Send it back!

[Saphellae]

I once had a charred black burger from Kelsey's. It was so black I couldn't see any brown on it. Not sure how they thought it would pass as a nice burger.

 

[Claire]

I live in a small, tourism-oriented town. However, as we joke in my family, I've lived everywhere, man (thank you Johnny Cash). Yes, a lot of times where I am and how much I've paid tells me whether or not I send food back. If you're paying for garbage, that's what you'll get. Here in my small town, I rarely send back food, but the few times I have, the owner has come out and apologised to me, and given me free food, a round of drinks, something. One owner came out after my husband sent a pasta dish back and paid for both of our meals, saying, "well, it was bad, and if one meal has to be sent back, your wife isn't going to enjoy hers anyway."

 

[lulu]

I was once in a Thai retaurant where the chicken was almost completely raw. We sent it back, it cam back rare, not blue....CHICKEN! we sent it backa again, it came back still pink in the middle. By this time, what was quite obviously the same plate had been cooked and recooked 4 times, e gave up, and never ate there again.

I hate sending stuff back, but when its dealt with well the restaurant wins me over for ever. I get DH to do it usually (I'm such a coward).

 

[Zooy]

I rarely send stuff back but the odd time I will. There was one time my tomatoes were mouldy on my quesadilla so I sent that back. Couldn't enjoy the next one and there was another time where my chicken wasn't cooked so we also sent that back.
But because I know how much of a pain it is to send stuff back we rarely do unless it will effect our health.

Now on the other side of things, I cook in a local bar. We have dinner specials, one of them is steak. They are very low grade steak (and I hate the fact that we serve them). They are almost impossible to get to the right temp that the customer wants. Only one has ever come back because it wasn't rare enough for them.

 

[Cooper'sMom]

On one of our trips down Tennessee, we went to a Cracker Barrel restaurant/gift shop. OK...so it is not a good restaurant. It is a gift/souvenir store and I got hungry so we went to the restaurant and I got something which I did not order. The waitress kept disappearing everytime we try to catch her to try to tell her the problem. DH ate his food, I left mine untouched.

On leaving, we stopped by the cashier to pay for our meals as we cannot find the waitress who served us (or do we really have to go to the cashier to pay for our meals? I don't know...but we were waiting it seems for a long time...) Anywhoooo DH complained of my meal. He did not know that he was talking to the manager of the place. He only charged us for DH's meal. DH protested that he is not complaining, just commenting. The guy said, "I manage this place and I can give you back your money if you are not satisfied with our service." End of story. And I am sticking to it.

 

[knight76]

Hmm, so there seems to be quite a few people that just grin and bear it when they get something that is not to their liking. Why is that? Politeness maybe?

For mine, you are taking the time to go out to dinner. You are taking your business to their restaurant and they are taking your order. There is a reason they ask you how you would like your steak so if they ask me and i tell them, then they bring me well done instead it goes back. Not all the time and it depends on how well done it actually is, but generally, if it is way not what I ordered it goes back.

Interesting reading everyone's opinions though.

 

[Claire]

I, too, had a raw chicken incident, at a "Mexican" restaurant in Daytona. The waitress (no, I don't think there was a single employee in the place from anywhere south of the border) kept trying to convince us the chicken was bloody-looking because it was smoked. Try that one on someone who doesn't cook. It wasn't that kind of red, it was slimy rare. If I remember right, the manager did not charge us for that meal, but the waitress was very snotty about the entire incident. The restaurant did not stay in business long.

 

[Hawkeye16]

On one of our trips down Tennessee, we went to a Cracker Barrel restaurant/gift shop. OK...so it is not a good restaurant. It is a gift/souvenir store and I got hungry so we went to the restaurant and I got something which I did not order. The waitress kept disappearing everytime we try to catch her to try to tell her the problem. DH ate his food, I left mine untouched.

On leaving, we stopped by the cashier to pay for our meals as we cannot find the waitress who served us (or do we really have to go to the cashier to pay for our meals? I don't know...but we were waiting it seems for a long time...) Anywhoooo DH complained of my meal. He did not know that he was talking to the manager of the place. He only charged us for DH's meal. DH protested that he is not complaining, just commenting. The guy said, "I manage this place and I can give you back your money if you are not satisfied with our service." End of story. And I am sticking to it.

I love Cracker Barrel... maybe you just ate at a bad one. They have amazing Chicken friend Chicken.

 

[goodgiver]

Tipping!!!! I will tip every time we go out to eat. These people here in the USA get very little pay per hour and they certainly do work hard, so therefore that is why I tip. Another reason for tipping is that it is not their fault that the cook/chief dosen't know how to properly prepare food as requested, so therefore why should we punish our servers?

 

[GB]

Tipping!!!! I will tip every time we go out to eat. These people here in the USA get very little pay per hour and they certainly do work hard, so therefore that is why I tip. Another reason for tipping is that it is not their fault that the cook/chief dosen't know how to properly prepare food as requested, so therefore why should we punish our servers?

What does this have to do with sending food back though?

 

[Fisher's Mom]

I have sent food back on occasion. Almost always because it's either not warm or the steak is not well done enough. I am usually apologetic about the steak because I know it doesn't taste as good well done, I just can't handle the red stuff.

 

[TanyaK]

I'll send something back if there's something wrong with it eg well done instead of rare steak orchicken not cooked properly. Sometimes a meal is just not nice but I won't send it back if I can't find anything specifically wrong with it. Eg last week I had fishcakes at a seafood restaurant which I didn't enjoy - it tasted very overprocessed like they liquidised everything together and then made the cakes - I like fishcakes when you can still see and taste the fish , onion, parsley etc- but maybe that's just my perception and everyone makes it diffently so that wasn't reason enough to send it back for me.
I'll definitely send anything burnt back.