pay refusal/discount demand

Forgetful Waitress

January 14, 2010

in Server Stories

Me and my girlfriend love to eat Asian cuisine. We decided to go to a new Asian restaurant near where I live because we have both heard good news about it, and so we both assumed it was good… boy, were we wrong though.

It all started when we came through the front doors of the place. There was only one other couple eating there – it was practically empty, but there were no hosts or hostesses to even seat us for about 10 minutes, until we both decided to go to the kitchen and ask in a firm tone, “We’d like to be seated, please!” Turns out all the employees were together, gathered in the kitchen, having some long conversation instead of tending to customers.

We were finally seated, and shortly afterwards the waitress took our orders. Half an hour had passed while we were waiting for our food, and by this time only my girlfriend had received her food.

On a side note, we both saw ants, flies, and mosquitoes crawl and buzz around the place on multiple occasions.

By the time my girlfriend had almost finished her food, I still hadn’t received my order. I went up to a waitress, politely saying, “Excuse me, I had ordered food quite some time ago, and I was wondering if it was ready yet.” The waitress seemed confused and asked me, “You ordered something?” A bit angered by what she said, I told her, “Yes, I did, I ordered…” and I told her what I had wanted. She told me that she was going to get my meal started and delivered to me as soon as possible.

After my girlfriend had finished her meal, the waitress then brought us our drinks which were just cans of warm pop, with no ice to go with the cups she gave us. I asked her if we could have ice; she agreed to do so, but never brought us any.

By the time we both got sick of sipping on our warm drinks, we decided to leave and I decided that I could just get my meal in a doggy bag. My girlfriend asked for the bill; it noted that I was charged for my meal that I didn’t get. I went up to the same waitress and asked if my meal was even done yet. Again, she gave me a puzzled look, but then realized on the spot and spoke aloud, “Oh! I forgot to tell the chef to make your meal! Do you want to wait a little bit longer?” I then told her to just forget it because I was tired of waiting.

I paid for my drink, and I told them that I was not going to pay for a meal that I did not get. The waitress was confused and a bit angered that I wasn’t going to pay for something on the bill that was given to me and even said that I would be charged with theft.

Really angered at this point, I told her to just “go ahead and try” and both me and my girlfriend left the place.

I’m never going back there again!

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Arrogant P.O.S.

September 23, 2009

in Diner Stories

It was a busy Tuesday night at Downtown Disney and I was having a horrible day already. My back was killing me and the hosts and managers had no sympathy for my pain.

There was a family of 4 with 2 young children that was seated in my section. The husband was an arrogant P.O.S. right from the start. I was slammed with a full section as well as a party of 15 that I was trying to keep happy. I mis-rang the wife’s food and I apologized and had it fixed immediately; it took a while for the kitchen to re-make the order. The husband decided to take out his frustrations of his kids out on me by throwing the condiments on the table, and huffing and puffing the whole time. He then proceeds to yell at me because the kitchen wasn’t being quick enough. Then he insists that he not pay for the order even though they ate it and took it home with them.

The man then decides to go on Yelp.com and write a ever so lovely review stating that I had messed up on the orders of two other tables (which is not true) and claimed that my restaurant would be losing tons and tons of money because of me. And that I should be fired. I think arrogant insensitive assholes like that who go into restaurants and complain so they can get free food need to be stoned. I hope that man gets his identity stolen or something horrible. He completely deserves it.

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I was dining at a restaurant on Cape Cod. One of the items on the menu was a 10 oz steak. There was a couple at the next table, and when their dinner was brought to the table, the man complained to the waiter that his steak was too small. The waiter assured the man that the steak was indeed a 10 oz steak, and the man insisted that it wasn’t. After a few rounds of this argument, the waiter went to get the manager. The manager explained to the man that 10 oz was the uncooked weight of the steak. But the man insisted that his steak was too small to even have been 10 oz before cooking. The discussion got a little bit heated, to where both parties were talking loud enough for the whole restaurant to hear.

At this point, the manager turned heel and stalked back into the kitchen. A few minutes later, he returned carrying a box and a food scale. He put the box and the scale down on their table, and proceeded to pull raw steaks out of the box. One after another. Each time, he took a steak out of the box, he threw it on the scale, pointed, and yelled: “10 ounces!”. He then would throw that steak on the table, get another one out of the box, throw it on the scale, and again, exclaim: “10 ounces!”. After the 10 steaks had been so weighed the diner told the manager that he’d had enough of his bad behavior and the couple left. The manager shouted after them that they had not paid their bill, and the man shouted back something that I can’t repeat on a family site. It did add some significant entertainment to our meal, but I decided against having the steak.

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Some people are just looking for anything free. I once witnessed (at a restaurant I used to work at) a man screaming at my manager about how he and his family should receive a 50% discount on their $200 check because his son used to valet there 6 MONTHS earlier!!

The manager handled it so well. He asked the man “Who do you think you are? You can’t expect that,” and continued, “I would be happy to validate your parking?” (all customers already have their parking validated automatically) The man was dumbstruck.

I had to walk away before I burst into laughter. I love witnessing heroic deeds like that!

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Diner Stewed Over Steak

March 18, 2009 Diner Stories

I was managing a very busy steakhouse one Saturday evening, and a server informed me of an overcooked steak that had been sent back to the kitchen at one of his tables. Although regrettable, it does happen and I approached the table to make apologies and let them know their steak would be out very [...]

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Difficult Diners

January 17, 2008 Diner Stories

The owner of a popular, reasonably priced restaurant told me this one. It’s about an unbelievably “difficult” couple they had at their establishment several years ago. This couple, a man and a woman who were pushing middle age (not kids, anyway) ordered two very reasonably priced meals. When the meals came and the man took [...]

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