re: Contacting a restaurant for bad service..

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I've had one truly awful experience. If I met anymore with more than a few, I'd immediately think the problem is them.. not the restaurants. You don't want to come off as one of those people

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I guess it depends on what your definition of awful experience is. I have had several. I had one when I had some family in town and we went to an expensive restaurant and we had an awful waiter who was completely unprofessional the whole time. My wife asked him if something came with sides and he said "No sweetheart, I'm going to take you to the cleaners there", implying that they are going to charge us for everything. He said "right on" for everything, which is douchey. Then he forgot one of our orders. We all ordered the same thing basically (Artista's in Houston is famous for the "Churrasco" steak) and he miscounted and shorted us one. We told him and he said oh yeah it's coming right out. 10 minutes later it hadn't come out. I asked him again for the last steak and he said yeah its coming and I said "Ok, this is just a little crazy". He basically went off on me for saying it was a little crazy that the steak was taking 40 minutes to get to the table. I had a manager come over and very professionally explained the entire situation to the guy. Never raised my voice. Never cursed. Just told him what the guy did. He offered to give everyone at the table a free drink, free desserts and comped the steak that took so long to arrive. I gladly accepted all of those things. I would never have expected to pay for that steak.

Also had an experience at Morton's steakhouse where I ordered a steak medium rare and it was raw. I will typically eat an undercooked steak because it doesn't bother me, but this one was really bad. I'm paying $55 for a steak, it should be at least CLOSE to what I ordered. When the waiter came by and asked how everything was I said "Look I absolutely hate to do this, but this is not cooked enough, would you mind throwing it back on the grill for a few minutes. That dude like didn't talk to us for the rest of our time in Morton's (we were pretty young, like 22 I think, but we look young). He didn't even refill our wine glasses when we ordered a bottle of wine (one of those places that takes your bottle from the table) and didn't offer us dessert. Again, I politely asked the manager to come to the table and explained the situation to him and the fact that I wouldn't expect our waiter to give us the cold shoulder for the rest of the meal because I asked him nicely to cook my steak a little longer. The manager said the whole meal was on him. Obviously, I accepted.

We are NEVER rude to a server and I always tip more than 20% at a nice restaurant like the above places if the service is decent, but I will more than happily accept something if stuff is really fricked up like that.

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But seriously, owners and managers say they want to hear from the customer, but they really don't.

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it is easy for people who work in customer service to get jaded because so many people complain about shite that really isn't a problem or make up stuff to get something for free. but good management always wants to know if there is a real problem.

i recently had an excellent experience contacting a manager. I had a horrible service experience, as did the people around me. I sent a long email to management, outlining all of the problems I had, as well as the problems I observed around me. The next morning, I received a phone call from the manager. He apologized profusely, and thanked me for all of the feedback. I declined free stuff but he insisted on mailing vouchers anyway. And told me to introduce myself next time i visited.

i went again a week later, and the manager I spoke with on the phone happen to walk by. I did as he had asked, and introduced myself. I hadn't brought the vouchers, because I didn't really want anything for free. When we went to leave, we learned that he had comped our food and drinks.

He did a great job handling the situation, I thought; and i will be a loyal customer because of it.

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ETA: I think the server messed up every aspect of the service, and became confrontational at several points in the service when we informed him when things weren't right.

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I'll never understand waitstaff that does this. You're in the business to please the customer. I've had this happen and was wowed

You are awesome and hilarious! You probably wrecked his life!!

I just wouldn't go back

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I just wouldn't go back

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That's what most do and I don't really agree with it. Everybody makes mistakes and for the volume a lot of places do mistakes are going to happen.

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I want to hear about issues that my guests have. I am quick to educate them on why they need to bring it up immediately in the restaurant. I get so many people trying to scam me that I have to spend a few minutes just trying to verify if it is legit before we get to the issue. Being able to put eyes on the problem is a big plus as well. I do believe that a lot of people are afraid of the "confrontation" with the manager and would rather do it afterwards.

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Jmarto1, this isn't directed at you personally, but you inspired it. Here it goes:


I don't speak up, because like most customers, I'm not under the illusion that my speaking up will actually change anything. And it's not worth the potential hassle.

First off, speaking up distracts from the entire dining experience. "Are the waiters talking about me?" "Will they mess with my food?"

Second, speaking up never makes things better in that moment, when it matters. Free drinks and desserts just prolong the agony. Or maybe a 50% off your next visit card. I don't care about next time, I care about now.

Third, it's not my job as the customer to train the fricking waitstaff.

If the waiter can't offer basic service, why oh why should I expect the person that trained them to be any better? Face it, a lot of managers were once poorly trained waiters.

To me, shite service is a big flashing red light that is telling me to get out as quickly as I can, without incident, and without leaving a tip. That's the safe and best route.

There are plenty of restaurant fishes in the sea. I got 99 problems, but a poor server ain't one. I won't allow it to be. It tain't worth it. Not for me.

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I hate that dumb arse lawsuits make me have to cover my arse and keep people longer than I want to.

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Tell me about this. Why should you have to keep people on longer than you want to?

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Let me tell you, it isn't about the training. You just can't make some people want to do better.

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I feel your pain. More training may not be the solution. But like most restaurant problems, increasing sales is often the the solution. Increased sales means increased tips. A busy restaurant is a great motivator. It's also a waitstaff magnet.

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Cold beer, cold oysters, and a nice bourbon list can still make for a decent meal.

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No it can't. Especially not at Bourbon House.

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Had a bad waiter tell me to shove the fried fish up my arse after I pointed out I had ordered grilled fish. I still tipped him very well because I thought he had some balls to say that to me.

Of course me pointing out "hey dickhead, I ordered grilled fish not fried fish." pretty much gave him just cause

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Yeah I can see that.

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I can frick with a bad waiter just as much as he can frick with me and sometimes that's just as fun

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Hell, if I ever saw the SOB maybe so. I don't know if he had 18 tables on the opposite side of the restaurant or what, but dude wasn't easy to find.

This is why waiters have grouped tables. This guy was obviously taking a table outside of his section and sucking at it.