On good restaurant service
June 17, 2008
Nearly two weeks ago, I convinced my sister to go to a restaurant close to our house with me. It was one of those restaurants where the tables are lined with brown paper and supplied with crayons to encourage creativity, an opportunity I rarely, if ever, turn down:
When it came time to order, I decided to try beef ribs for the first time. I love ribs and usually, only pork ribs are offered at most restaurants so this was a treat. When our meals arrived, I was struck by the sheer size of the ribs, which made sense of course because of the animal it was coming from. The other extremely unpleasant surprise was the amount of FAT on the ribs. I’m not talking oooh, a bit of fat, I’ll just scrape that off: the whole surface of this beast had at least a quarter inch thick layer of fat, the kind that your knife slices into and little translucent beads of fat slither down. I was completely repulsed, but I did find some meat below the fat and I ate some of it before giving up because it was too much work to get at the meat.
I thought maybe the rib beneath would be better, so I gave it a jab, only to discover that it was the same.
Now at most restaurants, within five minutes of eating, the waitstaff will come by and ask you how your meal is. I waited for this to happen but she never came back. I was only able to flag her down after my sister had finished her meal (I had given up on mine) and we wanted drink refills. Now, as a waitress, if 15-20 minutes after I’ve served a table their meals, I notice that one person’s meal is finished and the other person’s looks virtually uneaten (especially if she’s a girl who appears to um, enjoy eating), I would ask if everything was ok (especially if I hadn’t asked earlier to make sure they had gotten what they ordered and that they were enjoying it). She didn’t.
When she came back with our drinks, I asked her if beef ribs were supposed to be this fatty. She answered in the affirmative. I said that mine were mostly fat and she said that’s the way they were supposed to be and then asked “Is that ok?”
I said no. I wasn’t rude, I wasn’t mean, I just stated that I didn’t expect it to be like this and could not eat it.
Her response was an apology, sorry, and she asked if we wanted to see the dessert menu. I said yes and after looking through I decided against spending any more money there. She didn’t ask if I wanted to order a replacement meal from the menu (even at my expense). I requested a doggy bag because I wanted to show the ribs to my parents before tossing them. I had honestly never seen anything so grossly fatty.
We left soon after.
When I go to restaurants with friends and they have problems with their meals (a missing item, the food arrives cold), I find myself speaking up on their behalf and making sure they get what they expected. A friend received a free meal once because I let the waitress know that there had been a discrepancy in her order. However when it was my turn to speak up for myself (well, speak up further), I didn’t. I think it was because:
- I did get what I ordered; there was just nothing in the menu writeup to indicate that it would be that fatty and significantly different in that respect from pork ribs (which we all know can be fatty but the beef ribs were really, really gross). I guess it was common knowledge; and
- I did speak up but she didn’t react the way most restaurant staff do when you express dissatisfaction with your meal so I dropped it.
What gets me is if I had raised a stink, if I had been that horrible diner we all hate to be in the vicinity of, the hollering and rude one who demands to speak to the manager, I would have received all sorts of placating offers. I would not do this as I work in retail and hate how we’re trained to basically give in to the rude people, especially the ones who adore causing stinks and throwing tantrums. One woman in particular used to come in and go into her raised voice spiel first thing, without even trying to be reasonable, because she knew the company’s policy of giving her what she wanted. She was also fond of throwing in “I’m the customer so I’m always right!” It never sits well with me to reinforce someone’s bad behaviour, so you’d hope that those of us who are polite and respectful would get a break sometimes.
Fat chance (hee hee).
Sorry to break it to you Jummy, but beef ribs are not at all like pork back ribs, and to assume so is not really the restaurant's fault.
Oh, I agree with you fully, Staecie: it is definitely not their fault that I made the assumption that beef and pork ribs are similar. What I am saying is that an attentive waitress would have come back and checked to see if our meals were what we ordered and the way we ordered it, and when I indicated that while what I got was what I ordered, it was not what I expected (again, my fault), she could have asked if I wanted to order something else. I'm not finding fault with the restaurant for not guessing what I thought I would be getting when I ordered beef ribs (that would be silly, and I acknowledged that the difference between beef and pork ribs must be common knowledge); it was more that when she asked if that was ok and I said no, she could have offered me the menu again.
Perhaps that was a silly expectation,but blame it on my customer service background :). In the retail sector, if a customer comes to the store with something they bought and she says that it shrank more than she expected, despite our telling her at the time that exactly how much it would shrink if she put it in the dryer, we are obligated to either offer her a replacement or refund her money. All I wanted in this case was someone who cared to address my dissatisfaction.
Ewwwww. I am pretty sure that fat is the worst possible thing that can ever be found on meat ewewew. I wonder if anyone actually enjoys eating fat. I bet they're out there somewhere, munching down on the rubbery goodness. *gags*
That sounds like really bad service. Yuck! I once found a fly in my salad (dead) and when the waitress came by to clear our plates for our next course she noticed I hadn't eaten mine. She asked if something was the matter and I said, "I don't much care for fly." and then pointed it out to her. Her response? "Don't you hate when that happens?"
She didn't take it off the bill.
I never went back to that restaurant.