Diners go out to restaurants perceived as "upscale" or "fancy" with the expectation for a satisfying meal and high-quality service. In other words, they want more bang for their buck. Unfortunately, fancy does not mean flawless, especially if such an establishment employs servers lacking respect and civility, careless chefs, or an army of vermin.
It Was Almost A Perfect Evening…
“It was my senior year in college and I was as poor as a church mouse. I had saved up for months, including what I had made at a rough summer job, to take my girlfriend out for a really classy meal on her birthday. We went to an upscale French restaurant in a large city. It was very expensive, with white tablecloths, a menu en Français, the works.
It was everything I had hoped for. The food was excellent, the drinks were outstanding, the service was incomparable. We both enjoyed ourselves hugely. I was certain I would be removing my girlfriend’s very lovely outfit as soon as we got back to my dorm. I paid the bill with my credit card, but having heard how the wait staff got shafted on credit card payments, I left a generous tip of $75 in cash, which was roughly 25% of the bill – this was in 1985, too.
While waiting in the lobby for my girlfriend while she was in the bathroom, the waitress – who had been wonderful – came out staring daggers at me and whispering to the manager, who was also hostessing. The manager came up to me.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ she said, ‘was there a problem with your meal?’
‘No, it was excellent,’ I assured her. ‘I have no complaints.’
The waitress was hovering nearby, still carving me up with her eyes. The manager takes a deep breath and said frostily, ‘It is customary to tip your server if the service and food have been satisfactory.’
My girlfriend then came out of the ladies’ room in time to hear me say, ‘But I did leave a tip, a generous one, in cash.’
The waitress was clearly thinking, Yeah, right, you imbecile. The manager, on the other hand, looked thoughtfully and said, ‘Would you please wait here for just a moment? I’ll be right back.’
She was gone for perhaps five minutes. All the while, I was getting the silent broadcast of slow death from the waitress, who was standing about 15 feet away with her arms crossed. The manager came back and said, ‘I am terribly sorry, sir, to have delayed you. The busboy had pocketed your tip and your server was not aware of it. Please excuse us and do come back again.’
Then, she handed the waitress the wad of cash I had left. By that time, I was pretty sure that I would never come back, even if I could have afforded it. Nor have I.”
A Prestigious Restaurant Could Have Had A Death On Their Hands
“My fiancée and I were eating at Guy Savoy, which is a very high-end restaurant. Like most Michelin restaurants, they always ask if anyone has any allergies prior to the meal. We informed them that my fiancée has a lethal tree-nut allergy.
‘NO problem!’ the Maitre d’ replied. ‘We will make sure everything is absolutely taken care of!’
The first dish had hazelnuts on it, which we spotted. The last dish had walnuts in it, which we spotted. I expect that at a chain like Olive Garden, not at a place like Guy Savoy.”
It Was The Best And Worst Dining Experience Of Their Lives
“My mother, aunt, and sister went into New York one evening to see a Broadway show and get some food. They usually go to this ultra-expensive Italian bistro, but this fateful evening they decided to try out a fancy-looking French place they had happened upon. It was around 3 p.m. and they were sat immediately, due to the fact the restaurant appeared to be deserted. The unpleasant-looking hostess gathered the menus and walked off, stopping about 15 feet away from my family
‘Weell, du you wan tue seet or noot?’ she asked briskly in a French accent.
They picked up on the point that they were meant to follow her and proceeded to follow this woman to their table. This is where the second sign of trouble appeared: the table they were sat at was very obviously meant for two people and it was about as far in the back of the restaurant as physically possible. They were the ONLY customers in the place and there were literally dozens of other much bigger tables. When my mother asked for a bigger table, she was told by the hostess that they were all reserved and they could either sit there or leave. They thought this was strange, but decided to go with it. The hostess said, ‘The server weell cume,’ before SPEED WALKING away. At that point, the girls felt that something here was off and that they were in for some good, ol’ fashioned French nonsense.
My mom, aunt, and sister then proceeded to sit there, by themselves, with no human contact whatsoever for 22 minutes and 47 seconds. When recounting this story, my mother likes to mention the exact waiting time because she actually took out her phone and used the stopwatch function to time it. At 22 minutes and 48 seconds, in walked their waitress, who was none other than the same surly hostess! She had put her hair up and put on an apron, but it was DEFINITELY her. When she came to the table, my mom mentioned that they had been alone in this restaurant for more than 20 minutes.
‘No you havun’t,’ the waitress snapped.
‘Yes we have!’ my mom replied. ‘I timed it!’
‘No you didun’t,’ the ridiculous woman said back. Then, she went quiet. My family was just jaw-droppingly speechless. Not angry, but flabbergasted. The waitress then says,
‘Well, du you want drink or what?’ They gave their order and she skulked off into the kitchen.
My mother started the stopwatch again. Eight minutes and 21 seconds later, the waitress showed back up with hot coffee for everyone. No one ordered coffee.
‘Oof course you deed!’ the waitress told my mother after she confronted her about it. They asked if they could have water instead, as it was the middle of the summer and much too hot for coffee.
‘No,’ she replied with a quick about-face and another speed walk into the kitchen. She came back about 30 seconds later and said, ‘De chef… E wants de ordair!’
They very quickly gave her the order. She disappeared for another 42 minutes until the food was ready. During this 42 minutes, about 10 different customers came into the restaurant. Since there was no hostess at the door and the place looked like all the patrons and staff had been abducted by aliens, they all ended up leaving after standing quietly for a few minutes. When she returned, surprisingly, all the orders were correct and, from what I have heard, absolutely delicious. While she was dropping off the food, the waitress did not say a word to anybody but maintained VERY aggressive eye contact with everyone at the table. When she left, my family erupted in laughter and had a pleasant time chatting about the show they were going to see.
After some amount of time, they were not finished with their food when the surly waitress reappeared. She removed all the dishes from the table against everyone’s protests that they were not yet finished. The woman then threw (not tossed, but overhand threw) dessert menus down like she was trying to kill a bug on the table. She then silently stood there, maintaining eye contact, until my family picked up the menus.
‘Excuse me,’ my mom said, trying to contain herself, ‘what is in the Fruit Medley?’
The response was one that is quoted relentlessly by my family. In her amazingly stereotypical accent, she actually yelled, ‘Eet es cut up fuit in e boowl!’
‘Oh, that sounds delightful!’ my mother responded, to which the waitress did a Hurumph and went back to the kitchen. The second she was out of earshot, they lost it and could not stop laughing until the woman returned a minute later with the ‘fruit in e boowl’ and the check. The woman tossed the bowl on the table in front of my sister.
‘Enjoi eet,’ she said, in what was described as the most deadpan voice imaginable.
After they were finished, they left exact change on the table and hightailed it out of there as fast as possible. They ended up missing the show they were meant to see due to the fact that they had just spent approximately three hours eating the longest lunch of their lives. Despite that, they were perfectly content with their experience on their latest sojourn into the city. We actually tried to go back into the city a few weeks later to eat there again, but we either could not find the restaurant or it had been closed down. My mom, sister, and aunt maintain the belief that it was both the absolute best and worst restaurant experience that they have ever had.
I like to think that this particular waitress was an ex-chef who escaped a mental institution, locked the entire staff of this restaurant in a meat cooler, and, not so successfully, ran a business by herself to make money so she could escape back to France.”
That Would Be The Last Time They Take Their Friends’ Dining Advice
“My ex-husband and I spent a long weekend at a resort in a mountain town. Everyone said, ‘Go to this restaurant for dinner. It’s fantastic.’ It was a big place – huge timbers, dance floor, enormous bar. When the waitress finally showed up, she asked us what we would like to drink.
‘What have you got on tap?’ I asked.
‘I dunno,’ she replied, as she kind of glanced at the bar. ‘A bunch of stuff.’
She did not go look. She did not even make an attempt. OK.
We ordered generic domestics and looked over the menu. It was meh. We ordered appetizers and placed in our entree orders as well, chicken for me and steak for my ex. As we waited for our drinks, the waitress disappeared. Others were seated and some got their drinks, but this girl was gone. Finally, I went to the bar to just order there.
Look at all the different kinds on tap!
Eventually, the waitress came back and said, ‘We’re out of the apps you ordered.’ This was at least 45 minutes after we ordered. There was no food on the table.
‘OK,’ I said, ‘Let’s try the app platter.’
‘OK,’ she said and disappeared again. I go back to the bar for drinks, it was clear she never put a drink order in.
Other patrons were experiencing similar trouble. It appeared that she was the only waitress. We were all tourists in a smallish town, so we were all kind of laughing at this situation. Then, she came with an appetizer platter. It was two onion rings, a pile of fries, some unfrozen mozza balls, and tater tots. Mostly, it was tater tots. Hilarity ensued at this point. Now we just wanted to see what would happen next. When she came back, she said they were out of the sirloin! It had been over an hour since she put the order in, maybe two.
Really?? OK, at this point, what DO you have in the kitchen?
My ex picked something else that used to be a cow and the waitress disappeared. This went on. Some people left. We were, basically, all serving ourselves at that point. The waitress brought out the dinner. It was the most pathetic, burnt piece of steak I have ever seen and a TOTALLY RAW PIECE OF CHICKEN. We were looking around for the hidden camera.
Giving up, we asked for the bill. Unfortunately, this having being pre-cell phone days and I didn’t have a camera on me, I couldn’t snap a picture, but it was the most hilarious thing I had ever seen. The tab listed everything we ordered, scratched out, written over, added up then subtracted. At the bottom, the total read ‘$3.89.’ They charged us $3.89. We gladly paid it and left no tip on $3.89.”
Something Was Off About This Place
“I once was at an Italian restaurant in Manhattan. It was a classy place – violinist, a person selling flowers, great ambiance. The food was top notch… except for my date’s. When we were greeted by the maitre’d on the street he said, ‘If you don’t like ANYTHING, you don’t have to pay for it.’ My date had a pasta dish and the capers were burnt to the point that they were like pieces of charcoal.
When she told our waiter about it, I was already done with my meal… yes, I eat that fast. We had been there for 40 minutes, having had drinks and appetizers, so she didn’t want a different plate of food. We asked for the check. When she pointed out what the maitre’d had said about not paying if we didn’t like something, the waiter got a bit upset.
‘We don’t just give the food away,’ he said.
We were standing there and the maitre’d noticed. He came over and asked what the matter was. My date politely told him about the burnt capers.
‘Take it off the bill,’ he said to the waiter.
‘But she ate half of it,’ the waiter said, noticeably angry at this point.
The maitre’d gave him the darkest look I have ever seen and hissed (yes, hissed!), ‘Take it off the bill!’
At that point, everybody in the restaurant was looking at us, scowling for having their dinner interrupted by this little argument. The maitre’d looked thoroughly embarrassed and was smiling at everyone apologetically while getting us to the front door.
A very well dressed man in his 60s came from the very back of the restaurant – the VIP section – and started talking to the maitre’d. The angry waiter looked like a ghost, he was so pale. We ended up not paying anything. It seemed that they wanted us to leave as quickly as possible.
While we were waiting for a taxi, we walked slowly down the sidewalk. As we passed the alley went behind the restaurant, we saw two men putting the waiter into a black sedan. We looked at each other and got the heck out of there.”
An Indecent Time For A Proposal
“I was on holiday with my then girlfriend in Prague in the 1990s. One evening, we were having a romantic dinner for two in a restaurant in the old town square. I planned to propose that night. I had splashed out on a rather expensive seafood restaurant after reading some good reviews.
The place was very impressive, with a weird mix of the old and new. The tables and chairs were ornate antiques that you could imagine being rescued from a decaying stately home, but there was also an enormous lobster tank in the middle of the room and several equally gigantic fish-tanks around the edges. It was a little like sitting down to dinner with Dr. No.
After taking in the gratuitous splendor of it all, we ordered a bottle of Chianti and started perusing the menu. I could not focus on the words due to the nervous excitement of the evening. In fact, I was mostly concentrating on how to stop my palms from sweating. But, none of that mattered because I had already scouted ahead, reviewed the menu, and made arrangements with the manager to bring out a ‘special’ dessert with the ring hidden at the bottom. It may sound cheesy, but this was the ’90s and it was only slightly unoriginal back then.
Just before returning to take our orders, the waiter ushered two gentlemen to the table next to us. I heard American accents and (no offense, guys) my heart sank a little as I pictured their loud voices echoing throughout our special evening. However, I was, initially, pleasantly surprised as they began to chat in tones hushed enough for any Englishman. It did not last, however. By the time the waiter had finished taking our order, they had gone from a quiet chat to what appeared to be an increasingly tense exchange. The waiter gave them a disapproving scowl as he walked back to the kitchen, but they were far too involved to notice him.
As the debate continued, I did the only thing I could: sighing loudly and clearing my throat in a way that clearly was not mucus related. Somehow, even this confrontational action went completely unnoticed. There was no way I was going to let this go on throughout the meal. I looked around for the manager. I was fairly sure he would be on my side after our proposal planning discussions. At the very least, he could always move us to another table, far from the madding crowd. That was when everything went wrong.
As the manager walked over, our noisy neighbors’ argument reached its fever pitch. The younger of the two gentlemen said something about being ‘very upset,’ prompting the older guy to go on a little rant. It seemed like a school teacher chastising a troubled pupil. We could see the younger man bubbling with rage as he talked. Suddenly, he swept his arm across the table, smashing glasses and sending food flying.
The whole restaurant froze in gobsmacked silence for a second. Then, out of nowhere, the lobster tank shattered. The noise was deafening, like a bomb going off. Literally, thousands of gallons of water, not to mention the live lobsters, flooded across the restaurant. The sheer force was enough to send the heavy tables and chairs flying across the room into one of the other tanks, which promptly shattered too. By the time the dust had settled, every tank in the place had gone. We were soaking wet and clinging to each other for dear life. The floor was covered in broken glass and stranded fish.
I decided to postpone the proposal until another time.”
How Could That Waiter Expect A Tip After A Night Like That?
“It was the start of my senior year of undergraduate school. Coming back from a summer of internships, two friends, their girlfriends, and my longterm girlfriend all decided to go to a nice downtown restaurant that had great reviews and was well known for great service. We got reservations two weeks in advance and called to confirm the day before. We were well dressed – the guys were in suits, the women were in nice dresses. We got there five minutes early and that was when it started.
They took 30 minutes past our reservation time to seat us, even with us constantly mentioning this, as they were seating other groups. When they finally seated us, the waiter poured the water and then took fifteen minutes to ask for drinks and appetizers. The drinks came another fifteen minutes later and the waiter said that appetizers would be out in a moment. The table next to us, which had arrived after us, had not only been seated, ordered, and received drinks and appetizers, but also had ordered their main course.
It took 25 minutes, during which the waiter was just plain ignoring us, for the appetizers to come out. He ran away immediately after delivering our appetizers, saying he would be right back. Our 7 p.m. dinner reservation had taken until 8:30 p.m. to get to the appetizers. We were hungry. The table next to us already received their main course and were half done. Our earlier attempts to politely flag down the waiter only resulted in him ignoring us.
I saw the waiter at another table walk over. Before I said anything, he dismissed me with, ‘One moment sir, as you can see I am with another table.’
Said table also came well after us, also received drinks and appetizers, and he was taking their dinner order.
‘No, it’s all right,’ I stated firmly. ‘I am fine talking here. Our table arrived nearly two hours ago. We have been waiting for over an hour for you to come back and take our order.’
He stated that after the current table, he would deliver their order and come back to our table. He did not.
I immediately spoke to the manager and said that this was not acceptable. He said that he would look into it. Our drinks were empty and we were hungry. Fifteen minutes went by. No waiter, no manager, no order. One of my friends, Matt, went to speak to another manager. A couple minutes went by and the waiter came by and rudely took our order. He retook the drink orders and went to a different table to take their orders.
At 9:25 p.m., we were starved. The drinks came. Another waiter brought them. I attempted to order a bottle of Merlot, and she said that she would pass the order to our waiter. This whole time, we could see our waiter going to other tables, still ignoring us. The two tables I mentioned earlier had already ate, paid, and left. I spoke to the manager again and he said he would handle it.
Twenty minutes went by. That waitress swung by and said that she saw that we did not get the Merlot. She took new drink orders and said she would talk to our waiter. Ten minutes later, our waiter said that our food would be out shortly. Then, he brought us a bunch of Bud Lights, which none of us ordered. He then said he will correct it, leaving the Buds there. He was gone for ten minutes before he came back with Stella Artois. Again, he said that he would actually bring the right drinks and then bring the bottle of Merlot. Spoiler alert: we never see the Merlot.
The waiter came by with correct drinks, after another fifteen minutes and asked if we needed anything.
‘Our food,’ we say. ‘That’s all. We need it.’
He said he would bring it out. Five minutes later, at 10:10 p.m., he brought our dinner. All of it was either cold or cool – our steaks, soup, everything that was supposed to be warm or hot. We called the manager over.
‘This isn’t acceptable,’ we said. ‘We are done, we want our check for the drinks, and we are leaving.’ No one had eaten any of the dinner. Seriously, the steaks were cold.
The manager got the check. It had everything on it, plus a 20% tip for the waiter.
‘No,’ we told him, ‘We will pay for the drinks we drank and the appetizers, but nothing else, and we are not tipping.’
He and the waiter said that they could not remove anything, even the tip, since it was automatically added, including the bottle of Merlot, even though we didn’t get it. They said they had uncorked it in the kitchen, so they could not sell it again.
At that point, we were making a huge scene. The restaurant was still full, due to its popularity, and people were watching. We explained, while pointing to the bottom of the check, that it said a tip is included for parties of eight or greater. We had six. It was not mandatory and it was insulting that he said it could not be removed. And the bottle of Merlot?! It’s a restaurant – you uncork at the table, not in the back. It was utter nonsense. We explained that since the meal took so long, after multiple complaints, and was not in a condition to eat, we did not accept.
The manager and the waiter started saying how they ‘knew’ we were out to cheat them from the start, how we did not look like a group that would tip so they had to automatically calculate it, and that, from the looks of it, it was the first time anyone in our group had been to a nice place so we clearly did not understand how it operates.
That ended it. Matt and I were gearing to fight these guys. Nick stepped in and calmly said to everyone that he would work with the manager and the waiter on this. He told Matt, the girls, and I to go to the car.
Angry, and now embarrassed by Nick’s comment that showed we were out of line, Matt and I went back to the car with the girls. It was a downtown restaurant, so we parked about three blocks away. We were fuming while we sat in the car for Nick waiting. Nick then came running to the car shouting, ‘GO!’ When he got in, we saw the manager, waiter, and another guy running down the street. Matt drove off.
Apparently, Nick pretended for a minute to listen to them until he thought we had enough time to get to the car. Then, he shouted something to the effect of ‘These imbeciles took three hours to bring out cold steaks and had the nerve to put an entire bottle of Merlot that they didn’t bring out on the check, on top of trying to charge us an automatic 20% tip on awful service. Forget this place!’ Then, the manager lunged at him, which prompted him to sprint out of the place.”
That’s Not Exactly What I Ordered
“I was at an upscale Chinese restaurant in Denver. We had to wait 20 minutes to get seated even though I had a reservation and the restaurant wasn’t full. No problem, I don’t mind waiting. Get to table, and the waitress comes. She is acting a little loopy, but she eventually brings our drinks to us.
When it comes time to order our food. I ask if the wonton soup has shrimp in it, because I am allergic to seafood. She says it does, but it is in the soup (not the broth or the wontons) and so it can easily be taken out. Awesome, I’ll have that then. I also order a stir-fry dish. She brings the dishes to the table, and she has brought a bowl of hot water, and a slice of chocolate cake.
I ask her why she brought me chocolate cake instead of stir fry, and hot water instead of soup. She says, ‘I did the best I could.’ She walks away, and left us there pondering our food. Assuming she will come back, we wait 10 minutes before flagging down another waiter who tells us that she left work for the day. What?”
“As Soon As The Plates Were On The Table, We Realized Something Was Terribly Wrong…”
“My grandmother saw an advertisement for a new restaurant in the newspaper and she wanted to go check it out. She, my mom, and I all went. They still had their ‘Grand Opening’ sign up, so they could not have been open for too long. Still, we were the ONLY people in the entire restaurant. Even up until we left, not a single other person came in.
We looked over the menu. It did not even explain what anything was, what was in it, or what sides they had. It just said ‘Seafood Pasta,’ then the price, and that was it. Speaking of the prices, they were totally outrageous. I think this ‘Seafood Pasta’ was around $40. They had almost nothing on their menu, though – maybe 5 entrees, tops. At that point, mom and I were thinking, Let’s get outta here. This place sucks. But, my grandma insisted that we stay.
The guy came back and asked us what we wanted. My mom and grandma both want the Lamb Chops. They asked what came with it.
‘Vegetables and baked potato,’ he said. They decided that was what they wanted.
‘What’s in the Seafood Pasta?’ I asked the waiter.
‘Jumbo shrimp, clams, and calamari.’
‘Hmm… I’ll get that, but no calamari, please.’
‘The Calamari is part of the meal,’ he said.
‘I get that, but I don’t want it.’
‘Then pick it out.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘If you do not like it, pick it out.’
‘No,’ I replied, sternly. ‘YOU pick it out. Or, better yet, just tell the chef not to put it in. I don’t want the calamari.’
‘Is that all?’ he asked.
I figured he got the point and we sent him off. About 25 minutes went by. How can it possibly be taking this long? There’s nobody else here.
My mom got up and walked back toward the kitchen and said, ‘Hello?’
The waiter came out. She asked him what was going on. He said that the food would be done soon. She came back to the table. Another 15 minutes went by before they brought the lamb chops to the table said that the pasta would be out soon.
As soon as the plates were on the table, we realized something was terribly wrong.
The lamb chops were about the size of a McDonalds Hamburger patty, even in thickness. There were two of them, but there was nothing TO them. The vegetables looked (and apparently tasted) like rubber. The baked potato was not even cut open, was undercooked, and they did not even bring anything like butter or sour cream to the table for it. My mom was like,
‘OK, I’m not eating this garbage, I’m leaving.’ But my grandma insisted that we stay.
They sent the potatoes back to be cooked more and asked for some butter and sour cream. They returned with cooked (but still tasteless) potatoes. They gave them, basically, a drop of butter and sour cream per potato. When they asked for more, the waiter got visibly angry before complying. Of course, the lamb chops were basically tasteless. My mom and grandma figured that they must not have seasoned them at all.
Finally, they brought out my Seafood Pasta about five minutes after they brought out the re-cooked potatoes. What do I see as soon as he put it on the table? Calamari.
‘Hey,’ I said, ‘I told you I didn’t want any Calamari.’
‘I told you to pick it out,’ he said back.
‘I’m not freaking picking it out! It’s part of your job to ensure that it’s not in my food to begin with! What if I was allergic to it?’
‘Then you shouldn’t have ordered the Seafood Pasta.’
‘You should have told the chef to leave the calamari out! Now you can freaking pick it out!’
‘I refuse.’
‘Well, I’m not eating this!’
‘You are paying for it whether you eat it or not.’
‘Like heck, I am. I haven’t taken a bite yet.’
‘I will call the police if you try to leave without paying.’
My mom said that she would pick it out for me. I told her no, and that the waiter was going pick it out because he was a stubborn imbecile. The waiter just walked off and ignored us, no matter how many times I yelled at him to get back to the table. I ended up picking out the calamari since there were only a few of them in it. It was still absurd that he could not just tell the chef to leave it out.
The problems did not end there. My Seafood Pasta, apparently, had Jumbo Shrimp, but not from what I could see. What I saw in my pasta was only very slightly bigger than Sea Monkeys. They were about the size of a dime and there was probably only 10-15 of them in the whole dish. Did it taste good? No. No, it didn’t. The ‘Alfredo’ sauce barely had any flavor at all and the noodles tasted hard and undercooked.
We ended up only finishing maybe a third of each of our meals before we decided that this place was the worst restaurant ever and left. We asked to speak to the owner, to see about a discount for the poor service. It turned out that the waiter WAS the owner. He absolutely refused to give us any sort of discount. We paid him and left, leaving all the rest of our food sitting on the table. We told them that we would NEVER come back and we would warn all of our friends to never come there. Then, we went to McDonald’s on the way home, because we were still freaking starving.
The best part of all of this? They closed down less than a month later.”
Being Served Lunch By Satan
“My group went to this French restaurant once. The older waitress made us uncomfortable from the beginning. We first entered with our group when the place was empty, except for maybe one other party of two dining in the front patio area. A tall skinny girl who was helping bring out waters and the drinks saw us first. We asked to be seated and she had to ‘ask the waitress if that was OK.’
‘Do you have a reservation?’ the waitress asked us briskly when she first entered.
‘No…,’ we said, not thinking much of it, given that the place was EMPTY.
The waitress, who was an older lady on the plumper side, then gave a sigh of disgust as if we had insulted her. After a minute of heated self-deliberation, she decided to move tables together for us. She did not look happy about having our business, we immediately felt that we were imposing.
It was then when this lady turned into a nightmare. She immediately made me and the rest of our party uncomfortable by CONSTANTLY reprimanding, practically yelling, and being downright mean and disrespectful to the girl who was helping out.
For instance, the party next to us flagged down the tall skinny girl to say that they were all set to order. The girl then went to the old lady waitress to tell her. The waitress got COMPLETELY and irrationally mad! In front of everyone!
‘DON’T YOU THINK I KNOW THAT?’ she exclaimed to the girl. ‘DON’T YOU THINK THAT’S ON MY MIND?! LISTEN, YOU CAN’T JUST COME UP TO ME LIKE THAT AND CONFUSE ME. I AM AWARE! IT’S ALREADY IN MY MENTAL QUEUE, SO FOR YOU TO COME AND SAY THAT WILL JUST BE POINTLESS AND CONFUSE ME MORE.’
Later on, the tall girl told the waitress, ‘This man right here asked for a soda so I am going to get it for him.’
‘AGAIN, DON’T YOU THINK I WON’T SEE IT ON THE TABLE?!’ the waitress replied, loudly. ‘THERE’S NO POINT IN YOU WASTING MY TIME AND YOUR TIME. STOP BEING SO FOOLISH. HOW CAN I TRAIN YOU IF YOU ARE BEING SO FOOLISH?’
Soon after, another table sat down and the waitress approached and took their order. The waitress then proceeded to tell the young girl, ‘I JUST TOOK THEIR DRINK ORDER AND THEY DO NOT HAVE BREAD OR WATER YET. I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU THINK YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS, BUT THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE.’
The torment that this girl had to absorb was definitely not limited to those four examples I just described. This poor girl had to just take her nonsense. Honestly, if I had to put up with what this waitress was saying, I would quit.
It did not just stop there. It seemed that every single little thing the taller, younger girl did, she would get yelled at by the waitress. Her demeanor was mean and she was downright nasty to this girl who was just helping out. I did not feel like she treated us with the utmost respect either. We were afraid to ask for straws because she said they were running out.
God forbid I get this poor girl in trouble because I ask for a straw.
I had never seen anything like that firsthand. It was the kind of workplace abuse you only see in the movies. The food was excellent. I could tell the restaurant had a dedicated authentic French owner and kitchen staff. But, seriously, I will never ever patronize a business that allows their employees to be treated that way. It was absolutely ridiculous. I can see, maybe, there could be a situation in which micromanaging might do someone some good, but, for crying out loud, please stop treating this girl like a slave.”
This Waiter Was “Messed Up”
“My girlfriend and I went on a double date with her sister and brother-in-law to a nice restaurant about a year ago. It was highly rated and received great reviews. It was the kind of place you would go for special occasions, as the price is too high for regular dining. When we got there, we had the worst dining experience ever.
The waiter was a 50-or-so-year-old man who seemed to be stoned or just out of it. He took our drink orders to start. The ladies each asked for a glass of Chardonnay, the other guy asked for a mixed drink, and I asked for a something on draught. He came back two additional times to confirm our drink orders, which he had written down, and he still got the orders wrong at each of his three visits. He brought two bottles of Chardonnay instead of two glasses and he got my draught wrong. We laughed it off and proceeded to the food.
I ordered steak, the other guy lamb, and the ladies ordered seafood. At that point, we were complaining to each other about this guy’s service. He brought out the totally wrong dishes for us, things we never ordered like weird salads and lobster. We sent it back and asked for our food. Again, the wrong stuff came. The third time, we got the right food, but he served it to the wrong person. I got the lamb and the other guy got the steak.
He did not show up for about 45 minutes after that. We got no refills on drinks or water. When he came back, he apologized and mutters that he was ‘really messed up,’ as if that helped. The bill came another 30 minutes later and then we waited 30 more for him to return. We told him then that there were over $60 wrong of items on the bill we never ordered. He got those knocked off and we begrudgingly paid.
Then, we talked to the manager about the experience. He was useless and promised us a better dining experience next visit. We said that there would be no next visit. He also mentioned that he noticed we were having bad service. We are all left wondering why he didn’t bother to do anything about it once he noticed it.
Never going back there again.”