Bad Restaurant Experiences....

[Ardge]

Do any of you have a friend who is IMPOSSIBLE to please when it comes to dining out? I have a few, but one in particular who would find something wrong with anything. It matters not. They could be in a prime Chicago steakhouse and be served a perfectly cooked NY Strip with an a la minute Whisky Bordaliase.

"Ahhh... It's OK I guess. It's a little too fatty for me."

"It's a little too thick."

"It's a little too red inside."

"It's a little too cold."

"It's a little too hot."

"The spices are a little weird I think."


Here's a little info on me. I don't get to eat out at nice restaurants much. I'm usually working in one or too broke to even pay for the tip if I am able to go. The thing is, I appreciate good food. I always have. I try not to complain for little things and I understand that the type of place dictates the level of quality I am receiving for the amount paid. I am not gonna eat garbage, but I am willing to overlook lots of things and do it with a smile. If I don't have to cook it or clean up afterwards, chances are I will be chewing with a smile on my face. I celebrate every meal placed in front of me and I thank God for the experience. That's first and foremost.

However, sometimes plates don't turn out as good as they should, and I am talking about minimum requirements. Have you ever been the recipient of said plates, and if so, what did you do about it?

I recently had dinner at this Italian place my Father LOVES. Why he loves it is beyond me. It is near a community college and there are ALWAYS roudy "young adults" in there every time I've been in there. The tables are always off balance and there isn't a chef coat in the kitchen. Just a bunch of aprons and baseball hats worn backwards. (This may be trival to some, but it speaks volumes to me.)

Anyway, after scanning the menu for something other than the run of the mill pizza or baked beef sandwich, I settled on Fettucini Alfredo.

What arrived to our table was something a little different than I expected.

I was given Spaghetti with some 1/2 and 1/2, a sprinkling of grated cheese and a discolored looking pinch of parsley all centered on top. You could even see the indentations from someone's fingers in the parsley.

I sat there for a minute looking at my plate and pondered my next move. As my family was starting to eat their food, I tried not to make a big deal of it, but I couldn't stand it anymore. I walked my plate to the kitchen pickup window and asked to talk to who made it. The three cooks stared at me, but no one answered me. The waitress came up to me and aked me what the matter was. I asked her if she would eat this. The 1/2 and 1/2 looked more like skim milk at this point than anything.

She looked at it, made that "ick" face , and then told me this. "Ya know what, I'll put a refire order in for you."

"Thank you," I said. I walked back to my table and sat there with my family.

When the plate arrived a second time, the portion was twice as huge and the pasta was indeed Fetuccini, but the sauce was so thick you could have used it as plaster. I was so turned off by it, I could only handle one forkful of it. It was horrible tasting too. No seasoning whatsoever. I didn't complain a second time. I just had a few pieces of pizza and finished up the breaded mushrooms my family got as an appetizer.

I sat there dreaming of that small Italian place I long to open someday. I can smell the heavy cream reducing right now actually.

Hmmm....

Can anyone relate?


RJ

 

[Ishbel]

Sounds dreadful. Not a good dining experience. It shouldn't matter HOW MUCH you are charged for a dish, it should be well cooked and if it purports to be a certain recipe, then you are right to expect just that.

BTW - What's half half?

We have a joke in our family when we go out to eat. Everyone waits until I order - then ensure they order something different. The reason? Because (and it has proved true all my life) IF there is going to be something wrong with a dish, or an order for a dish - then it's MY order that gets forgotten, badly cooked, badly served.... well, you get the picture.

I am fortunate because as part of my job I often get to eat at very good five star restaurants. The above applies even to this type of establishment! Doesn't happen every time, of course, but at least 3 or 4 times a year!

 

[GB]

My most recent bad restaurant experience was not bad because of the food. The food was actually excellent. The waiter on the other hand was not very proficient.

My grandparent were up from FL visiting and my Aunt and Uncle from NJ were in town for the night on their way to Maine for vacation. Grandpa wanted to take us all (10 people) out for a nice meal as he always does.

We went to a Greek restaurant that I had never been to before. There was a gentleman playing Greek music on some sort of mandolin type of instrument. The place was beautifully decorated and smelled fantastic. Since we had a large party we were seated in a small room off the main dining area. There were a few other people in that room, but we took up most of the space.

The waiter brought our menus and our drink orders. My mom ordered her usual drink, diet coke, no ice, with lemon. She hates ice in her soda. The soda comes out of the machine cold enough for her and she does not chug her drinks so she does not want ice diluting it. She can always tell what her experience at a particular restaurant will be like when she gets her drink. The good places will remember she does not want ice. Well when she got her soda there was ice in it. OK not the biggest deal admittedly.

We place our orders. I was planning on ordering off the menu, but once I heard the special I decided to go with one of those. For sides I was getting the rice and vegetables. My dinner also came with soup. I chose lemon soup as I had never had that before and it sounded really interesting. I was really looking forward to that.

Thankfully we ordered an app (a big platter with a number of Greek specialties). I say thankfully because our dinners did not come out for about 45 minutes after that. The waiter only came to our table once during that time and that was to say the meals would be out in a second. He was not even close. It was more like 20 minutes later.

Well of course I was expecting my soup first, but when the meals arrived the soup was no where to be seen. The waiter made mention of it and said he would be right back with the soup. He first finished giving everyone their meals. He would reach across the table to hand the food out instead of walking around the table. I can overlook service like that at a chain restaurant or a less classy place, but this was a nice restaurant and he should have known better.

He give me and my father our meals (we ordered the exact same thing), but neither of us got our sides. Other people were missing food as well. We had to wait till he finally came back into the room (quite a while later) to ask for the missing things. Now I can understand forgetting a dish here and there, but it seemed he forgot about half of what he was supposed to bring.

When he finally came back with the rest of the food he did not have the soup. He said to me and my father "I will talk to the manager about taking something off the bill because it is pointless to serve the soup at this point". Well I was happy that he wanted to give us a discount, but I though it should have been left up to us as to whether or not we thought it was pointless. I really wanted to taste the soup and I didn't care if it was at the end of the meal or not. Because my grandfather was paying and I was pretty full already anyway I decided to not say anything and just thank him for taking some money off.

Once we were done eating it took about a half hour for him to bring the bill. When he finally brought it his only explanation was "I am sorry, we were very busy tonight". That is never a good explanation in my book. Not to mention that while they did have a lot of people there, they were not super busy. We were close enough to the entrance to see no one was ever waiting for a table and in our room there were always a few empty tables.

The only explanation I have is that this guy must have been pretty new to being a waiter. Maybe it was his first night on his own. If that is the case then I can certainly understand the mistakes.

Overall I would not really call this a bad restaurant experience, but more of a slightly disappointing one. The food more than made up for the mistakes and I would still go back there again and give them another chance.

One thing that bothered me a little was that the tip was included in the bill because of the size of our party. I probably would have still left 20% if I were the one paying, but in a situation like this I would have liked to have the option of not giving that much.

 

[licia]

A person in my family never has an order to suit her. No matter what type of restaurant. I've started either sitting at a different table if there are enough of us, or if there are just a few, having other plans. She has ruined so many good meals for me that I no longer give her the opportunity. I also eat either before or after I go to her house. I understand each of us want good food prepared well, but to constantly gripe about it is totally insensitive to other members of the party.

 

[Ishbel]

You are absolutely right. I have an aunt like that!

What I am talking about is: cold food, under/overcooked meat, missing me out altogether I've found HAIR in my food, on at least 3 occasions! Honestly, it is a really weird thing how it's ALWAYS me - and I'm not a difficult customer. Just give me what I've ordered, on time and properly cooked and served!

 

[licia]

My poor dad did something I couldn't believe. A group of us went to dinner and they DIDN'T bring him his dinner. We reminded them a couple of times and they said it was coming right out. It never came and dad paid anyway. He didn't want to cause the waiter any problems!!!!!!!!!!I could still kick myself for letting him go thru with that. I know things happen and should be reported, but we certainly need to make the difference in something miniscule and other problems.

 

[middie]

the bf is always like that. never says please. he sends food back and they bring him another plate he never says thank you. i'll ask him how is it this time and i get the "eh
it's okay". there have been numerous times when the server was back every 5 minutes asking if everything is okay. he never answers so i do. i'm pleased with the service most of the time. the food is great, he's just very unappreciative i guess

 

[luvs]

i will put up with certain things in restaurants. after all, nobody's perfect, and i know people who work in restaurants, and i know just how stressful and hectic thier work can be.

but that does not make up for downright poor service, or rude behavior, or bad food. if the food is truly not up to par, i complain. i'm not speaking of something as little as them putting onion on my salad when i asked for no onion- i could just pick that off and there isn't any real reason to get worked up over that. but when i order a ribeye, i don't expect to find a strip steak on my plate (which has happened, and the waitress argued about it with me and my guy, and i was like, 'look, ma'am, i know my steaks and that is absolutely not a ribeye. can i please speak with the the manager?'.... we got like $20 in free coupons from the manager, so that was good, but we didn't return there for a very long while).
we always ask for the manager if the service is bad enough to warrant that, but if the waitstaff keeps thier wits about them and just handles the problem, we tip extra.

you just cannot mistreat customers. i figure employees will have thier bad days- we all do- but i draw the line when thier behavior turns rude or indifferent to my concerns. i'm a paying customer and expect to be treated as such.
i think a good resturant knows that. a good restaurant with a polite and efficient staff will develop a loyal clientele, and people will talk and thier reputation will grow, the staff will get excellent tips, etc.

in my judging of a restaurant, i take many factors into consideration. (was the food late because the staff is lazy and busy gabbing about nonsense while my food is getting cold, or is it because the place packed so full that the watress looks ready to sob?) stuff like that.
as for bad restaurants.... well..... too bad they didn't try harder. they're only hurting themselves.

just my thoughts on that matter.

 

[Sandyj]

I've become a little wary of eating out! If you complain, the waiters or cooks might do something awful to your food says one of my daughters, who is currently waitressing in very busy, popular spot! I hope this isn't true! Sandyj

 

[Ardge]

Today it is raining here in Chicagoland. On top of that, it is a Wednesday. Both of these factors equate to slow restaurant business. When that happens, the cooks at the restaurant get sent home early. The prep staff is sent packing, the cooking line is cut in 1/2.... and me, the pastry guy is to go home as well.

Well, I've had alot of things to think about the past few weeks. My money problems seem to never go away. I needed a little break from all of that so when I passed a little breakfast place as I was driving home, I stopped in. I thought it would be a great place to have a little breakfast, relax and balance my checkbook.

I walked in and was greeted by a young waitress. "Hello, welcome to _________'s. Smoking or Non-Smoking?" "Non-Smoking please," I said. As I was sitting down, she poured me a cup of coffee without asking if I wanted it. I don't usually drink coffee so I kinda cringed. "Oh, did you want Decaf?" I said, "I didn't want any coffee actually, but this is fine. I will take this." As she gave me her menu, she told me she'd be back in a few minutes to take my order.

Now, I was seated in the first booth with my back to the counter seats. I was maybe 10 feet from her, a little off to the right. I was out of sight, but I wasn't hiding from her. I was sitting where she seated me. It took me all of a minute or two to decide on a tall stack of Banana Pancakes. For the next 17 minutes, I sat and listened to her chat away with another waitress. There I sat, playing Tetris on my phone when the other waitress walked past me to check on the only other customers in my section. As she walked back, she asked, "Has Becky taken your order?" I asked, "Who's Becky?" "Hold on a sec.... Beck, did you take this guy's order yet?"

"HOLY SH*T!!! Tell him I'll be there in a sec. Lemme finish my cigarette."

With that, I got up from my seat, placed a dollar on the table for my unasked for cup of coffee (that I did indeed drink), and walked out of the restaurant.

As I walked passed her, she siad,"Sorry Guy! When we girls get to chattin, ya know..."

"Yeah, I'm sorry too."



Ugh. What the heck is going on???? I think I jinxed myself with this thread!!!

RJ

 

[Ardge]

BTW - What's half half?

It's a dairy product that is 1/2 whole milk and 1/2 cream. People use it in coffee alot here in the states.

RJ

 

[Ardge]

I've become a little wary of eating out! If you complain, the waiters or cooks might do something awful to your food says one of my daughters, who is currently waitressing in very busy, popular spot! I hope this isn't true! Sandyj

There's a movie running in the theaters right now with this very same theme. "Waiting" is the name of the film. The commercials look disgustingly..... funny.


RJ

 

[mish]

When I first saw the title of the thread - Bad Restaurant Experiences... , the first thing that came to mind was being held up. I mention it because I'm starting to notice it now more and more on the news. If restaurants don't already have surveillance cameras, it might be something to consider. Fortunately no one was hurt. I had my back to the door when they came in. Sitting across the booth from my bf, we're eating pizza and he says "we're being held up." I honestly thought he was joking and kept eating, until I saw the staff getting down on the floor. I think if I had panicked and looked at him, he might have done something to us as well. The manager ran out when they left (very brave of him, I think), and we sat there when the police arrived.


I don't know if this will help someone else, but we were the last 1 or 2 couples in the restaurant at about 10:00 pm during the week. I would be reluctant to go to an almost empty place at closing time. The restaurant didn't charge us for the pizza, but I'll never forget it. The fact that I didn't look at him/them? may have helped too.

Whew. I'll take a deep breath on that one, and perhaps come back and chat about some impossible people I know who are never happy with the meal. IMO, people that constantly send things back and are never pleased, are not happy with themselves. When I pay hard-earned money for a meal, I do have reasonable expectations, and I do treat people with respect. If the food and/or service was not good, I probably would not return. My guess is, they won't stay in business very long - particularly with all the competition. Guess that's pretty much it.

 

[Gerrycooks]

We had dinner with friends at a new upscale restaurant. The restaurant's chef was a "local man". I ordered a seafood dish that was served with sprouts on top. Unfortunately there were fruit flies crawling all over my dinner. When the waitress finally came back and I showed here my problem she took it back to the kitchen. She returned a while later with another order topped with the same sprouts and bugs. I finally scraped the sprouts off and carefully ate some. I did not want to make a scene since our friends recommended the restaurant.
My friend ordered the pan seared scallops which were almost raw. She sent them back and they were brought back in almost the same state. Needless to say when the waitress asked if we wanted dessert we just wanted to leave. The waitress did not even remove the awful dinners from our bill.
When I got home I called the restaurant owner to tell her about our dinner. I told her I did not want to make a scene. She told me she knew of the bugs in my food but did not want to embarrass us. I am going to be more assertive in the future and refuse to eat bad food.

 

[DugDbold]

WOW.. OH CHIT...INCOMING!... Boy did this thread ever kick off a lot of pent up anger... LOL


Folks, the restaurant business is a tough world to live in. Thankgod I don't but one of my very best friends does. He is the Executive Chef for two restaurants here in my hometown. Two bigtime restaurants. In our conversations he has talked about the difficulty of finding good help, keeping folks motivated, overseeing quality...

The problem usually is that running a restuarant is not normally looked at as a management job. Most chefs are great at cooking but terrible at employee relations. Remember, there is only ONE exec chef. Lots of other help and then the whole magilla of the service staff.

If you find a GOOD local independent restaurant then enjoy the **** out of it. They are rare and few between. Most often I have found you can get the best medium priced food at a CHAIN STORE. Mygod, does that sound bad?? Point is.. they are run on a corporate scale. The rules are set out clearly, the menu is bland but safe, the staff knows what to expect..it's a system.

Is that bad? Well, depends on what you are looking for.

The final point to this rant.... you get what you pay for if you know where to spend your money. KNOW WHERE..that is the key.

Just because I like it, or Dad likes it, or Aunt Sally likes it does not make it a good restaurant.

Whew.. got that out of my system. As for reality I am the GM of an appliance company. Nothing to do with food. But also an amateur chef. So I empathize with all of you...

 

[masteraznchefjr]

some kid threw up on my plate at a sushi buffet

 

[GB]

some kid threw up on my plate at a sushi buffet

OK master, you win the prize for worst restaurant experience

 

[Ishbel]

I think you are right, GB. NOONE is going to be able to 'top' that story....

 

[Ardge]

bumping this thread to the top. i love reading these stories!

hello everyone!

 

[Michi]

Hi everyone!

Well, I can't say that it will top the sushi bar story, but back in college, we had a great little hole in the wall restaurant - cheap, really good food, about halfway through an order of vegetarian lasagne, I stopped, fork mid-air and low and behold, someone's band-aid was in my lasagne.

Needless to say, that was my last visit there.