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Robin Garr

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Tell us our most annoying restaurant experience!

by Robin Garr » Wed Jan 04, 2023 10:37 am

Gathering anecdotes for a possible article:

What was the most annoying thing that ever went wrong for you in restaurant dining?

What happened, and how did you deal with it?
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Carla G

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Re: Tell us our most annoying restaurant experience!

by Carla G » Fri Jan 06, 2023 9:09 am

I find most (if not 99.9%) of my restaurant snafus to have been honest mistakes, usually immediately corrected and afterwards shrugged off and forgotten.
Except one. And I've never returned to the restaurant.
I will not name the restaurant because I think the problem originated with one paticular employee and not anything the restaurant condoned in general. I will be kinda vague because of that.
I'm a single woman and very often dine alone. I've found that lone diners often carry a difficult stigma about them anyway - single tops don't garner as much money, may be viewed as not tipping well or sometimes they just make others feel sorry for them putting everyone in an awkward situation. But most restaurants are learning to handle singles with grace and wind up offering the diner a marvelous time and meal. This paticular restaurant had a male host from an Eastern society that routinely marginalized women anyway. When I arrived (I was the second party there after the restaurant opening for brunch) the man looked at me for a lengthy time saying nothing (Geez, did I have smeared lipstick? Were my shoes mismatched? What was causing this stare?) I smiled and finally he asked, "Name?" I gave him my name which he did not write down. He did not say anything. He walked off leaving me standing (I thought he was leaving to check and see if another server had arrived yet or if he would need to double seat the server that he had just given a 4-top to.) And there I stood ...for a while. Other parties arrived, were happily greeted and seated and I was ignored. Every time I tried to get his attention he ignored me and walked off. Did the other parties have reservations? I didn't hear any of them say they did. One couple nicely said, "she was here first," but their gentle protest was waved off, dismissed. No, it genuinely felt like a cultural thing because I was a woman that dared to dine alone in public. After about 15-20 minutes (remember I got there when they first opened) I was never seated so I left. I have never returned.
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Andrew Mellman

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Re: Tell us our most annoying restaurant experience!

by Andrew Mellman » Fri Jan 06, 2023 2:39 pm

We went to a casual restaurant for lunch during the week, and my wife ordered coffee with her meal. The server asked if she wanted cream or sugar, and my wife replied that she would like milk if possible, or else she'd take it black.

The waitress returned with the coffee and a juice glass of milk, and said that they didn't have small pitchers available; we said this was no problem.

When the check came there was a 75 cent fee for "small milk." I asked the reason, and the server said, "cream comes with coffee, and milk is a separate order at extra cost, and besides it's only 75 cents and certainly you can afford that!" We were so taken aback we just sat there, and then paid the check in front at the hostess stand.

We did not leave a tip (first time in my life!), and asked to speak to the manager. We told him what we had done (no tip) and explained why. He offered to comp the whole meal and apologized, but we said no, the brunch dishes were quite good, and left. Have not been back.
Andrew Mellman
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Robin Garr

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Re: Tell us our most annoying restaurant experience!

by Robin Garr » Fri Jan 06, 2023 9:44 pm

Whoa, two great (and awful) stories. Thanks, Carla and Andrew. Carla, I have an intuition where you might have been, but I could be wrong so won’t say. :)
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Mark R.

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Re: Tell us our most annoying restaurant experience!

by Mark R. » Fri Jan 06, 2023 9:52 pm

Andrew Mellman wrote:We did not leave a tip (first time in my life!), and asked to speak to the manager. We told him what we had done (no tip) and explained why. He offered to comp the whole meal and apologized, but we said no, the brunch dishes were quite good, and left. Have not been back.

I can't believe she had had the audacity to do that, I would've deftly taken the comp for the full meal from the manager it's a matter of principle is people are not trained correctly! If it was the restaurant, I'm guessing it was I've heard similar things happening there from other people.
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