Bad restaurant stories

[MMDad]

There was a barbecue place by Pep Boys in the 'Dorf. Red River? The waitress took our order, dropped off our food, and then flirted with a guy for about 30 minutes. Never refilled drinks, checked on us, or anything. Couldn't even get her attention to get our bill. Had to get up and walk over to her.

When I filled out the credit card slip, I wrote on the tip line "try visiting your customers some time."

20 years ago Boomerangs was Adam's Ribs. When we ordered drinks, the waitress looked and my friend and said "no way you're 21, show me an ID." Looked at her ID, then stomped off to get the drink. Never saw her again. Someone else brought our food, and we had to ask 5 times to get our bill. Bill came to $49.95, and the waitress got the nickel as a tip. That says "no, I didn't forget to tip you, your service just sucked."

[Jeter3000]

Originally Posted by DEEKAYPEE8569

That's why we always give the tip to the server personally; or, when we pay cash, we allow for the tip and just say 'No' when he/she asks if we need change. Either way, we know our server got their money.

Change of subject, kinda: Does anybody know if servers still have to pool their tips and divide it equally amongst all of them? I ask because some servers hustle; and the one's that don't get the same as the one's that do; and that's just wrong.

Been in the restaurant business MANY years and no, never had to pool tips. However, worked on the island and had to give 10% of tips earned to the bartender (even if they never made one drink for the server) and 10% to the bussers (even when servers bussed their own tables). And yes, both of the above mentioned are salaried positions. Crock of ####.

[Uncle Charlie]

Cracker Barrell, the new one. Took kids a mnth ago around 11. 2 of us ordered breakfast, 2 ordered lunch. Took AN HOUR for us to get our food and my eggs came out wrong. Manger who we complained to about the delay came back a 2nd time. We talked. She said "well, you know, when you order breakfast at lunch time, you have to expect this" I was incredulous and just looked at her and I said, "then why in the name of God do you say "breakfast all day long" and she said, "you can have it but it is going to take a while" and walked away.

Still waiting for the reponse to the letter I worte to them and to the corporate offices. Won't be going back.

[mAlice]

Originally Posted by Uncle Charlie

Cracker Barrell, the new one. Took kids a mnth ago around 11. 2 of us ordered breakfast, 2 ordered lunch. Took AN HOUR for us to get our food and my eggs came out wrong. Manger who we complained to about the delay came back a 2nd time. We talked. She said "well, you know, when you order breakfast at lunch time, you have to expect this" I was incredulous and just looked at her and I said, "then why in the name of God do you say "breakfast all day long" and she said, "you can have it but it is going to take a while" and walked away.

Still waiting for the reponse to the letter I worte to them and to the corporate offices. Won't be going back.

Just goes to show ya', if you open a restaurant here, the employees will destroy it. Dollars to donuts the cook that ruined your breakfast has ruined somebody else's meal in another restaurant in town.

[emiloch]

Similar experience at the Cracker Barrel in St. Mary's in the late fall. Pitifully slow service, food orders came out wrong/cold/late, servers seemed inexperienced, new, and generally unwilling to figure out what was wrong or how to fix it. We were there late -- just before closing on a Sunday night –- and with so few patrons in the restaurant, you’d think the servers would be on top of things.

I wrote a complaint on the Cracker Barrel corporate Facebook page and have decided to spend my money elsewhere.

[MMM_donuts]

This was a couple of years ago but we went in to Red Robin to have dinner one night. We both ordered a beer. The husband was told that his beer's keg was being changed so it would be in a minute. No problem. We ordered food. My plate came out first, without his. I waited for a bit until he insisted that I start to eat. I take a few bites (I don't remember what I had, I think it was like a pasta or some plate full of something like that as opposed to a burger) and then my next fork full pulls a really long black hair out of my dish.

Ok, whatever. That happens. Stuff like that seems to happen to us a lot, which is weird because we try to be super understanding about it. So, I just wasn't going to eat any more of it. I didn't want to ruin the night. I was just going to make beer my dinner Then I ran out of beer. And what seemed like an eternity later, the waitress comes back and gives my husband the wrong beer. It was light and the one he ordered was dark or something like that.

So we asked to see the manager since my husband never even got his food (or his beer, really). The manager was super cool about it and told us not to worry about paying for anything.

Kind of a perfect storm of unfortunate things, I guess.

[kwillia]

Originally Posted by mAlice

Just goes to show ya', if you open a restaurant here, the employees will destroy it. Dollars to donuts the cook that ruined your breakfast has ruined somebody else's meal in another restaurant in town.

Completely agree! We get restaurant after restaurant in this area and all suffer from the same crap because it ends up being the same crappy people moving in to work the latest one opened.

[MMM_donuts]

.....Some of these stories......holy cow

[MMDad]

Originally Posted by Uncle Charlie

Cracker Barrell,

I can't really get upset over poor service at a glorified fast food joint like that. I am more irritated when I go somewhere that has been good and get bad service or bad food. There are pathetically few good restaurants around here, so seeing one go bad really sucks.

[DEEKAYPEE8569]

Originally Posted by emiloch

Similar experience at the Cracker Barrel in St. Mary's in the late fall. Pitifully slow service, food orders came out wrong/cold/late, servers seemed inexperienced, new, and generally unwilling to figure out what was wrong or how to fix it. We were there late -- just before closing on a Sunday night –- and with so few patrons in the restaurant, you’d think the servers would be on top of things.

I wrote a complaint on the Cracker Barrel corporate Facebook page and have decided to spend my money elsewhere.

That's where your issue began IMO. 'Just before closing' on any night, those folks are gearing up to go home.
We did that to some folks at a Chinese place in California one summer.
There was about 10 of us; maybe more. We went to a reputable place for dinner; got a late start on that. When we got there, they told us they were closing in an hour; but they let us in, fed us and waited for us to leave, so they left much later than they intended to.
Feeling badly about it, we convinced my Aunt & Uncle to leave a BIIIG tip.