To complain, or not to complain, that is THE question

Eh... just reread my post and realized I tried to tie three points into one. It's a little disjointed but hopefully my point(s) comes through.

I come to this site largely for honest reviews of restaurants. I want the reviews to tell it like it is as the person who visited the restaurant experienced it--the good, the great, and if it was also there, the bad and the ugly too. I want the amateur reviews to be blunt if needed. I don't want people to edit themselves and feel like they can't say something just because they didn't call out the manager and discuss it with them point by point first.

Address it right then and there. If the situation is not resolved before you leave the restaurant, pay your tab and leave quietly. At that point, you have every reason to take your complaint to whomever is the top dog in that restaurant/company. If that still yields no results, THEN you have free reign to bad mouth them, loud and proud, to anyone who will listen.

That's the simplest answer to the original post yet. I don't think anyone would/could complain about a bad review if the diner followed tho steps. (And had a legitimate complaint.)

I used to work with a woman that considered herself a local celebrity (even though most people don't even know her name). Whenever a group from the office went out for lunch her MO was to always complain about something. Every meal, every restaurant we visited, no matter what, she would register a complaint and demand to see the manager. It was such a regular habit it became obvious it was an ego booster for her. It became so embarrassing most of us refused to dine out with her after a while. I always pitied the poor manager that had to deal with her inflated ego along with the REAL problems the restaurant might be having. Yet I must say, every manager she complained to (at least the ones I witnessed) handled the situation very well. It must be very hard for a manager to remain objective and polite under those kind of circumstances.

Im going to take what is probably the road least travelled on this one.

Louisville Restaurants Forum

this is the place we all hang out in and all chat up our favorite places, and occasionally places get slammed.

now a forum is by definition: A medium for open discussion or voicing of ideas, such as a newspaper, a radio or television program, or a website.

now these ideas can be good or bad, and if billy ray schnectady went to mcwackies drive through and ordered a filet of fish and got home and opened his bag and got a chicken sandwich, he should have just as much right to rant as if lord fancypants went to "Le stuffed prentension" and had the best smoked duck tongue hes ever had in his life. regardless of if billy or lord fp liked or disliked their meal, they have the ability (thanks to robin) to come here and say "this was great/this sucked" regardless of if they ran through the drive through again, or kissed a chefs booty. and trying to say that someone cant freely air their ideas because they didnt follow some protocol check list of "if you have a bad experience " just smacks of foodie elitism.


Honestly Ive seen more names of restaurant managers and owners on this site than anywhere, and if I had a grievence I would feel this was a valid place to come and say "Hey X, I had this experience tonight". Now public or private that is up to the determination of the person that had the experience, because sometimes no amount of "let me take that off your bill" is gonna fix a ruined evening.

I'm sorry but does that not break etiquette? You present the bottle. Customer looks at label and says yes. Server opens bottle and pours a taste. Customer accepts or rejects. If accepted it seems that all bets are off. It is yours. Pretty hard to say well go ahead a drink three glasses of wine out of a 4 glass bottle and then get your money back.

I have always been under the assumption, if one orders a bottle of wine the only part of rejection comes from if the bottle of wine is faulty, as if the wine has oxidized and turned bad. A bottle of wine is not be rejected if the customer doesn't like what they ordered. I have seen people order $300 bottles of wine and not care for them as they had expected, but still had to pay the price.,

[Robin Garr]

I have always been under the assumption, if one orders a bottle of wine the only part of rejection comes from if the bottle of wine is faulty, as if the wine has oxidized and turned bad. A bottle of wine is not be rejected if the customer doesn't like what they ordered. I have seen people order $300 bottles of wine and not care for them as they had expected, but still had to pay the price.,

That is 100 percent correct, Sue. Returning wine for a fresh bottle if it's cooked, corked or oxidized is extremely appropriate, and should be done by the taster after sniffing the small sample that the server pours for that purpose.

Sending back wine after it's been poured around the table because someone decided they didn't like it is rude in the extreme, the worst of etiquette. It's to a restaurant's credit if they assume that the customer is right and make it good anyway, but it's a case of the restaurateur having to swallow a cost that the customer should not have imposed.

(Sigh, here goes...) BenjaminH and Rob Summers... your logic is there. I know I have said so sometimes and wished someone else had chimed in, and I know that I also said this thread was NOT about behaviour in the forum...but as my husband isn't here to stop me, I chime in.

That meaning, I personally believe in taking my problem to someone who can solve it. I also believe in cutting my losses. But just because I am the type of person who can't resist a fight (duh) doesn't mean I believe this expectation of anyone else. No sweat off my nose if someone talks about an experience without providing a checklist they completed, to right the wrong done to them, after all.

I'm torn, then, bc I want all of our food places to survive, but I don't want negative publicity to deter attention to and for growth of them. But I also want a safe place where anyone can talk about their food adventures anywhere. Sometimes we end up eating what looks like monkey brains, and hating it, but then so did Indiana Jones I sure wanna have the option of talking about it with my fellow foodies... Quite the conundrum, and relative I'm sure to the sides of the experiences. Thanks for taking us down the less traveled roads, I have a feeling we all spend time there.

Just a thought, and probably stirring the pot...

A professional food critic has no "responsibility" to address particular issues with his or her meal, service, or overall experience with management before writing a scathing review, and in fact doing so would diminish the veracity of the critic's review.

Here, we have a food forum that exists for the very purpose of allowing people from all walks of life to discuss food, dining, and restaurants. Why, then, do these folks (us) have this added "responsibility" to talk to management before sharing a negative experience? Do I have that same "responsibility" to talk to management before I email a friend about a negative experience or tell a about a negative experience co-worker? Are the rules different because anyone and everyone can read about my negative experience online? Is a professional food critic better able to tell when service was bad, or my dish was all wrong, or the restaurant botched my reservation?

These are real questions; I'm not trying to be a rhetorical smartass.

I'm torn, then, bc I want all of our food places to survive, but I don't want negative publicity to deter attention to and for growth of them. But I also want a safe place where anyone can talk about their food adventures anywhere.

It was this that spawned my above questions. Which leads to another point - I also want all local businesses to survive, including restaurants, but there is also the harsh reality of the market. Restaurants fail for a variety of reasons, but sometimes, unfortunately, it's just because a particular restaurant is bad at what it does. While it's unfortunate that anyone loses their business, isn't the point of a free market to let that restaurant go and hope that through a better idea or innovation or creativity or whatever, something better and stronger replaces it?

In that vein, then, is the idea that any attempt to limit or soften the sharing of a negative experience in many ways artifically props up a restaurant that may be bad at what it's doing. On the other hand, of course, is the idea that a restaurant can improve and learn from its mistakes, and should be given that opportunity.

Really, I'm torn on it.

Personally, I'm not a complainer. I don't mind conflict (I'm a lawyer after all), but it's always struck me as rather presumptious and haughty to demand to speak to management. That's not to say that there haven't been a few times that an experience has risen to a particular level and I have requested management, but generally I just want to get out and get on with my evening. This forum has taught me that in most cases, management wants to be spoken with, so perhaps my perception should shift.

Just a thought, and probably stirring the pot...

A professional food critic has no "responsibility" to address particular issues with his or her meal, service, or overall experience with management before writing a scathing review, and in fact doing so would diminish the veracity of the critic's review.

Here, we have a food forum that exists for the very purpose of allowing people from all walks of life to discuss food, dining, and restaurants. Why, then, do these folks (us) have this added "responsibility" to talk to management before sharing a negative experience? Do I have that same "responsibility" to talk to management before I email a friend about a negative experience or tell a about a negative experience co-worker? Are the rules different because anyone and everyone can read about my negative experience online? Is a professional food critic better able to tell when service was bad, or my dish was all wrong, or the restaurant botched my reservation?

These are real questions; I'm not trying to be a rhetorical smartass.

All true. I was thinking the same things the more I thought about the subject. If someone posts they had horrible service, the food came out wrong, the server was rude, and they had an overall horrible dinner; talking to management changes nothing for me. If management apologies, comps the meal and drinks, and gives a gift certificate for a return visit, nothing changes. I still don't want to go to this restaurant. However, if this is one bad experience trumped by 100's of great experiences then the restaurant is still winning. I take all the negative posts with a grain of salt.

e.g. Chicken salad: I'll continue to go to Captain’s Quarters; I just won’t order the chicken salad. It doesn’t matter to me if the server or management would have handled the situation differently. If they would have comped the sandwich and replaced it with free booze and steak, I’m still not ordering the chicken salad.

I take all the negative posts with a grain of salt.

e.g. Chicken salad: I'll continue to go to Captain’s Quarters; I just won’t order the chicken salad. It doesn’t matter to me if the server or management would have handled the situation differently. If they would have comped the sandwich and replaced it with free booze and steak, I’m still not ordering the chicken salad.

This^. Same with movies.

Just a thought, and probably stirring the pot...

A professional food critic has no "responsibility" to address particular issues with his or her meal, service, or overall experience with management before writing a scathing review, and in fact doing so would diminish the veracity of the critic's review.

Here, we have a food forum that exists for the very purpose of allowing people from all walks of life to discuss food, dining, and restaurants. Why, then, do these folks (us) have this added "responsibility" to talk to management before sharing a negative experience? Do I have that same "responsibility" to talk to management before I email a friend about a negative experience or tell a about a negative experience co-worker? Are the rules different because anyone and everyone can read about my negative experience online? Is a professional food critic better able to tell when service was bad, or my dish was all wrong, or the restaurant botched my reservation?

These are real questions; I'm not trying to be a rhetorical smartass.

+1

I think Brad K makes some really good points here.

I think one has to be careful about what they say in regard to bad food.It is one thing for example to say I got bad fish from Fish Palace it is another to say I got food poisoning from the fish at Fish Palace without a medical diagnosis to back it up. I worked in the medical field as a nurse for 25 years we had an old joke, it may walk like a duck, it may sound like a duck ...lets send it to pathology and see if it is a duck. You just can't say things about businesses without proof. I don't care who you are.

I think one has to be careful about what they say in regard to bad food.It is one thing for example to say I got bad fish from Fish Palace it is another to say I got food poisoning from the fish at Fish Palace without a medical diagnosis to back it up. I worked in the medical field as a nurse for 25 years we had an old joke, it may walk like a duck, it may sound like a duck ...lets send it to pathology and see if it is a duck. You just can't say things about businesses without proof. I don't care who you are.

You may well have a good point here.

But, if it's possible to leave any issues of possible food poisoning aside, what about just posting plain old honest reviews that are sometimes critical.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what some people have said, or misreading it, but it seems like some people have suggested that no one has the right to say anything critical here unless unless they talked it over with the manager first to see if the problem could be "fixed." And if the problems were fixed or comped, then you can't talk about it either. That's the part, if I'm understanding it correctly, that I don't agree with...

I'm all in favor of positive restaurant reviews when they are deserved. I'm also in favor of keeping things in balance and not nit-picking too much. But still, if someone has had a good, great, mixed, or even bad experience at a place, I think they should be able to tell us without talking to the manager first.

I agree with much that has been said and figure I should share my opinions on this subject...

I believe that as forumites we need to see the bigger picture and behave accordingly.

When I was working in Orlando, I took care of primarilly international tables. The most consistantly bad tippers were the Brits. 10% to normal servers, I got 12.5%, to the dime. These people tipped badly, yet I absolutely loved waiting on them. Why? They were a pleasure. These people knew how to dine. An anvil could fall on thier table and they'd just laugh it off, say 'go on then,' and walk out happy campers. These were folks who took thier dining experience into thier own hands and enjoyed the experience of the meal, warts and all.

There's wisdom in that, I think.

We are in the age of 'the instant review.' The old rule was that:

If a guest left with a positive experience, they'd tell 10 of thier friends = you did good.

If a guest left with a nuetral experience, they'd tell nobody = you hope they return so you can do better.

If a guest left with a bad experience, they tell 10 of thier friends = a travesty, you just lost (x) amount in revenue.

With this forum, the paradigm has changed. Now the guest tells 100+ of thier friends. And they tell 100+ of thiers. See where I am leading?

I wish that this could be a Socratic forum, per the definition, but the truth is not everyone got the memo. I'd enjoy nothing better than to pick apart every experience and recipe, seeking out weaknesses in order to improve the final product. Yet many seek dining decisions based upon our words and we have realize this fact- and that these decisions affect the food on the tables on my brethren.

That's when it becomes serious to me.

The single mother, working her way through med school. The young turk chef, who drives to work on a spare. The bartender trying to keep his horse farm fluid until his dream becomes a reality. The owner, who has spent thier entire lives working for this one purpose. These are the people we hurt by not applying a bit of quarter in our posts.

We think we are being cute, our sophistry somehow elevating us to a higher prominence, yet we forget the lives we affect. Perhaps we understand the power of our words and, like the Brits, learn to enjoy the experience and maybe take one down the flank, so to speak.

A server is angry because he just broke up with his girlfriend, or didn't get the promotion he wanted. A prep-cook was hungover and 'went through the motions.' A bartender was never taught when the citrus gets slimy, it's bad. It's a consistant flux of issues a manager has to work at. The second you have them all firing together, one leaves and then you have to train- and bring up- the next in thier stead. It's a never-ending battle.

Never mind the interpersonal dramas...

Critic's understand this and know to look to the other guest's dining experiences, when they are spotted. The trick is to find that table of one, by the kitchen, and see how they are taken care of. They understand they will likely be spotted and will recieve the best the restaurant can offer. We are too many, so we can give them a more honest feedback of thier status.

We just have to be responsible, as foodies, when we do so.