Saturday, August 28, 2010

Curmudgeonly Suggestions for Restaurants

I am uncertain about the age at which one passes from being a whiner to a curmudgeon. But now that I’m over 50 years old, I’m going to take the risk and assume that I have passed that threshold. I have a few pet peeves (and by “a few”, I mean “almost everything”) concerning restaurant service that I will now share for those of you in the restaurant business who may, potentially, see me as a customer

  1. If you are a waiter, don’t sit at my table when taking my order – Seriously, when did this become okay? Listen, if I had wanted you to sit at my table, I would have invited you to dinner.
  1. I can read my own menu, thank you – If you have specials that are not on the menu, fine, fire away. Otherwise, if the menu is confusing enough that you have to read it or explain it to me, you should probably re-think how your menu is written. But what I really don’t need is for you to stand (or sit . . . grrrrrrr!) there and read for me what I can read for myself.
  1. I don’t want to get to know you – I don’t go to restaurants to make new friends. Often, I am at restaurants with friends with whom I’d like to converse. I don’t need the waiter to be my new best friend for the evening. I really don’t care if your mother loves the restaurant’s meatloaf. I don’t care if you are an aspiring cosmetologist. Frankly, I don’t even care that your name is Jake. If I want to know something, I will ask.
  1. Just keep the darn sweetener on the table – Is sugar and Splenda now so expensive that we have to specifically ask for it to sweeten our tea? Are old ladies bankrupting restaurants by squirreling away packets of Equal in their purses? (Okay, I can sort of believe that one.) Just keep it on the table.
  1. Don’t interrupt my conversation to ask me if I want my water refilled – The answer is always, “Yes.” Water is as close to free as it gets. Just assume that I want it refilled and refill it.
  1. Don’t ask me how my food tastes – Don’t you know? Are you that unconfident in the consistency of your kitchen that you need to ask? Of course, this question almost always comes either in mid-chew or mid-conversation. (A corollary to this is to ask, before I’ve even had a chance to taste it, “How does everything look?” You have eyes, see for yourself.)
  1. If I want to talk with the manager, I’ll ask for him – When we see a sudden trend in medicine, a sudden upsurge in the ordering of a specific test, for example, we joke that someone must have written an article in a popular medical journal on it. Someone must have written an article saying that what restaurant customers want more than anything in the world is for the manager come to their table, interrupt their conversation, introduce themselves, and ask if everything is okay. Hey, Mr. Manager. If everything is not okay, I will ask for you.
  1. Cut it out with the birthday songs, already – Jeez, is there anything more irritating than to be in a restaurant having a nice conversation with someone when, all of a sudden, a raucous chorus of “This Is Your Birthday Song”, sung at 110 decibels, drowns out the conversation? This goes double for the birthday songs that begin with someone yelling to the entire restaurant, “May I have your attention, please!” Save the birthday songs for Chuck E. Cheese.

As a final note, I have one more suggestion for our friends in the British Isles – Iced tea is made by taking tea and pouring it over ice. It is really not that complicated. You guys made tea a national pastime, don’t tell me that you don’t have iced tea. Yes, Americans like their tea cold. We won the war, you lost. Get over it and give us ice in our tea.

2 comments:

  1. Let me just add a quick comment on tipping. I can just say that servers would have, in general, received more in gratuities over the years had they left it up to me. I appreciate great service and I'm no cheapskate when it comes to tipping. But if you are going to add the gratuity just because I have 6 or more in my party, you're getting what you put on the bill and not a penny more. Thanks, I feel better.

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  2. I somehow feel cleansed having read this! :-) Oh, and just because someone you think is a single mom is out to dinner with her little girl does not mean your tip will be any less equal to the quality of the service you render! Ahhh...much better.

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