Peeve week, day 4: Restaurants.
Since so many people had something to say about the grocery store issue, I figure why not another ubiquitous annoyance that you might want to get off your chest, and that is going out for dinner (or any meal). It’s not the eating out itself that annoys, it is the people at the place you eat. Particularly problematic for the misanthropes among us.
My complaints focus evenly on the patrons and employees of restaurants. Most obvious is the bad servers, the ones who make you wait 10 minutes for your water and another 30 minutes for your iced tea and oh yes, “the bread will be out soon.” It is wrong to make hungry people wait for delicious hot bread on which to slather butter, which they’ll eat three gigantic pieces of and thus ruin their appetite.
Then you have the servers who want to be your new best friend but not by learning everything about your life. No, they want to stand there and tell you things about their lives that you wouldn’t even care about if they were paying you. The last time Rupert and I ate at Razzoo’s, our waitress thought we’d be interested to know in exacting detail about the time she fell against a wall and hurt her back, as well as the entire recovery process and her current feelings about the whole event. Yes dear. Cakehole gets closed now. Bring me fried pickles.
The downright rude-bastard servers are a whole other issue and they are very complicated to deal with, because they have access to your food when you can’t see it. You can’t be an asshole to them when they deserve it without taking your own stomach in your hands and it’s simply not fair. In some cases, you can’t even simply have them replaced for the rest of your meal without risk. If they have access to the kitchen, they have access to your food, period. Best to either just put up with the rudeness or leave without eating anything.
But in all my experience eating at restaurants, the most piss-offing thing of all has been the other customers. You know what I’m talking about: people at other tables who stare at you while you eat, the huge party groups that make tons of noise, and so on but most especially of all, the people who don’t wrangle their children.
If I knew it wouldn’t give them actual brain damage for which to sue me, I would make it my mission in life to stick my foot out and trip every single child I ever saw who was running through a public place that is not called Disneyland or Chuck-E-Cheez. Even then sometimes. Some places, it’s not that big of a deal, but a restaurant? Yes, it is a big deal. Why anyone would want to make dozens of other people completely loathe and want to kill your child is beyond me, but if that’s your goal, then by all means let them run around a restaurant. It helps if they scream at the same time.
Now if you will excuse me, this post has reminded me of food and I have to go see if I have any more chicken pot pies. Don’t judge me for my un-healthful diet - those things are freakin’ delicious.
Marie Callender’s pot pies are the best store-bought I’ve ever had.
July 31st, 2008 at 1:44 pmESTI’ve always said that if I could stand people (which I can’t, very well), I would open up an Adults Only restaurant.
July 31st, 2008 at 1:46 pmESTIn that restaurant I would have a cell phone zapper, a policy of “shush, loudmouth”, and an absolute ban on buffets.
I figure I wouldn’t be the only one attracted to such a place!
First rule of dining out:
Don’t screw with the people who handle or prepare your food.
As for children , Why should I have to put up with anyones inabillity to control their child, while I pay out the nose for the chance to eat out?
Hell you could trip my kid if he was acting up and i did nothing.
July 31st, 2008 at 1:48 pmESTOk, obviously you need to move or something. I go out to eat all the time here and I just don’t have these problems. I’m beginning to suspect that Texas is simply more full of obnoxious folks than Louisiana…
July 31st, 2008 at 1:53 pmESTIt’s the people who bring their infants or babies that annoy the fuck out of me. I go to a restaurant in order to eat food while enjoying conversation with friends or perhaps read a newspaper, magazine, or a good book. I do not go to a restaurant in order to hear the piercing wail of your carpet shark mere feet from my unprotected eardrum.
Also, last time I went to a restaurant some moron thought it would be a good time to select a new ring tone for their cellphone. Again, not cool.
July 31st, 2008 at 1:59 pmESTLittle more than 10 years ago, I worked part-time at a restaurant in order to save up money for a cruise to Alaska. Granted it was a “family restaurant” (Walker Brothers Pancake House in Wilmette, Illinois - hmm, yummy) but still.
It doesn’t mean your kids can scream at the top of their lungs for your attention and you can’t be troubled enough to pause your conversation with your friend long enough to attend to them.
It also doesn’t mean said kids can reenact D-Day on the restaurant floor, using Cheerios for the sands of the Normandy beaches and sausage links as Allied Troops. It’s disgusting and takes forever to clean up and get ready for the next batch of Brats … err, “Little Angels”.
If you didn’t want to be inconvenienced, Ladies (and sorry, but it’s always the women who allow their children to act like maniacs), then buy an Hermes handbag. It won’t scream and ruin others’ meals, it won’t constantly interrupt your convo with your BFF, and it will cost you far less (financially and psychologically) in the long run than a child you seem to wish to avoid parenting!
July 31st, 2008 at 2:03 pmESTIn the DC area, there are relatively few buffets, and the other diners are generally not too bad. I can only assume this is because they get it all out of their systems while riding the Metro. That, and– at least in this particular corner of the DC area– everyone is either military/DOD/science policy, or deals with the kind of finance where you have to have table manners.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:03 pmESTPete in Midland:
My Dad asked me if I wanted an iPhone for my recent birthday. I told him “No, thank you” as the monthly charges on the 3G were too rich for my blood.
I told him, however, to feel free to buy me a cellphone zapper. Know where I can get one?
July 31st, 2008 at 2:05 pmESTMy wife and I often dine out with our 10 year old, who believe it or not is very well behaved, he should be as we’ve been working on him since he was 2 years old.
We were just being sitted at South City Kitchen when another of the patrons walked up to our table and announced -
“I’m not paying for an expensive dinner to be ruined by children”
My response was -
“Neither am I, so hows about shutting up and sitting down at your own damn table”
July 31st, 2008 at 2:06 pmESTMy wife and I went out for lunch once to a place where the waitress was waaayyy too friendly. She quite literally tried to shove a leafy green vegetable into my mouth. What’s worse (as if it needed to be worse), it wasn’t actually part of the meal. It came as a garnish with the plate of mozzarella sticks. Definite boundary issues there.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:07 pmESTthis gonna be in caps, so beware:
WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK IS UP WITH KIDS INSIDE THE BAR?????!!!!!???
AAAAAGGHHGGHHH!!
that is thing that’s pissing me off the MOST nowadays. I go to the bar to be with ADULTS to have a nice time with my ADULT friends.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:08 pmESTTolbert: Please do not think I wouldn’t welcome a well behaved child like yours when I go out. I like kids, just not when they are bratty but, even then, I like them more than their jerk parents. That jackass was way out-of-line!
July 31st, 2008 at 2:09 pmESTAnd what about the servers to whom everything is “Awesome!“? At one restaurant about a year ago my wife finally felt compelled to ask the lad, “Uh — why is everything awesome?” [No answer, of course.] WHERE and WHY did this word become so ingrained into the vocabulary of Gen-Y? Answers, anyone??
July 31st, 2008 at 2:10 pmESTHeard this on the radio this morning.
NEW BOOK RELEASED:
“SECRET SERVICE — THE WAITER GETS MAD - AND GETS EVEN”
I have also read his waiter rant blog.
… and I was a waitress when I was a CNA (needed 2 jobs to care for the baby). Saw many nasties, my friends. This guy’s blog is the real deal when you piss off the person bringing your food, believe me!
I don’t care to eat out, much … and you won’t after this, either.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:13 pmESTPeople who let their children run around in restaurants are fools. If they can’t have consideration for other diners (which apparently they can’t), they could at least display some concern for their own offspring.
Children running around restaurants are just begging to trip up servers carrying trays of hot food and heavy dishes. I’m amazed burns and other injuries don’t happen more often.
It astonishes me how some people can be paranoid about germs on restaurant highchairs and obsess over ever morsel that enters their child’s mouth, YET they overlook clear potential for accidents.
As for asshat servers, I grin and bear it then punish them via the tip.
Excellent service: 20%+
July 31st, 2008 at 2:13 pmESTAverage service: 15%
Crap service: 10% or even less, if it’s truly awful.
I really hate it when they sing happy birthday or whatever to a table. I was at Famous Dave’s awhile back and all they did was bang pots and make as much noise as possible. grrrr.
Don’t even get me started on little bastards running around, screaming, and throwing things. People need to control their spawn or leave them at home. I don’t care if you want ot go out, get a fucking babysitter or make certain that your little critter behaves. Or leave.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:13 pmESTStouffer’s Lasagna is perhaps the best frozen food on the planet.
I come here for the dog pictures.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:19 pmESTHow about a picture of a dog doing something that is a peeve? That would fit the theme of the week.
so now that I got my rant off my chest, I’ll respond to thise awesome suggestion:
Pete: I would TOTALLY go to your quiet, adult only restaurant. And you know cell phone zappers and illegal, but man o man do i want one!
My most recent trip out to dinner involved a large family right next to us, and they (parents AND children) were so loud I was having trouble hearing Hubby on the other side of me. Their problem was that not only were the kids yelling and the parents didn’t do anything about them, but the parents were just as loud and annoying! The dad kept making really loud baby noises to the baby (who was actually pretty quiet) and the mom was talking loudly to dad (and maybe another adult, I didn’t see) and the two kids of ages that should know better, were yelling at each other and at the parents for attention. Good times.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:19 pmESToh yeah: I would never pre-emptively yell at a parent for the crime of having a child in a restaurant (pricey or not). I would definitely wait until the child misbehaved, then I’d have some problems. But since I am completely passive-aggressive, I wouldn’t actually do anything, I’d prolly just complain to hubby.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:26 pmESTLet me know when peeves week hits the workplace. Had my midyear yesterday. Have a few comments that need airing.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:28 pmESTI have a line that tends to get parents of screeching house-apes to gather their spawn closely and make them shut up:
“Madam (or Sir), your child requires oiling; it squeaks!”
- of course they think I’m some kind of dangerous nut, but I don’t mind THAT.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:30 pmESTAnd other pet peeve I’ve got is not exclusively related to restaurants, but public places in general: I have a normal sized personal space bubble, not overly large like no one can come within 20 feet of me, just normal.
So I’m having coffee at the coffee counter at the campus bookstore, and there’s maybe 10-15 cafe tables to sit at there. Me and (not yet, at that point) Hubby are sitting at one of the tables while the rest were totally empty (must have been during class). Another group of three people (not students, adults) get their coffee and sit down SO CLOSE TO ME ONE IS BUMPING MY CHAIR. The fucking place is empty. It was at this point that Hubby came up with a tactic for this: “the inappropriate conversation.” When people are so close to you they can (and probably are trying to) hear everything you say, just talk about your scabies treatment or the bad diarrhea you still have. Haven’t tried it yet, and would have on the familiy in my story up above but they prolly wouldn’t have heard me.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:33 pmESTI may be a bit guilty of the staring bit, but I try not to watch people when they’re actually eating. I have no one to go to restaurants with me most of the time, and when I go after work I lack a book. So I people-watch to entertain myself.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:33 pmESToh yeah: carpet shark is the best word ever!! first time I’ve heard it.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:34 pmESTBy restaurant I assume you mean the sit down and dine type, not Mickey D’s and the like. I don’t consider fast-food places to be restaurants, they’re places you go to choke down sustenance, not dine out. I try to always get carry-out at Burger King, McDonald’s, Hardee’s and that type of place so I don’t have to put up with the obnoxiousness of nearly every other person in the place.
When I go to a restaurant I will put up with just so much until I respond and I have been known to walk out before the food comes because it just isn’t worth it to eat there. My wife and I went to Pizza Hut once and we were there so long without a waitress even offering to give us a menu I called the delivery number on my cell phone and proceeded to order a pizza for delivery in their dining room. A waitress was there before I hung up the phone. I don’t know what would happen now with their phone orders being sent to India or someplace for processing, they would probably deliver the pizza and then charge extra for delivery.
The absolute worst service is always at places that include a gratuity in the price on the check. Servers have no incentive to give good service, they know what they will be getting whatever they do.
The funniest irritating restaurant incident I ever witnessed happened a couple of years ago. I live in a small town and my wife and I were in one of our towns few nice places to eat and the police chief, a woman and not in uniform, was a few tables over. A couple was sitting close by and the guy was bragging about his martial arts skills and how no one dared confront him because he could take anyone who dared. He said something that perked the chief’s ears up and she left the room for a minute and came back and asked the guy to stand up and proceeded to cuff him, which she did with a minimum of fuss. The chief got a round of applause when the cuffs went on. Seems he had a warrant in the county next to us and he picked the wrong place to brag about his exploits.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:39 pmESTAmen to all of above re: Doting mommies (and daddies) thinking a restaurant is a playground with meals. BTW, should you glare at the little monster(s), the parents look at you with an outraged “what sort of inhuman person are you? Don’t you like little children?” sort of look. Well, um, no, not any more.
Reminds me of the story about Tallulah Bankhead ( or Dorothy Parker, maybe) having to endure the company of a woman with a particularly bratty and obstreperous kid. The mother said, smiling fondly, “I swear I just don’t know what to make of him!” And Tallulah said, “How about a nice rug?”
July 31st, 2008 at 2:39 pmESTI hate being in a restaurant with other people’s noisy children, so I can be a bit harsh with the kids if we’re out and they misbehave.
When we take our brood out we try to sit outside on the patio and far away from others whenever possible. Clean up for what the baby drops is easier, although she is getting better and we tip VERY WELL since we know that clean up can be an issue. And the Boy has a tendency to talk loudly, which we are always trying to curb. The girls (all teen or pre-teen) behave very well in restaurants, but can get extremely loud when traveling in the SUV.
What is it with kids and voice levels??
Baby is actually the quietest, except when the sibs are engaging her in a screeching contest. That NEVER happens out, as I would go ballistic and they know it.
I hate buffets if DH and I are out by ourselves - I want someone to take my order and bring me food. But it’s great when you have many-many children.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:44 pmESTI hate it when I can’t talk to my wife or whomever I am with at a restaurant without yelling.
I hate kids running around like brats.
I hate waiters who want to talk to me or my kids in baby talk.
What bugs me the most is when we are done eating, they have taken our plates, we’ve turned down desert and are ready to go, and you can’t find them to bring you the check?
My son has Downs and I swear he is better behaved than 90% of the kids in the world. When we go to a restaurant he sits there, orders his food and eats it. He doesn’t scream, he doesn’t want to get up and run around.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:49 pmESTIf he can figure out how to act responsible, what the hell is the problem with all the other rug rats of the world.
Oh, I’ve SO got to agree with you on this one. How can parents sit next to a shrieking child, and (pretend not to?) notice the noise.
Take him/her outside and DEAL with it. Hint: spanking, done as discipline and not out of anger … WORKS.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:50 pmESTI can’t stand eating out anymore. When I was a young kid and my mom and dad took me out to dinner, it was EXPECTED that I sat down calmly and STFU and didn’t run around like a bat out of hell.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:52 pmESTNow I go to restaurants and kids are dashing through the aisles tripping up waiters and wailing at the top of their lungs. I just want to scream at the parents, “Do something about your damn child!”
Living here in Las Vegas, I think I’ve become quite spoiled when it comes to restaurants. This town is such a service-oriented economy with so much competition that it seems that service in restaurants and bars is much better than many other places around the country, with the exception of down south (where everyone just has better manners, it seems).
But I f*cking hate ill-behaved kids in restaurants, and I don’t mind calling out ignorant parents when the need arises.
The best solution to the problem is to avoid places that bill themselves as “family-friendly”. Besides, the food is much better at places that don’t offer kids meals.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:54 pmESTHere’s my take: If you can’t afford a babysitter, what the hell are you doing eating out in an expensive restaurant?
Werd.
July 31st, 2008 at 3:03 pmESTThe day before my sister’s wedding we went out to lunch with our mother. When my proud momma mentioned to the waitress that my sis was getting married the next day, this head case of a server proceeded to tell us all about her failed marriage while quivering with suppressed tears for about 15 minutes straight.
Now I’m not some inhuman monster, but really what adult person would think this is appropriate? Especially to someone who is getting married the next day?!
It was only the thought of this obviously unstable person offing herself (well that and spit free chicken salad) that kept me from saying, “I can see why he left you, crazy lady.”
July 31st, 2008 at 3:04 pmESTA good rule of thumb should be that if your children do not know how to behave eating at your table, they should not, under any circumstances be allowed to eat out in public. I have had “dinner nights” with my daughters so that they would learn proper etiquette while dining. Simple things like–don’t be loud, be mindful of others, keep your arse in the chair until you have asked the head of the household if you may be excused (and given permission to do so)….It seems weird sometimes, but trust me, out in public it’s worth it.
We just got done packing and cleaning out the house for a move, so naturally had to eat out almost every night. My peeve? The slow blinking family that is inevitably in front of us when ordering. Can they not read the menu from more than a foot away? Then, after ordering (”no, make that ummm…no, nevermind”) they stroll down to get their beverage and then have to recon the entire place for a place to sit. And, inevitably as they start to veer to a place to the right of you and you head left…they CHANGE THEIR MIND and you almost run them over. AAAARRRRGHHHH
July 31st, 2008 at 3:05 pmESTHubby hates eating out. He’s got serious issues with being out in public - especially without his gun.
But when we do we’d rather not have to yell to hear each other.
I hate kids in the grocery stores who don’t behave. If the parents don’t do anything I will stare at the kid and shake my head. It seems to usually freak them out, but sometimes they’re such little devils that they think it’s funny.
July 31st, 2008 at 3:05 pmESTI was out with my 8-year-old daughter to celebrate her good grades, and we were by a couple and their obnoxious 10-ish son. My daughter gave him a disgusted look and said, “His parents didn’t teach him any manners. Maybe they didn’t spank him when he was younger.” Heh. That’s my girl.
July 31st, 2008 at 3:05 pmESTWoo hoo, Tolbert! Good on ya.
I wonder if it might be more fun, if you could get a recalcitrant child close enough, to rub butter or something in his hair and send him back to mommy, rather than tripping them. It would only work if mommy wasn’t able to see you, but still. The mental image makes me smile.
July 31st, 2008 at 3:16 pmESTHow about the way restaurants require their employees to answer the phone with a preprogrammed script?…like this (spoken in a slurred monotone): “Thank you for calling Snarfer’s Steakhouse, my name is Linda, how may I assist your fine dining plans today?”
July 31st, 2008 at 3:21 pmESTUhhhmm, I’d avoid the wafer thin mint if I were you …
July 31st, 2008 at 3:21 pmESTWhen other customers demand the lion’s share of a server’s time and patience it sometimes pisses me off. Especially with stupid ass questions intended to demonstrate their cosmopolitan side or their gastro-expertise. I most recently encountered that at a fucking Bravo. Asking things like “which slope were the grapes grown on” and some other pretentious shit while my kids were waiting on their pizza. Just where do some of these people think they’re eating? I think they enjoy stumping the bartender. I think it is fucking rude. But if the place serves pizza, it most likely isn’t a five star restaurant and the server does not give a fuck about you and your pseudosommelier bullshit.
I also hate it when little brats run around like little whirling dervishes.
We were eating at a family style Italian place one Christmas Eve. Maggiano’s. Everything went great until the kids from another table decided to play tag. My wife and I held the reigns on our two kids (1 1/2 and 3 at the time) until one of our family said it was ok to run around and play with the little brats. I guess they figured Christmas Eve or whatever, but they don’t eat out with us every week. We had a few questionable outings for a short while thereafter. When one of our kids acted up, one parent took both of the kids to the car, the other paid for what we had been served and tried to get it boxed, then we left. Then we disciplined the kids as we saw fit. Spanking, time out, whatever. We told them that they need to show respect for others while in public. Whether that is what they learned and understand and why they behave, who really cares. They just do. Knowledge, understanding, wisdom. For now, they know that they need to behave in public. They’ll understand why sooner or later. Eventually, we hope, they’ll be wise enough to do it while no one is looking.
July 31st, 2008 at 3:24 pmESTDon the Rebel — with due respect, you are ever-so-wrong. Willowtree, all the way
July 31st, 2008 at 3:25 pmESTOne of my worst restaurant experiences was after the lunch rush at a TGI Friday’s. The waitress, who had recently given birth to twins, was deeply involved in conversation at a neighboring table with two women, both of whom had also given birth to twins in the last few months. There was no chance of even pretending to not hear their conversation. I’m not particularly squeamish about discussion of bodily functions at the dinner table, and I could usually talk for hours about breasts, but I’m afraid an in-depth 20 minute discussion of the trials and tribulations of breast feeding twins was more than my appetite could stand. The only plus to the whole situation was that none of the women had their rug rats with them. On top of having to listen to all that, the waitress was oblivious to the fact that we’d been waiting all that time for her to come get our drink order.
July 31st, 2008 at 3:31 pmESTOkay, this is my kind of topic. I worked at the busiest restaurant in my little town for 6 1/2 years and still wait tables part time at a local sports bar. Here’s a few pet peeves of mine as a server:
-You see a customer with a drink that is getting a little low, so you walk up and grab his drink to take it back to the server station to refill it. But before I can get away from the table with his drink, another guy at the table will say “hold on” and will proceed to chug the hell out of his full glass of tea so I can go refill it for him too.
-Customers on their cell phones. During a lunch rush I had a single guy come sit at my table while talking on his cell phone. I walked up to try to get his drink order while I had the time. Instead of understanding this and just saying “I’ll take a coke”, he literally put his hand up and in my face as if to say “hold on, asshole, I’m on the phone”. I just calmly walked away and left him sitting there until I had absolutely NOTHING else left to do, then I went to get his drink order. He had the nerve to make a comment about waiting too long and I said “well, you were apparently on the most important phone call in the world, so I didn’t want to disturb you.”
-Indian women (feathers, not dots). I don’t know how Indians have it in other parts of the country, but here the Seminole Indians are rich as fuck. Not only do they get extra benefits from the state, but the whole tribe distributes the money that they make from the various casinos. So they get a check for a few thousand dollars PER CHILD each month, so suffice it to say it’s a common understanding around these parts that Indians have about thirteen kids each. The problem is, we would always get a group of them come in and it would be two fat Indian women with about nine kids between the two, and the women would just sit at the end of the table and let their kids run all over the fucking restaurant, making messes, shooting spitballs, and throwing drinks at each other. The mothers didn’t care…hell, I’m not even sure that they knew all of the kids’ names. And with all that money they have (without working for it), they leave about six bucks for the ten of them. (By the way, don’t say I’m being politically incorrect by calling them Indian and not Native-American…I have a few Seminole friends and they call themselves Indian. The big sign on the highway says “Seminole Indian Reservation, Next Right” and they have “Indian Rodeo Festivals”, etc…so screw being politically correct. Besides, I’m not a politician.)
-Little old ladies who whip out their calculator to get the exact percentage for a tip. When they do that, you know it’s going to be a crap tip, because even if it is the standard percentage, you most likely had to give above-standard service because she wants you to close the vents because she’s cold (even though it’s July in South Florida) and she wants her decaf coffee boiling lava hot.
-People who try to get you to give them free shit. They’ll complain because they can only get fries with their burger and they’re not allowed to substitute them for jalepeno poppers (even though they’re twice the price), so when you tell them you can’t they say “Just let me have them…it’s only two bucks, nobody will know”. You want to say “motherfucker, if it’s only two bucks then just pay it and shut up” which is exactly what I say, only without the MF-er. That or they’ll bitch and moan the entire time about the food and drinks with the hope that you’ll give them free shit (which never worked on me), yet when they get to the cash register to pay the bill and the cashier asks how everything was, they say “fine”. There was nothing wrong in the first place, they just wanted to get free shit.
-Guys who worked for the local sugar company (which is the biggest sugar company in the country, that is until they sold it out from under our noses to Charlie Crist to save the goddamn Everglades). I didn’t mind the guys who did the actual physical labor out in the cane fields or worked on the equipment, what I hated were the little douche-bags who worked in the offices and thought they were hot shit because they wear a tie to work and I was apparently some yokel who worked at a BBQ joint, when in actuality I probably made more money than they did. That didn’t keep them from looking down their noses at us though. Then I would run into them somewhere up town and they would recognize me and try to be friendly and I would give them an “eat shit, motherfucker, you don’t know me” look.
-The place I worked at was a Sonny’s BBQ. So I hated people who would come in, order ribs, and complain because they weren’t seasoned and weren’t as good as the ribs they make at home. Every once in a while I would get fed up with it and say “Look man, if we did season the ribs, you would probably just bitch about which seasoning we use, so we don’t put any at all on there. If you don’t like it, go eat your unbeatable ribs at home”.
-People who don’t even look at the menu and instead ask a million times if we have a certain dish, rather than just open the damn menu and read it for two minutes. One time these two yankee guys came in in their little suit and ties and when it came time to order their sides, one guy just started naming off shit. He said “I’ll have black-eyed peas” to which I would tell him “sorry, we don’t have those”. Then he would try to order beans and cornbread, collard greens, etc. When I told him we don’t have those either, he became a smartass and said “Hell, you don’t have any of that stuff? I thought we were in the south”. I said “Yeah, but you’re in a BBQ joint, we have baked beans and cole slaw. If you want collard greens and black-eyed peas, take your ass to a Cracker Barrell”
-People who abuse “all-you-can-eat” specials. Everybody in the free world knows if you order an all-u-can-eat, you can’t get a bunch of re-orders and then take them home in a to-go box. Still, every single day we would have somebody get pissed off and sometimes try to get out of paying their bill because they piled their plate up with ribs and we wouldn’t let them take them home. Then they’d try to be slick and say shit like “Well, what are you going to do, just throw them away? Go ahead and let me have them then”. The owner would usually tell them “Okay, you don’t have to pay the bill, but get the fuck out of my restaurant and don’t ever bring your cheap ass back in here again”. Our owner was the shit.
-But the absolute WORST is guys who come in and expect to have a pretty girl wait on them (I’m a guy, in case you couldn’t tell). These are the same loser guys who would tip the hell out of a girl just because they thought it would get them a shot at hitting that. That’s the reason why even though I worked circles around the girls, they wouuld always make more money than me. Anyways, it happened all the time. One time in particular we were busy as hell and I got a table of a few mullet-headed guys. I walked up and said “What’s up guys, my name is Jesse. What’ll you have to drink?” and before I could even finish they say “All these pretty girls in here and we had to get a big ol’ guy like you? We want the blonde.” So I go to “the blonde” and ask her if she wants to take them. She didn’t have time, so I go back to them real pissed off and say “The little blonde doesn’t have time to wait on you, so what will it be?”, my voice dripping with disdain. They got all apologetic and told me they were just kidding, and I said “Look man, I hear that shit all the time. I’m here to make a living like anybody else and I don’t need that shit. What does it matter if a woman waits on you or not? Do you want to eat or do you want to fuck? If you want to fuck, you’re in the wrong place”. They apologized and gave me like a fifteen dollar tip. That was a rare ending to that situation though, normally they wouldn’t tip shit.
But with all that being said, I can honestly say in my almost seven years there, I never saw ANYBODY mess with somebody’s food, EVER. I know they do at some places, but we never did. The guy who owned the place worked his ass off for fifteen years to make it the best place in town to eat, and he would have personally beat the shit out of anybody caught doing that.
The point is, know how to treat people and you’ll be fine. If the food takes a long time, don’t automatically blame the server…most of the time it’s because the kitchen is running slow or screwed something up. Don’t act like as soon as you enter a restaurant you suddenly forgot all about how to have manners and treat people with respect. And don’t act like just because you’re spending ten bucks on a plate of food that you own the server’s ass and they have to do every little thing you can think to tell them to do.
July 31st, 2008 at 3:36 pmESTThe thing I actually hate most is background music. It’s inevitable that if a restaurant is playing background music, it’s irritating and stupid and makes me want to stab my ears with a screwdriver. No kidding. I don’t know who the heck chooses that music, in fact, I don’t know who even pays for that music to be made, because is there anybody who even LIKES it? Of course not. I’d like to burn down the studios that let people record the kind of music that is played in many restaurants.
And even if the music is only half bad, it’ll be turned out way too loud. I’m at a restaurant for a social experience, to eat AND talk with friends or with my fiance. Yelling to them isn’t very much fun (or romantic). Yelling over crappy music is even worse.
And who even listens to the crap-music? Nobody. So why bother having it? It only creates a hostile atmosphere.
(Fortunately, I don’t mind kids running around too much, if it’s not a fancy restaurant. They’re so darned cute. Unless they’re not being cute, then I don’t like them, or more don’t like their parents.)
July 31st, 2008 at 4:02 pmEST“Now if you will excuse me, this post has reminded me of food and I have to go see if I have any more chicken pot pies. Don’t judge me for my un-healthful diet - those things are freakin’ delicious.”
I love pies myself, but I take issue with restaurants that call their chicken-stew-in-a-ceramic-bowl-with-only-a-thin-crust-on-top a “chicken pot pie”. It’s not a PIE, damn it, unless there’s crust on the bottom, all along the sides and the top. I agree with Don, the Rebel without a Blog, regarding store bought Marie Callendar’s pies.
July 31st, 2008 at 4:06 pmEST“Bring Me Fried Pickles.”
July 31st, 2008 at 4:21 pmESTThese are probably the same parents that would take their 4 year olds to see R rated movies, like Freddy vs Jason.
July 31st, 2008 at 4:24 pmESTLangtyry …. http://www.cell-phone-jammers.com/
July 31st, 2008 at 4:27 pmESTLoud, noisy tables get right up my nose.
Would you guys just SHUT.THE.FUCK.UP?
July 31st, 2008 at 4:41 pmESTA couple years ago, my wife and I were at a restaurant in Dallas, some local mom and pop place. The waitress was making small talk when out of nowhere she asked us what to do about a yeast infection. I shit you not.
July 31st, 2008 at 4:41 pmESTRachel, new to your blog but Love It! One of my pet peeves is women (and they always are women) who talk about how someone is “attacking” them. Attacking is 9/11. Questioning, or, God forbid, critizing one’s choice in men, asking if she’s going to work today, or stating an opinion different than hers…that’s not attacking.
July 31st, 2008 at 4:43 pmESTI only eat at restaurants that don’t employ illegal aliens. So mostly I eat at home.
July 31st, 2008 at 4:43 pmESTFirst, because I didn’t believe RCHL, Deep Fried Pickles, and I shit you not.
Gross out time, based on food legends/facts.
No joke. Don’t read if you’re squeamish.
Food and *ahem* …
Remember this?
July 31st, 2008 at 4:52 pmESTI have five kids. What is this “eating out” of which you speak?
July 31st, 2008 at 4:54 pmESTFried Pickles are disgusting.
Worse then out of line kids, are kids who are semi-annoying, and mothers who yank on their kids body parts and use loudly use profanity, over and over again, trying to get their kids to “shut their god damn mouth”
July 31st, 2008 at 4:55 pmESTOh Christ YES that makes me pissy. So do the assholes who are walking BY your table and feel they are entitled to stare-stare-stare at your food as they pass sloooooowly. That’s just RUDE. Don’t they know that?
July 31st, 2008 at 5:05 pmESTDitto. I have three children. The youngest is two years old and an absolute maniac. We don’t eat out anymore.
My oldest was a freak of nature and at 10 months of age would wait 45 minutes for a table and still sit and eat quietly. I got fooled into thinking all my children would behave that way. Didn’t happen.
July 31st, 2008 at 5:06 pmESTJesse-
July 31st, 2008 at 5:29 pmESTBesides being exposed to the scabrous underbelly of human nature, you are also a victim of location: South Florida is THE rudest, most in-your-face obnoxious area it has been my misfortune to reside. Add the Fiery Pits of Hell climate to the odious results of incredibly overindulgent parenting (manners–like turn signals–are for the benefit of other people, so no one bothers with them), and be amazed at how many reasons you can come up with not to leave home.
Tolbert: big tip of the hat to your restraint there!
Geeze… Cracker Barrel? You guys are so spoiled. Washington state won’t be getting one any year soon.
Great food, great service.
July 31st, 2008 at 5:45 pmESTDeborah: Thank you for reminding me of the stupid restaurant music! Part of the reason I don’t enjoy going out a lot of times is because the place has music playing. But then people still want to talk, so they have to go above the music, and then other people have to go above the other people talking to be heard, and it just escalates. Pretty soon you can’t talk without yelling and you have a headache.
July 31st, 2008 at 5:52 pmESTThat got a LOL from me.
July 31st, 2008 at 5:54 pmESTYou know it’s funny, I hear people complain about restaurants all the time, but their complaints never seem to resonate with me. Maybe I’m more forgiving of annoyances because I know what it’s like to work in the food service industry. Maybe I don’t go to the same restaurants as most people. Maybe I’m just lucky. Who knows? But I’ve never found restaurants even half as annoying as most other people seem to.
I’ve had bad/rude service before, but only on very rare occasions (I can only remember two instances off the top of my head). I don’t think I’ve ever had an “annoying” server (at least none like Rachel describes). And as for parents who refuse to wrangle their kids, you build up a pretty strong tolerance for that after about a year of teaching. This is an actual conversation that occurred on a recent date:
Me: “Why do you keep massaging your forehead? Do you have a migraine?”
Date: “No, it’s just the kid in the next booth. He’s driving me nuts.”
Me: “What?”
Date: “The kid? In the next booth? The one who keeps crying and screaming? Everybody in the building can probably hear the little bastard.”
Turns out the correct answer is actually “everybody but me”. The kid was screaming at the top of his lungs and I completely tuned him out.
Funny story. A friend of mine found a creative way around that problem. Whenever he eats out he always insists that he be allowed to go into the kitchen and supervise the cooking to make sure the food is halal (which is like kosher, but for Muslims). The funny thing is, he’s not even a Muslim. He’s a second-generation Indian immigrant. But he looks Arab enough that no one questions it. If they don’t let him do it, he’ll threaten to raise a big ruckus.
Works every time.
July 31st, 2008 at 5:58 pmESTWorst server I ever had was a guy named Antonio in the Friendly’s at Hamilton Mall, Mays Landing NJ. My brother and I liked to make the place a feature of our regular Saturday afternoon Out-n-About experience, until one day when we got Antonio.
Now, my brother and I are sci-fi/comics/D&D fans, and as we’re sitting there waiting for the server, I’m looking at the new D&D sourcebook that I had just purchased at the Waldenbooks upstairs. Antonio sees this, and announces that he plays too. He then proceeds to ramble on for the next fifteen minutes or so about the Live-Action Role-Playing group he’s involved with, where he is a 245th-Level Vampire Lord, rather than the 400-pound putz who stands before us. He yammers on about how feared and respected he is, about the special red contact lenses he has to show people that he isn’t to be messed with, about the dozens of head-sculptures lining the walls of his “throne room” as trophies of his “decapitated enemies”, and about how he’s plotting a hostile takeover and coup-d’etat against the GamesMaster/Referee in order to rule his multi-acre Medieval Kingdom replica with an iron fist.
It’s at this point that the elderly couple at the next table begins to make frequent nervous glances in our direction, probably assuming that we’re delusional at best and genuine blood-drinking satanists at worst. (Admittedly, we were wearing matching black leather trenchcoats, but it gets cold in Jersey.) I just sit there nodding and smiling blandly as Count Dorkula goes on about his palace revolution in Middle Earth because, in addition to the wisdom of not mouthing off to the man who determines the sterility of my silverware, I’m so non-confrontational that I make Deepak Chopra look like Odd Job, and it feels unforgivably rude to give in to my growing desire to tell him “How’s about you shut it and get me my damned grilled cheese sandwich, okay Vampire Lest-fat?”
Antonio vanished from the schedule at Friendly’s within a month, so I guess we weren’t the only unsatisfied customers. The kicker of the story is, he ended up working at Electronics Boutique with our other brother, and eventually the above-described incident was brought up. “Oh, I just made all that stuff up,” he said. “I thought it would make them give me a bigger tip.”
July 31st, 2008 at 6:06 pmESTMadkalnod, I just KNEW that there’d be someone somewhere in the world who was even nerdier than I was.
You found him! THANK YOU!!!
Think he was making it all up? Naah…he knows too much about us geeks to be an outsider.
July 31st, 2008 at 6:17 pmESTMr. Farrington, sir,
He may know about all the inside geek stuff, I just question his ability to actually pull off any of the supposedly “impressive” acheivements with which he padded his nerd resume.
And as for geekier than thou, nobody questions my credentials as Dork Lord of the Sith. Did your First-Level wizard have over 500 spells at his disposal? I thought not. Here’s how you can do it too: http://alternityrpg.net/onlineforums/index.php?showtopic=3492&st=0&#entry64937
Sad, I know, but hopefully good for a laugh.
July 31st, 2008 at 6:30 pmESTI eat out too often for my own good, and have been waited on by too many annoying “servers.” I’m not even sure when “waiters” became “servers.” The ones who try to be friendly are the most annoying. I’ve been out at TGI Fridays, and had a server who asked my friend “and what are you having, bro?” We’re in our mid-20s, but I still expect a server to either say sir (or nothing at all), but definitely not “bro.” I had him get his manager so we could have a new server.
Servers that ask if a (non-alcoholic) drink needs to be refilled. If you even think that my water or tea needs to be refilled, you shouldn’t have to ask me. Just refill it. I don’t want my conversation interrupted to answer and obvious question.
Servers that ask “are you done with that?” They should at least have the courtesy to say “may I take your plate?” Preferably they wouldn’t say anything at all unless I have my silverware across my plate or my napkin on my plate. Otherwise it feels like they’re rushing me.
July 31st, 2008 at 6:33 pmESTRob Farrington & MadKalnod:
You have not know geekiness until you have met my ex-boyfriend, we shall call him, “ubergeek”
Live Action Role Play - check
Star trek fan - check
Anime role play - check
online chat role play - check
World of Warcraft - check
Trading card games (Star Trek, Pokemon) - check
Video games - check
Star Wars fan - check
*shudders* I can’t believe I dated him…
July 31st, 2008 at 6:41 pmESTRE “Jon” at 2:19 PM –
July 31st, 2008 at 6:42 pmESTAbsofreakinglutely — Stouffer’s Lasagna may be the best frozen entree on the planet. Been eating it since 1976 [on occasion]. Jon and I ARE on-topic, by the way.
The reason some parents don’t wrangle their children in restaurants is simply that they don’t want their evening ruined by their bratty kids. If the kids are off somewhere driving everyone else in the place nuts then they’re not disrupting the parents, which, of course, is the most important thing of all.
And you just know that if anyone dared to tell the little darlings to behave themselves they would go sooking back to their parents who would throw a fit that somebody dared to discipline their children.
It makes me want to kill. Not the kids…the parents.
July 31st, 2008 at 7:02 pmESTI have a gross-out poster post that’ll probably be in moderation until THE END OF TIME due to its ickiness …
4:52 p.m. It has fried pickles, in case you want to actually check back later to see what they look like.
They ARE real!
July 31st, 2008 at 7:17 pmESTWhen my son was very small, I wouldn’t take him out to eat. As he got a bit older, we would take him out, but if he acted up either my husband or I would take him outside immediately. He’s now 11 years old, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve taken him to a restaurant just to have the servers comment on how polite my son is. Always with the please, the thank you, and just behaving himself in general.
July 31st, 2008 at 7:19 pmESTMy story is about one of my (and obviously a lot of others) pet peeves but actually has a good ending.
I’m on the road traveling for work and I went to a restaurant in Gurnee Illinois called “In-Laws”. I’m using their name because I want to give them credit for what their waitress did that night. As the group I was with was being being seated we noticed directly across from us a middle-aged couple with two small boys. They weren’t hard to miss, the two boys (who appeared to be about four and six years old) were screaming and running, climbing on the fireplace, stopping at other tables and generally making an absolute and complete nuisance of themselves. Except for the occasional “sit down and eat or you won’t get any ice cream” that came out of the extremely overweight father, it appeared to me that neither of the parents cared what those boys were doing. The mother had the appearance of a tired out and drained working mother and she kept her face buried in her plate and didn’t say a single word while the boys ran wild.
Now, you’ve got to understand I have eight children and I love children, but I DON’T love out-of-control children and their uncaring “I want to be your best buddy instead of your parent” parents. We were getting ready to go somewhere else when out came an older waitress who grabbed one of the little boys that was bothering another couple at a different table. She picked the little boy up around the waist and brought him over to the two adults (you can’t say parents really, although I guess you could say they did they did provide life for the little thing) and said “if you cannot keep your children under control you will have to leave the restaurant!” and she didn’t say it in a kind and gentle voice, it was obvious that she wasn’t messing around!
I was so stunned I almost fell over in my chair. How often do you see anyone, anywhere take action like that?
The whiny parents reacted predictably and said something like “put him down, you have no right to touch him or to talk to us that way, they’re just playing.” I loved it when she responded that “this isn’t a playground it’s a restaurant.” It was great watching them leave with the kids whining the whole way about not getting to eat (they should have been sitting and eating in the first place) and the parents saying “we’ll never come back here!” I would’ve given the waitress $100 if she’d said “oh, hurt me”.
The waitress turned out to be our waitress and she was as kind to us as she was firm with the do-nothing parents. I thanked her for taking action and I made sure that when I left she had a good tip.
July 31st, 2008 at 7:26 pmESTHeh. A guy I knew in college invited me to join one of those once.
In the abstract it seemed interesting, but once I actually saw it there was no getting around the fact that “Live-Action Role-Playing” is really just a bunch of grown men playing pretend.
Also, I am totally stealing “Count Dorkula”.
July 31st, 2008 at 7:58 pmESTParents let their children down from their chairs because the parents don’t want to hear the whining. With my 2 children, they have been taught to not whine at the table and if they do, their reward will not be getting up from the table, it will be a far worse punishment - having to sit there and later at home, get in really big trouble.
We take our children to really nice restaurants and get compliments because our 2 aren’t ruling the roost and acting like spazzoids.
July 31st, 2008 at 8:00 pmESTTrue story.
When I was about 2 or 3 my mom pulled me out of a restaurant and dangled me upside down in the parking lot until I promised to stop screaming.
July 31st, 2008 at 8:00 pmESTI’d just like to go to a restaurant that knew how to cook a fucking steak. MEDIUM. That does not mean glistening, bloody meat.
“Oh, our standard of medium is slightly redder than usual.”
No, that’s rare. Take it back and bring me one that’s pink it the center.
Who trains the cooks? The special workshop? Are they all wearing helmets?
July 31st, 2008 at 9:13 pmESTMy main peeves with restaurants have to do with noise, in various ways.
First: I don’t bleeding-well CARE if it’s the birthday of someone I don’t know, I don’t WANT TO HEAR the staff gathering to sing “Happy Birthday!” That goes double, triple and with horseradish on it when it’s my own birthday—I make a point to keep that news QUIET for just this reason.
Second: Turn the damn background music the hell OFF! I have trouble hearing through background noise as it is, and adding to it doesn’t make things any easier for me! Strange as it may seem, I may want to talk to the people I’m with, who do not know sign alphabet or American Sign Language. In any case, I’m fairly musical, and an easy-listening version of “Anarchy in the UK” makes me want to run amok with a fire ax.
Kids, in general, don’t bother me, but I would prefer they be kept under control, particularly at my preferred Chinese-buffet hangout. When I’m trying to manouver a plate full of food back to my table, having rug-rats skittering around uncontrolled is not something I want to deal with—I could step on them or else trip over them and measure my length on the floor. Even fairly well-behaved under-eights or so should not go up to the buffet themselves.
July 31st, 2008 at 9:26 pmESTA friend offered a rather interesting trick to adjust your waiter’s attitude. When he sits down at the table, he immediately lays out the tip, in quarters. When the wait-person (?!?) inquires, he explains, “that’s your tip, for now. How much of it you keep is up to you”. (He can be a bit demanding, but he says it gets results)
July 31st, 2008 at 9:33 pmESTI think the reason I don’t tolerate unruly carpet shark behavior is because it certainly wasn’t tolerated from me.
Am I the only one old enough to have been remanded to the car for acting up? In either grocery store or restaurant?
‘Course this was back in the days when car seats didn’t exist and riding in rearward-facing seats in the station wagon was a challenge depending on trip distance and duration…
July 31st, 2008 at 9:49 pmESTThat. Explains. Everything.
July 31st, 2008 at 10:15 pmESTThe absolute worst is discovering that members of the kitchen and wait staff have been in your jail and you recognize each other. That means they remember you serving them food and other things that happen in jail. There are of course exceptions, but the people who work in food service where I live typically are either unskilled and new to the workplace or find it’s the only type of work they can get with a criminal record.
July 31st, 2008 at 10:37 pmESTYeah– chicken pot pies. There is nothing better in the food galaxy. As good, yes (Dove chocolate; Chilean Sea Bass…) If anything, they taste even better now than they did as a kid (Morton’s, in those days). But talk about your guilty pleasures! Does one EXIST that contains less than 45 grams of fat?
July 31st, 2008 at 10:49 pmESTturkey pot pie > chicken pot pie.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:30 amESTRob, I’ve had people do that with me every once in a while. I don’t know how it plays out in other places, but it never worked on me. Sometimes they would obviously be kidding when they do it, so I of course will laugh along. But every once in a while you get a person who does that and is dead serious. I used to tell these people “Hey man, if that’s the case you can go ahead and keep that money and I’ll serve you for free (after I’m done taking care of my other customers of course)”. Fortunately, the owner of our restaurat was cool about that sort of thing. Of course he demanded that we be respectful to our customers, but he also demanded that the customers be respectful to his employees. He had no problem with me telling somebody “Look man, I’m a grown-ass man and just because I’m your server doesn’t mean I have to jump through a bunch of damn hoops for you”.
So you’re all welcome to try this tactic and it may very well get results in some places as Rob’s friend says, but my guess is it mostly gets results with pimply-faced seventeen year olds who are afraid of getting fired. On a guy like me who won’t be bossed around (at least not for a damn restaurant job), then that stuff won’t fly.
August 1st, 2008 at 6:47 amESTWhyever would you think that, Jesse? You are a servant, and are paid to STFU and say “how high” on the way up when I command you to “jump”, if you want me to give you a bonus along with the pittance you are receiving from your employer. I am the center of the universe and you will treat me as such. Now dance, little performing monkey, and I will favor you with shillings.
Sheesh.
Daniel:
turkey pot pie > chicken pot pie > beef pot pie
August 1st, 2008 at 7:40 amESTIf my waiter sucks he doesn’t get tipped. Period, end of story.
I also hate restaurants that add the tip automatically. Thanks assholes for removing any incentive for the waiter to give me good service.
I can cook better than 90% of the restaurants I go to anyway. So why go?
August 1st, 2008 at 7:47 amESTDearRachel,
1. Stouffer’s lasagna is outstanding. My wife and I both like it the bestest. Special occasion type food (like when we’re hungery).
2. I have only had one bad restaurant experience that I can recall (and I just turned 54, so that’s saying something) and it happened a couple of years ago at a restaurant here in northern Virginia.
My wife and I went to some event or another and were hungry afterwards, so we went to the restaurant to see if we could still get served. We arrived about 40 minutes prior to the posted closing time, so I asked the manager if it was too late to be served dinner. He assured us it was not, and escorted us to a table. There were very few other people in the retaurant and they were obviously finishing up their meals, so I asked him again if it was too late to get dinner and he said there was plenty of time until the kitchen closed. You can probably guess what came next.
We sat there for about ten minutes before someone came to take our drink order, which came pretty quickly. Then another ten minute wait before the server brought menus, and he walked away even though I said that we knew what we wanted (”I’ll give you some time to look at the menu anyway so you’re sure.”) When he finally came back, we gave him our order, which included an appetizer. The appetizer came out in pretty short order; we ate it and waited for our meals.
About 10 minutes later, a different server came over and told us that the kitchen was closed and we could not get our meal. He had helpfully brought over our bill, which included the meal charges. I asked him where our server was and he said he had gone home.
I asked to see the manager, who had no explanation for what had happened. I left without paying the bill. And the replacement server actually asked for a tip.
I have never gone back.
v/r
August 1st, 2008 at 7:49 amESTmike
The phrase “are you still working on that?” must be banned, especially five minutes after the food is brought out. BANNED. Ask if I’m finished, or if I’d like a box–I’d prefer you to wait until I’ve pushed back and left my knife and fork across the plate, but I guess they don’t teach that in server school anymore–if you must, but I’m not an animal with a feedbag, thank you.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:09 amESTYeah, the “you done with that” line can be aggravating. I was taught to communicate “I’m done with that” by crossing my fork and knife across the upper right area of my plate. And I am a monkeyhumper.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:52 amESTYou can’t call them waiters anymore, because it’s the customers doing all the waiting… and we don’t want to confuse them, eh?
August 1st, 2008 at 9:17 amESTThe only time I want the servers to be friendly is when I am eatng at Hooters. Sure, the place gets a little noisy, but the food is good, there are never any little kids, and the visual effects are great.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:37 amEST14 Karat, I don’t know how serious you are or if you’re being facetious, but if you’re being serious, then I have to disagree with you. Of course if you go to a restaurant and pay for a meal and are expected to tip, then surely you want (and deserve) satisfaction. But that only goes so far. There’s a fine line between demanding your money’s worth and being bossy for the hell of it. In the case I was referring to above, some of those people seem to have some sort of control issue. There’s a not-so-fine line between expecting me to do my job and expecting me to heed to your every whim while you dangle a tip over my head. I’ve seen some otherwise very nice people come into a restaurant and just because they’re paying ten or twelve bucks for a plate of food, they think that 1) they own the server’s ass, and 2) they are the only customer in the restaurant that matters. Those people are often times the ones who receive the worst service. As a server, I looked at it like this: I’ve got an entire section full of customers as well as some tables in another section that I took because that server was too busy; I can either jump through hoops for this one demanding customer (who may in fact just be a cheap ass that still won’t tip) and in the process piss off my other customers who are normal, nice, and patient. Or I can just serve those people the best that I can and please all of them and get to the demanding asshole when I get a chance and piss only him off (which might have been unavoidable to begin with). it’s the same concept at my job now. I sell parts fof a Caterpillar construction equipment dealership. A lot of this stuff can be very difficult to find quickly and accurately. If a customer doesn’t provide the necessary information (machine model number, serial number, etc) and can’t give a good description of what it is he’s looking for, then I’m going to put him very low on my list of priorities, that way I can spend more time satisfying the ones who are patient and were helpful in determining their needs. If I spend all my time on the pain-in-the-ass, then I risk alienating the other customers and I still may not even be able to find what the one guy is looking for.
It’s also a matter of dignity and self-respect. I’m a man first and an employee second. My dad taught me that. When I wake up, I’m a man. When I go to bed, I’m a man. So everywhere else in between, you better by-god believe I’m going to bet a man. If some douche-bag thinks that because he’s the one leaving my tip that I’m going to let him treat me like shit, then he will be in store for a rude awakening. This, of course, is one of the main reasons why I’m not a full-time server anymore. Any guy who lays the tip out on the table ahead of time and basically says “what are you going to do to earn it?” is pretty much the same as a guy going to a strip club and expecting to get more than just a peep-show for his money. There’s a distinct difference between expecting good service for a tip and expecting somebody to grovel for it.
Like I said before, I’ve never seen anybody tamper with a customer’s food, but obviously it does happen at various places. I would be willing to be that it usually happens to people who act the way you mentioned earlier, with that whole “You’re my server, you are to please my every whim and ignore everything else, including your self-respect”. I don’t know if you’ve ever worked in a restaurant, but I have to assume from your post that you haven’t (forgive me if you’ve covered this earlier, I haven’t had time to read all of the previous comments). If you ever had worked a job like that, you might have a different outlook on it. I always recommend young people to get a job as a server at least for a little while. Not only does it help you learn manners and teaches you to be patient with others when the shoe is on the other foot and you are the customer, but it also helps you to determine the distinction between what you’re willing to put up with for a few bucks and what you’re not willing to put up with.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:57 amESTJesse,
I said this at 2:13 p.m. yesterday.
Sarcasm, she is lost on you, my friend : ) I totally agree with everything you have to say. Believe me, I’ve been there in my little fucking waitress smock getting my ass pinched for tips so I could take care of my child. I have some stories, believe me.
My family owns a rock crushing/paving business. Our local dealership went out of business a couple of years back, which totally sucked for us. We loved the guys at Western States.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:12 amESTSaw a great example of useless parenting yesterday. Parents and two kids were all heading for the door. Suddenly, the mother asks, where is Amanda. Amanda is at the table, playing with her toys. Mother calls her..little girl doesn’t even look up. Mother calls her again. Nothing. Father calls her with mother, voice carries; everyone in the McDonald’s is now staring at them. Daughter is still ignoring them. Mother walks over and puts her hand on the toy; Daughter gives her a filthy look. and walks away from family to the door by herself.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:15 amESTI pictured what my father did to me at a burger king once when I didn’t hear him the first time he called; I was dragged away from the table so fast my feet weren’t even on the floor. My food that i was still shovelling got rammed in the trash. And that was just from not hearing him; if he had thought I was copping attitude like that little brat yesterday, I shudder to think what he would have done when we got home.
14 Karat,
Sorry ’bout that, as I said, I didn’t have time to read all the comments and, even as I was typing my little retort, I had a sneaking suspicion that you may have already mentioned that you were a server and were probably being sarcastic.
Thanks for not torching me too much for being a fuddy-duddy who doesn’t read all the comments before posting.
Sorry about your family’s business too. We have some rock-crushing equipment around here because there are a few mines, but luckily my store doesn’t have to deal with them as much as our bigger sister-stores in the bigger towns. They seem like they might be kind of a pain (but then again, I’ve been spoiled by CAT, so there ya go).
August 1st, 2008 at 10:33 amESTNo worries, Jesse;
BTW –
Have you seen the movie “Waiting”? If you haven’t, you should. I laughed my ass off! The part where the psycho waitress ends up with the table of bitchy females and then the cooks “handle” the problem … priceless!
There’s also a killer scene like that in “Road Trip”, FYI.
Classic cinematic server revenge scences. God, if people only KNEW!
As far as the CAT dealership going out of business; I forgot to mention that we also run some CAT equipment on the farm, so between the crusher and the farm we were pretty much sustaining the dealership. When we started making changes and got big enough to hire our own full-time mechanics, there just wasn’t enough business in the county to sustain it. It was really a shame.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:42 amESTWell said Jesse.
I think I’d like working with you and your old boss from Sonny’s. That perpective is right on.
I tried to send this up the ladder where I work. It didn’t go anywhere.
Refusing service to assholes is something that (if affordable) should be done a lot more often. Reminds me of the acquaintance of mine who was refused service from a prostitute. And he was $$$ loaded. She wouldn’t take any amount. What an ego crusher that had to be. Her reward wasn’t monetary it was the sheer satisfaction of putting a spoiled rich kid in his place.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:07 amESTI can honestly say that while eating out, my husband and I always seem to have excellent servers. We eat out in a city where several college students of the non-spoiled variety are working their way through, and they have always taken great care of us. Being friendly to them helps inasmuch as they won’t mind taking care of you no matter how hard they’re working their little butt off. They remember you the next time, too, if you’re not stingy with their tip. They’ll see you come in and they’re like, “Oooo, goody! Put them in my station!”
Now for the peeves:
1. Take the @#$%& cell phone conversation outside. If I’m in a restaurant I either (a) switch it to vibrate; or (b) turn it off altogether. The world will not end, I promise. In cases where you need to answer it, take the conversation outside please. I don’t care to listen to it halfway across the restaurant at yell-levels;
2. Young-uns’: God love ‘em, but my husband and I don’t have any. I think they’re adorable, but I think they’re downright stunning when their parents have taught them manners. My parents started teaching me table etiquette at a young age. I survived. Besides, they need to learn to have manners and proper behavior for when they someday enter the corporate world. It’s not child abuse to teach it to them. For the parent that likes to let them run amok, please note that some of us don’t eat out every day or even every week. We eat out as an occasional treat and if we wanted to be around wild young-uns, we’d have gone to Chuck-E-Cheese or McDonald’s. MAKE THEM BEHAVE…or like Rachel, I just may trip little Skip or Muffy.
Those are really the only two peeves I have about restaurants.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:43 amESTTreeloqwanne and Layhkweesha is more like it, Tammy.
The era of Skips and Muffies is sadly gone. Which is, in my mind, most of the problem.
Screaming “SKIP come here so I can spank you you little bastard” is so much easier. I also have a theory that by the time the parents says that many syllables they’ve forgotten what the kid did wrong in the first place!
Both my children have monosyllabic names, and that is why!
August 1st, 2008 at 11:52 amESTThe folks in my town are by and large, unfortunately, complete dicks to the waitstaff. They tend to cop attitude that because they have a PhD and the lowly server doesn’t, this sets them up in a lord/serf relationship. Most of the restaurants in town have chronic hiring problems because people who are willing to be waiters longer than a summer usually go to Santa Fe, where the prospects and the tips are better. I once sat in a newly opened restaurant that was completely packed- there were TWO waiters for the whole place, working their asses off. You should have heard the (six person party) next table loudly bitching about how awful their waitress was for not tending to their every whim. You’d think Los Alamosites would understand that a waitress can’t break the laws of physics.
On the bright side, at that same place we tend to get more or less instant, cheerful service. We turn up and somebody instantly materializes and asks if we want beer or iced tea and do we also want to start with zucchini this time? I once asked my husband if we were the only people in town that understood “tipping for decent service” and “being nice to the other human being who is bringing us food and drink”. He observed that that was quite possibly the case, given some of the behavior we’d seen around us.
As for kids in restaurants, they don’t appear on my radar unless they’re being beasts and the parents aren’t doing anything about it. The worst I ever saw was a pair of little girls (there were four or five adults at that table) that LITERALLY spent the whole. damn. time. running laps around the restaurant, smacking the backs of chairs, and setting up empty chairs as playground equipment to jump on. While squealing. I’ve seen piglets that were both quieter and less energetic.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:43 pmESTI HATE! it when they give you a REAL sourdough roll. But, it’s COLD and they give you one of those FROZEN SOLID pieces of butter wrapped in the little foil package! AAAARRRGGHH!!!
August 1st, 2008 at 12:48 pmESTAll I can say is OH… MY… GAWD!!!
*bows before the Dork Lord* I didn’t read that whole list of spells, but I notice that you did discover the paralysis of too much knowledge and not enough time, lol.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:57 pmEST14 Karat- Yeah, I love Waiting. I always tell everybody that it is the most realistic portrayal I’ve ever seen. The fights between the front-of-house and the back-of-house staff, the busboys fucking off and hitting whipits in the walk-in cooler, the unbelievably mean chick who’s been there way too long, the way that everybody goes out and parties together after work and they all sleep with one another. That’s how it was with us..we could work a slow-ass Tuesday night, and as soon as we closed somebody would run over to the store next door and buy a bunch of beer for us to drink while we were doing our closing side-work, then we’d all go to someone’s house and get hammered till about three or four in the morning and everybody was sleeping with each other. Ah, good times.
Monkeyhumper-Yeah, our boss was cool. He was the original owner of the place for fifteen years until Sonny’s corporate pretty much forced him out (they wanted to get rid of the mom-n-pop owners who only owned one restaurant and replace them with either corporate stores or ones owned by gazillionaires who had about five or six already to their name). But he was the best because he knew the only way to keep good help around was to treat them right. I don’t know of any other single-family owned restaurants that offered health insurance, paid vacations, and a 401k-type retirement plan. Every year a few weeks before Christmas he would close the restaurant down for a night and we’d all bring a bunch of covered dishes and have a bad-ass Christmas party where he supplied all the booze. He had prizes for everybody to win, which ranged from free gas certificates to Playstations to 27″ TV’s, Ipods, etc. We all got Christmas bonuses that were pretty good, depending on how long you were there. The guys in the kitchen who had been there ten years or more got a thousand dollar bonus every Christmas. I was a server manager and I think the last one I got before I left was like $700. He was the man. And he didn’t let anybody treat us like shit.
August 1st, 2008 at 3:40 pmESTSkip or Muffy followed by today’s Treeloqwanne and Layhkweesha reminded me of Bill Cosby’s bit about how he thought his name was Jesus Christ until he was 12 or something. “Jesus Christ, what in the hell are you doing? Get your ass in here!” And he thought his brother’s name was Goddammit. “Goddammit, I am going to whip your ass! Jesus Christ, that goes for you too!”. Or something like that.
August 2nd, 2008 at 11:48 amESTMonkeyhumper, I remember that great Cosby stand up routine. That man is still seriously fantastic today. He could be funny without being vile and he was only relating what every parent on planet earth has experience, I’m certain, at sometime or another.
14-Karat, you have it right about Skip and Muffy being gone forever, I fear. When I was a kid I didn’t act up because mine said, “You sit there and don’t move until I come back.” It was the voice of God and I DID NOT MOVE. The penalty would be a spanking or privileges revoked. Needless to say, I wasn’t fond of either of the repercussions and was usually rewarded in some way for my good behavior even if it was just a hug and a smile or an ice cream on the way home. My dear departed mother, who was the most precious and gentle woman of all time got her bluff in on me for real when I was 5. We brought a little friend of mine home from church. I got busy playing with her and threw my dress in the floor in my room. She came in, got my attention, and said, “Pick your dress up out of the floor and hang it in the closet.” She then left the room. She returned 5 minutes later and I hadn’t done it. She spanked me with the belt and said, “You know, sometimes I might not give you the benefit of a second request. I don’t like wasting my breath.” To this very day I always property hang my clothes up or toss them in the hamper. There are NO clothes on our floor–anywhere. She might return from the grave and spank me again!!
August 2nd, 2008 at 3:18 pmESTSpeaking of Cosby, any of you ever watch Bernie Mac’s show, which is largely about his real-life situation of raising his nieces and nephew? Love that guy!!
August 2nd, 2008 at 3:22 pmESTEating out was a rare event for me when I was a kid — my brother and I were in such awe of the whole experience, we would never have dreamed of misbehaving. It wasn’t until we got old enough to take ourselves out that we realized it wasn’t quite such a huge deal for most people. Nevertheless, when my girls were small, The Boss and I referred to any seated, dining out establishment as a “Big People’s Fancy Restaurant,” so as to impart an element of mystery and dignity to the dining occasion :).
August 2nd, 2008 at 6:29 pmESTIn my neck of the woods, the Chinese (and other) buffets are especially infested with people who let their kids scream, run around, crawl under table, throw food, etc. One of the Chinese buffets even went so far as to have signs made up, with Spanish translations, no less, asking people not to let their children run around… but of course, the people who are most guilty of this don’t bother to read such signs.
A few times, whether in the buffets or otherwise, I have asked people not to let their kid shriek endlessly. Their excuse is always “But he’s [she's] just a baby!”
Yeah, and your kid shrieks SO FR*CKING LOUDLY that it doesn’t matter where in the restaurant I sit, my ears are going to pulsate before I get the h3ll out of here!
And sorry, folks, but I’ve noticed that here it’s far and away mostly Hispanic people who let their kids run around and shriek like this.
Last time I lived next door to Hispanics, their little boy would run up to my living room window (also my HOME OFFICE window) and shriek at the top of his lungs. I told him not to scream, and their excuse was “But he’s just a baby!”
Makes me wonder just how old a Hispanic kid has to be before his parents condescend to teach him [or her] some manners.
Now, to be fair, it isn’t only Hispanics who do this. But in my unscientific sampling, they seem to be the majority of those who refuse to restrain or hush their maniac spawn.
August 2nd, 2008 at 7:23 pmEST