pursuits the restaurant sought.
We have been back to the restaurant since then, just not as frequently. The food is still good and the manager is still there, but we have never asked what came of the police report. Having an incident such as this happen makes you a little weary of frequenting a place.
- Sagann
Tagged as:
owner/manager,
police,
violence
