Once my girlfriend and I went out for a hot drink at a local cafe. It was the middle of summer so the front doors were wide open to keep the temperature down and let a fresh breeze sweep inside. Unfortunately, as the doors were wide open, the smell of freshly baked muffins and cakes began to attract some unwanted customers. Pigeons, dozens of them, began to stroll into the cafe heading for the kitchens. Many of the customers stopped and stared as the pigeons marched across the room twittering to each other.
A waitress who was passing by suddenly spotted the new customers and screamed. She ran into the kitchen with some of the birds following her. She returned shortly with the entire wait staff. Armed with brooms, they began to shepherd the birds back outside. It was quite a hilarious escapade as there were people running in all directions, brooms sweeping like swords, pigeons flying everywhere. Eventually all the birds were shooed outside and the manager promptly shut the doors. It was one of the funniest things I had ever seen!
Tagged as:
animals,
server
A long time ago when I was still in college, my family decided to take me out for pizza on my birthday. We decided to try the new location for a favorite pizza chain of ours.
It was all adults and there were about 8 of us, so we ordered 3 large pizzas. We got to chatting and soon realized that the pizzas should’ve been ready quite a bit ago, so we called the waitress over and she went to check on our pizzas. She did not come back. We waited about another 10 minutes, then called over another waitress, who went to check on our pizzas and waitress. It now been over an hour. About 10 minutes later, my Dad goes up to the check-out and asks the girl there to send the manager to our table. A few minutes later the manager comes out. He explains to us that our pizzas got stuck in the oven and burned. They were out of large pizza dough bread, so they were making us 6 medium pizzas for the price of 3 large pizzas. We had so many pizzas on our table we barely had room to eat!
Luckily my family is pretty easy going so we just laughed about the whole thing. We did tell the manager that it would have been nice if someone, anyone, had said something earlier to us, instead of just disappearing, and he agreed. He even said it was his responsibility, but that he had been busy trying to fix what caused the pizzas to jam up in the oven. He went so far as to give us ½ off our bill, which was really nice. It was definitely a memorable birthday!
Tagged as:
food & beverage issues,
owner/manager,
server
I decided to sneak out with my daughter for a certain dessert. We arrived there and got a table quickly, and ordered a single dessert to share. The waiter never brought us water. After 10 minutes I had to flag down another waiter to ask for water. It took another 15 minutes to get the dessert.
I realize that waiters work for tips and the order was small, so we ate quickly since it was almost dinner time. I left a $2.50 tip on a $7.60 bill (which I hope is enough?).
Tagged as:
gratuity,
server
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!
Tagged as:
bugs,
pay refusal/discount demand,
server
