Dining sighing - or were we the sucky ones?

[fma_fanatic]

So, last night - date night, and I choose to go to Lonestar. Well, the wait is upwards to an hour due to a large birthday party, so we drive down the road to Red Lobster. Our wait is considerably shorter, only 20 minutes.

The wait wasn't bad, but the service was abysmal. Our waiter seemed to be very distracted, and he made a few mistakes.

The issues:

• We did not get our biscuits. Okay, not a huge deal since we tend to fill upon them before our food arrives.
  
• He kept insisting we had waters when we had Sprites.
  
• Our salads were warm, as if they'd sat out for too long and he just remembered to bring them out. Add to that I'd asked for my dressing on the side and got a small dollup of dressing on the salad, there were no croutons, and he'd forgotten the petite shrimp on my salad. But I let it go. I just made a note to check the bill to make sure we weren't charged for the petite shirmp.
  
• My jumbo shrimp cocktail was missing two shrimp. Now, I did say something about that because dang it. I'm paying $7.75 for this thing, I'd darn well better get what I'm paying for. He said he'd get me my two shrimp, but never returned with them.
  
• The wait for the food was insanely long. As in when the food should have arrived had come and gone. I got the shrimp feast, SO got the catfish, so it shouldn't take almost 45 minutes for the food to arrive. When it did, it was lukewarm. I finally decided that I needed to say something.

So I asked for the manager, to which the waiter felt that he could take care of everything. He argued with me that I didn't speak up, so therefore it was my fault for things.

*blinkblink* SO wisely took over and said that if we didn't get a manager, we were walking out. Server countered that there were two police in the bar, he'd get them.

SO said go ahead and we waited. SO never ever dares someone. I'm the bitchy one!

The manager appeared shortly thereafter and we explained everything, even right down to the petty stuff. We ended up with a fully comped meal as well as what seemed to be a forced apology from the waiter.

I didn't want to get anyone into trouble, but I didn't want to be bitchy either. He also put a couple of gift cards in SOs hand and told him to use them.

So..were we sucky? Was SO? I was surprised he dared the waiter, since he's incredibly non-confrontational. For the record, this Red Lobster is one of the better locations so it was a big surprise the service was so bad.

[Chanlin]

1: No biscuits, meh, if ya didn't say anything no big deal. Small mistakes happn.

2: Insisiting you wanted water when you asked for sprite, bad on the waiter.

"Ok heres your waters"

"Ok, we asked for sprites too" (I assume you were polite)

Correct response: "Ok let me go get those sir/ma'am"

What you waiter did was sucky to insist you never asked for it. EVEN if you never did ask for it he should just suck it up and go get it.

3: Warm Salads - this is a meh to me. If it took a very long time to get them thats one thing. If they were warm and came out in 3-5 minutes this wouldn't be a huge deal to me. Even 10 minutes would be acceptable during a busy rush.

4: Good on the waiter for saying he would get them, bad on the waiter for not following through. Bad on you for not following through. (This assumes the waiter checked up on you to refill drinks etc, if he did not this is another mark against him, if he did and you did not say anything then I put the fault on you for not reminding him at least once after that all bets are off)

5: Insanely long wait = apology and usually an offer of a discount in almost every resraunt I've been to. Heck one time I got a free desert from the Manager who brought our food out after 30 minutes and apologized for it taking so long when we weren't even going to complain.

Overall. It depends on how polite he was and a few other things. Were refills prompt, did he check on you etc.

Base judgment is the waiter was sucky for being confrontational, especially about the drinks and getting a manager.

It also depends on your level of politeness in asking for things, but even a little bit of impoliteness is no excuse for bad service unless you were being complete asshats to him which I highly doubt you were.

[Evil Queen]

I think something is wrong with the waiter. Particularly when he tried to inform YOU that YOU asked for waters, not sodas.

Now, if I was him, and I'm not thank dog, I would have said something along the lines of "I'm sorry, I thought you requested water. I'll be right back with your <soda>."

But then again, I was a very good waitress.

Neither you nor your date were rude, at least not that I can tell.

[Andara Bledin]

I don't see any rudeness, there.

I've been in similar situations, and I'm pretty mellow about indifferent service.

But when a waiter gets argumentative about what I did and did not order and fails to bring what I ordered in a reasonable time and fails to apologize for the wait, then I start having issues.

Thankfully, I've never had terrible service since reaching adulthood except once at a Denny's. Otherwise, I've had some poor service, and a couple of times where an apetizer or the like was forgotten, but not billed. And one of those times resulted in an apology from the host and a free dessert. It was an upscale sort of place, and the food (and dessert) were outstanding.

I do remember, when I was a kid, that we walked out of a Cocoas (mid-range cafe) once because the waiter was a total ass. He acted like the snooty waiter type you see in characatures. We never got enough silverware for the entire table. We only ever got half of our waters. We did get all of our hot teas. No other drinks, however. After 45 minutes of waiting and being mostly ignored (we got most of our service from busboys), we got up and Mom had words with the manager. It wasn't until after we'd gotten up from the table that the watier in question started actually delivering the food. I'd bet money that it was cold, but we weren't staying to find out.

^-.-^

[Broomjockey]

Sorry, but you were TOTALLY sucky. </sarcasm>

Yeah, that waiter was an ass. I'll take a lot in the way of poor service, but once they start arguing, it goes out the window. And threatening to get the police? At that point I'd not be leaving without talking to the manager, no matter what.

[marasbaras]

We did not get our biscuits. Okay, not a huge deal since we tend to fill upon them before our food arrives.

It's part of the basic service. Bad on the waiter.

He kept insisting we had waters when we had Sprites.

Arguing with the customer over something trivial. Bad on the waiter.

Our salads were warm

Unforgivable. Salads are supposed to be cold.

Add to that I'd asked for my dressing on the side and got a small dollup of dressing on the salad, there were no croutons, and he'd forgotten the petite shrimp on my salad.

Again, bad on the waiter.

I just made a note to check the bill to make sure we weren't charged for the petite shirmp.

Where you charged? If so, again, bad on the waiter.

He said he'd get me my two shrimp, but never returned with them.

Bad on the waiter

The wait for the food was insanely long. When it did, it was lukewarm.

Lukewarm? Again, unforgivable.

So I asked for the manager, to which the waiter felt that he could take care of everything. He argued with me that I didn't speak up, so therefore it was my fault for things.

Again, arguing with the customer. This time about serious matters. Unforgivable.

SO wisely took over and said that if we didn't get a manager, we were walking out. Server countered that there were two police in the bar, he'd get them.

Fails to retrieve manager when requested. Unforgivable.

The manager appeared shortly thereafter and we explained everything, even right down to the petty stuff. We ended up with a fully comped meal as well as what seemed to be a forced apology from the waiter.

Good.

He also put a couple of gift cards in SOs hand and told him to use them.

Better.

So..were we sucky? Was SO?

Not in the slightest. Had I been your waiter's manager, this would have been their last night.

[Boozy]

I don't think you were sucky, although there is one thing that I personally would have done differently: I would have let the waiter know about all my concerns.

For example, you chose not to say anything to the waiter about the biscuits and the errors with your salad. If you didn't feel it was important enough to mention at the time, why mention them later to his boss?

You did mention that you were missing two jumbo shrimp, and he never fixed that issue, so I don't think it likely that your experience would have been any better for having said something earlier. But next time, with a different restaurant and different waiter, it might be. There's no sense in sitting there getting progressively more annoyed with shoddy service. I think if more people spoke up earlier, less complaints would get escalated to managers.

[Becks]

The waiter was the night's Emperor of Suck™.

[fma_fanatic]

I don't think you were sucky, although there is one thing that I personally would have done differently: I would have let the waiter know about all my concerns.

For example, you chose not to say anything to the waiter about the biscuits and the errors with your salad. If you didn't feel it was important enough to mention at the time, why mention them later to his boss?

You did mention that you were missing two jumbo shrimp, and he never fixed that issue, so I don't think it likely that your experience would have been any better for having said something earlier. But next time, with a different restaurant and different waiter, it might be. There's no sense in sitting there getting progressively more annoyed with shoddy service. I think if more people spoke up earlier, less complaints would get escalated to managers.

Granted, yeah, I should have. But I had been in a rather interesting funk all day - as in I was going to likely rip anyone's head off, so I was practicing my fine art of not flying off the handle.

I think in retrospect, I should have, and did, let SO handle it all. Even he could see it was grating on me.

It was mentioned because the first words out of SOs mouth were "We did not have the best service tonight" to which the manager responded " Tell me what happened" so he did.

My feeling on letting him know about the problems was that if he was going to argue with us about what we had to drink, was he going to argue with us about our food (which he did)? Not an excuse, I know, but this location has never been bad.

[Titi]

You want to know what I keep wondering about?????

The table that ordered the soda and got water.

[myswtghst]

I don't think you were sucky, although there is one thing that I personally would have done differently: I would have let the waiter know about all my concerns.

While I generally agree with this, I can also see where the OP is coming from.

I'm the type, having worked in CS for SO long, that I assume small mistakes are forgivable, maybe the waiter is having a rough day, etc. So, if one or two things go wrong, I'll let it slide and try to relax. But when that many things build up, then I feel like I have to complain.

While it sucks that the waiter didn't have a chance to right each wrong as it happened, sounds like he wouldn't have done anything even if given the opportunity. It's kind of a double-edged sword, as well - while it might have been better to bring up the first problem, it also may have meant the server would have gotten bitter or angry, and provided even worse service.

[marasbaras]

Myself, I probably would've ignored the biscuits and Sprite deal. The salad is where I would've spoken up.

Then again, if the OP was having a bad day and didn't want to go ballistic over a small mistake, I understand the silence. Probably quiet wise on their part.

[Knifeman]

I had a sucky waiter two nights ago at Genghis Grill.

I ran out of water and he was passing by. I asked if I could get a refill. He turned, looked at me, and didn't say a word of acknowledgement and turned and walked away, all while having this "You're bothering me for THAT?" look.

I could tell by his face he really really didn't want to be there... but not even like having a bad day kinda "not wanting to be there". More like the look of someone that should've never gotten hired.

Anyways. He passed by the section once or twice, bringing food and an iced tea to a table, even looked right at me with those "You bothering me with that?" look, avoiding passing by my table, and not bringing me water for 5 minutes.

I was just about to grab a waiter passing by to get me water(one that seemed to enjoy his job), when angry stare guy rushes with a pitcher.

gave him only a $3 tip.

[Kaylyn]

Myself, I probably would've ignored the biscuits and Sprite deal.

Oh, no, not me. Red Lobster's biscuits are orgasmic, I love them that much. First thing I do when I sit down at a Red Lobster is ask if they still serve them. If a waiter completely forgot to bring them I'd definitely be asking (nicely, of course) when they were coming out, even if I'm halfway through my main course.

[marasbaras]

Oh, no, not me. Red Lobster's biscuits are orgasmic, I love them that much. First thing I do when I sit down at a Red Lobster is ask if they still serve them. If a waiter completely forgot to bring them I'd definitely be asking (nicely, of course) when they were coming out, even if I'm halfway through my main course.

If my date found them to be orgasmic, I would never overlook them.