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So this wasn't entirely terrible, but I don't get a lot of stories so I thought I'd share it anyway.
Boyfriend and I went out to dinner last night to a Chili's. It was pretty quiet, only 2 or 3 other tables in the dining room that we were in. They sat us in a corner booth, we thought it would be a nice quiet dinner. Wrong!
Right after we placed our order (glad we got there when we did), the hostess started rearranging the tables right next to us. Our waiter started helping her and I heard part of their conversation, which included "party of 12 or 14." Bother. Okay, that's not so bad. They set three large tables end to end and set up 16 place mats with silverware and menus. Our server was really cool, he made sure to move the tables as far away from us as he could (which still wasn't very far) and he didn't set place mats/chairs on our end of the table. He said he'd try to keep everyone on the other end of the table so we'd have a little room.
Well, when they got everything set up, the party came in and immediately flocked to the end of the table closest to us. They moved chairs down to that end and took place mats and silverware off of nearby tables to use. Remember I said they set up 16 spots for them? There were at least 18 (maybe 20) people who sat at the long table, and 2 or 3 more who took the booth right in front of us. So now we're totally hemmed in, as the table is right next to us, the booth is in front of us, and we're stuck in the corner. Our Awesome Server (AS) apologized profusely and we told him it wasn't really a problem. Boyfriend and I had looked at each other as soon as we found out the big party was coming in and knew that our quiet dinner was probably shot, but we were okay with it.
So, AS gets them all settled and starts taking drink orders. This was apparently a baseball team, and family members of the baseball team, and everyone wanted separate checks. Ouch. AS did great, though, we watched him take drink orders and he was totally cool and had everything under control and organized. Then the manager showed up. He introduced himself to some of the guys and turns out, one of the kids was hurt. His arm was in a sling and it looked like he had hurt his shoulder. So his father asked for ice. Okay...maybe that's not too sucky, I guess. Manager got a big bag of ice for the kid's shoulder. Then they dropped the bomb.
"Yeah, we need to be out of here in 30 minutes."
Okay. There's at least 20 of you guys (up from the original 14.) You've already asked for more than what most people would ask for with the ice, and now you only have half an hour to eat. It's not like this was the only restaurant around, we passed at least half a dozen various fast food places on our way to this one. Seriously, if you're on a time limit, don't go to a sit-down type restaurant. Bonus points because several of you have taken up the little space between your tables and ours, just standing around and talking, effectively blocking AS and the other servers from getting to us.
Like I said, it wasn't a total disaster. But to make matters worse for AS, the manager immediately started kissing ass to all the guys on the team (he never talked to any of the women, or even paused to look at my boyfriend and I in the numerous times he ran back and forth between these tables) and got 2 or 3 other servers to start taking orders, which totally screwed AS up. By the time AS got back with drinks, some people had had their orders placed, some already had drinks, and no one really knew what was going on. AS was still awesome, though, and kept stopping by our table to ask if we were okay.
Our food came without a hitch, and was very good, at least. We left before the baseball team did...I kind of wanted to stick around to see how it was going to end, but we had a concert to get to (but we had given ourselves about 2.5 hours from the time we left to the time the concert started.) I hope they at least left AS a decent tip! Like I told my boyfriend, we didn't get our quiet dinner, but we did at least get some entertainment.
Boyfriend and I went out to dinner last night to a Chili's. It was pretty quiet, only 2 or 3 other tables in the dining room that we were in. They sat us in a corner booth, we thought it would be a nice quiet dinner. Wrong!
Right after we placed our order (glad we got there when we did), the hostess started rearranging the tables right next to us. Our waiter started helping her and I heard part of their conversation, which included "party of 12 or 14." Bother. Okay, that's not so bad. They set three large tables end to end and set up 16 place mats with silverware and menus. Our server was really cool, he made sure to move the tables as far away from us as he could (which still wasn't very far) and he didn't set place mats/chairs on our end of the table. He said he'd try to keep everyone on the other end of the table so we'd have a little room.
Well, when they got everything set up, the party came in and immediately flocked to the end of the table closest to us. They moved chairs down to that end and took place mats and silverware off of nearby tables to use. Remember I said they set up 16 spots for them? There were at least 18 (maybe 20) people who sat at the long table, and 2 or 3 more who took the booth right in front of us. So now we're totally hemmed in, as the table is right next to us, the booth is in front of us, and we're stuck in the corner. Our Awesome Server (AS) apologized profusely and we told him it wasn't really a problem. Boyfriend and I had looked at each other as soon as we found out the big party was coming in and knew that our quiet dinner was probably shot, but we were okay with it.
So, AS gets them all settled and starts taking drink orders. This was apparently a baseball team, and family members of the baseball team, and everyone wanted separate checks. Ouch. AS did great, though, we watched him take drink orders and he was totally cool and had everything under control and organized. Then the manager showed up. He introduced himself to some of the guys and turns out, one of the kids was hurt. His arm was in a sling and it looked like he had hurt his shoulder. So his father asked for ice. Okay...maybe that's not too sucky, I guess. Manager got a big bag of ice for the kid's shoulder. Then they dropped the bomb.
"Yeah, we need to be out of here in 30 minutes."
Okay. There's at least 20 of you guys (up from the original 14.) You've already asked for more than what most people would ask for with the ice, and now you only have half an hour to eat. It's not like this was the only restaurant around, we passed at least half a dozen various fast food places on our way to this one. Seriously, if you're on a time limit, don't go to a sit-down type restaurant. Bonus points because several of you have taken up the little space between your tables and ours, just standing around and talking, effectively blocking AS and the other servers from getting to us.
Like I said, it wasn't a total disaster. But to make matters worse for AS, the manager immediately started kissing ass to all the guys on the team (he never talked to any of the women, or even paused to look at my boyfriend and I in the numerous times he ran back and forth between these tables) and got 2 or 3 other servers to start taking orders, which totally screwed AS up. By the time AS got back with drinks, some people had had their orders placed, some already had drinks, and no one really knew what was going on. AS was still awesome, though, and kept stopping by our table to ask if we were okay.
Our food came without a hitch, and was very good, at least. We left before the baseball team did...I kind of wanted to stick around to see how it was going to end, but we had a concert to get to (but we had given ourselves about 2.5 hours from the time we left to the time the concert started.) I hope they at least left AS a decent tip! Like I told my boyfriend, we didn't get our quiet dinner, but we did at least get some entertainment.
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