Eating at a restaurant should be a positive experience. But is it? After all, it’s the time when someone else shops, cooks, serves you what (you think) you’ve ordered and takes away the dishes and glasses to a mysterious place. Best of all, you’re not responsible for washing them. In spite of these definite pluses, people appear to have more gripes than you’d think. And they make no bones about voicing them.
Whether it’s your local joint down the road, a recently opened trendy new café or a big name/big chef /big tab restaurant that’s drawing rave reviews, small and large irritations can mar a dining experience.
Pet peeves about dining out — Here’s a laundry list of what a survey of dedicated eaters had to say.
- Dining rooms that are so noisy you can’t hear yourself think much less hold a conversation with your tablemates.
- Tables that are placed so close together you have to be a contortionist to get in and out and there’s no possible way to hold a private conversation.
- Music too loud. People want to eat their meals in peace and relative quiet and not feel as if they’re in a high-decibel dance hall.
- Lighting should be bright enough that you can read the menus; but not so bright that you feel as if you’re getting the third degree.
- Restaurants should have coat rooms and sufficient space that you and your things aren’t competing for space on the chair and at the table.
- Bathrooms should be clean and well stocked. More than a few people feel there’s a direct correlation between the cleanliness of a restaurant’s WCs and the kitchen.
Service irritations:
- Being greeted at the door and grilled as to whether or not you have a reservation. If you don’t, the host or hostess will often shoot you a dirty look and lead you to a table as if they’re doing you a favor.
- Finding yourself even more irritated because when you get up to leave, the restaurant is still half empty.
- Sitting down and waiting more time than you care to before being handed a menu.
- When you’re ready to order, being forced to wait. The group of people, who were seated after you, have the waiter’s attention and are firing away what they want to eat. You’ve missed your chance.
- While you’re waiting, not being asked if you’d like to order a drink or being served water. Some restaurants serve bread immediately, Others force you to wait so you’re crying, “bread and water — please.”
- Waiter etiquette: There are the ones who act as if they’re doing you a favor by serving you. Then, there are too many who want to become members of your family and participate in the conversation. I’m glad your name is John but please remember who’s the waiter and who are the clients.
- The service personnel not being sensitive to your needs and wishes: e.g. – when you want attention and when you don’t. There are times conversations are private and should remain that way. Professional waiters appear to have a sixth sense about anticipating a diner’s needs and seem to have eyes behind their heads.
- Spare diners from waiters who refuse to write orders down. Being able to memorize a list of dishes may impress some people but others would prefer being served the correct dish.
- Please don’t ask, “Is everything all right?” before someone has tasted the food.
- Not serving everyone at the same time; Ditto for clearing the table. Many people find it offensive when a waiter removes a few plates at a time, as if to say to the diners who are still eating, “hurry up and leave.”
- Meals that arrive so quickly that you know they’ve been sitting on a steam table or have had a quick zap in a microwave.
- Having to wait forever to be served and then receiving the check before you’ve had a chance to drink your coffee. A meal should not be a marathon. Rather, it should be orchestrated to fit the scenario.
- Some people complain that portions are so large they detract from the meal and its presentation. Not everyone wants a doggie bag.
- Waiters who fail to check back with you after the meal is served.
There were complaints about parking, stratospheric menu prices, outrageous mark ups on wine. People jumped at the chance at adding their input. And I want to hear yours. You’re bound to have a lot of comments and post away.
Before you do, please stop and ponder what complaint is missing. It seems so obvious. But it doesn’t appear to be a high priority among the majority of people who eat out.
Karen Fawcett is president of Bonjour Paris
(Photo: seventh.samurai/Priscilla Flickr/Commons)
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the oddest thing ever happend to me was that the waitress came with our food and put the placed the plate for my guest while stretching toward me. After a few seconds she asked if i was going to make her wait any longer before taking my plate from her hands
never went back
There is plenty not to like about restaurants in Paris and in the States. Your list is a good start, but here are a couple of ideas:
1. Unpriced specials–especially those that turn out to cost twice the average main course.
2. Badly cooked food or uninspired cooking: you can do that at home for less.
3. Lack of cleaniliness: crumbs on the floor and smudges on the knives do not inspire the appetite.
4. Insufficient planning: running out of a standard item or a special is unforgivable.
5. Keeping customers waiting when they have reserved a table.
Biggest pet peeve – servers who call me “hon” or “dear”. Makes me cranky every time. I am not your grandmother or your ten-year-old sister. I am your customer.
I’m impressed with this list. When I read the title, I thought it was just going to be another session of whininess from people who expect to be fawned over, but this is generally a superb compilation of things that a lot of restaurants do wrong, and that would generally be easy to fix.
My pet peeves are these:
* I had being asked in mid-bite how the meal is. Generally, even if I have been complaining about something to my dining companions, I’ll nod my head or mumble that it is fine just to get the person to go away. If the manager, or waiter, really wants to know my opinion about the meal, she or he should ask me during the payment, not interrupt my dining experience.
* By contrast to the complaint listed in the story, I hate waiting for the check. It often feels to me that the wait staff are extremely attentive until it comes time to pay, and then they just disappear.
* When is some restaurant going to have the courage to start a movement against tipping? All they have to do is say that the tip is built into the price of the meal. When I have a good day at work (computer programming), nobody hands me a bonus; when I make a mistake, nobody cuts my paycheck. Waiters are doing a job, and their pay should be consistent and reliable (and not prone to tax evasion).
One thing that bugs me is that if something goes wrong (meal not cooked correctly, not what I ordered, etc), instead of just apologizing and fixing it they give excuses instead. All I want is my salad without the bacon or my steak medium rare as I ordered it. I don’t want to know that one of the line cooks just got fired or that you were given 10 tables when you normally only have 6. My stomach doesn’t care what the reason is – just fix it and I’ll be happy. If I want to know why it was wrong I’ll ask, otherwise keep the excuses to yourself.
Busing that cleans up table and fails to wipe grease and crumbs from the chair seats.
I hate feeling bad for sending something back and worrying if someone is going to spit in my food because I sent it back. Always always always be polite when sending something back.
Love this! I’ve lived through most if not all of these issues. To me there should be at least a corrolation between high priced swank and impeccable. Unfortunately this is not the case, which to me is the most lamentable issue. On the other hand, sometimes our expectations disregard the myriad details of this profession. I think to my own past life in high tech and of what went into completing a decent (never perfect) project, and how the very people who complained the loudest had no sense of what the profession entailed. Are we being pefectionists in search of a dine, perhaps a bit too persnickity due to our wallets forking out what we feel we deserve? That’s my question.
In Provincetown, MA on Cape Cod, the Front Street restaurant has consistently provided divine meals and service to me, friends, and family for over fifteen years. That’s the only one I can tout as such, even from Parisian high end places…
Having worked in restaurants I think I may be pickier than those who have not (just like ex smokers who dislike smoke). My biggest pet peeve is when I order a bottle of wine and they serve a taste to a MAN at the table, not to me (the person who ordered the bottle).
My second peeve is diners like Joe who do not understand that waiters and waitresses are paid LESS than MINIMUM wage and their tips are supposed to make up the difference, so if you tip less (or not at all) your server ends up helping you pay for your meal with their salary (because the IRS calculates a % amount of tips that they tax you on in addition to all base salaries of waitstaff). I have actually tipped servers more because I have seen nearby tables stiff their server (I saw one couple left 50 cents on their table as a tip for a lunch that had to cost at least $20).
Please give me enough to drink! It is very irritating to reach for your drink to find it empty more than once. Drink service largely dictates my leaving only 15%, or if I leave more.
The only time where the service was so poor, that I complained to the manager (I’m in my 40’s now):
1. Went to an Italian restaurant and ordered veal scallopini. At the time, I was scheduled for gall bladder surgery within the month, so I purposefully avoided anything with cheese/dairy in it. (Heavy cheese/dairy makes you REALLY sick prior to that kind of surgery.)
2. The server (a young man probably in his early 20s) took my order, and brought back a cheese-stuffed cataloni.
3. When I explained that it wasn’t what I ordered, the server arrogantly argued with me, insisting that I had ordered it and that he was giving me exactly what I’d ordered. I asked my husband “did you hear me order the veal”, to which he replied – “Yes, very plainly. You definitely told him you wanted the veal.”
4. So I politely asked the server again, to please take the cataloni back and give me veal. He gruffly replied: “Well, OK, since you’ve obviously told me the wrong thing and you’ve since changed your mind, I’ll resubmit your order for a veal scallopini.”
5. After our meal, I asked to speak to the manager privately and told her about what happened. She looked horrified.
6. Suffice it to say, we never saw that young man working at the restaurant again. ;-)
As a seniors, my husband and I tolerate, but do not like being greeted with, “Hi, guys!” We also don’t care for hearing, “No problem!” for every request.
A really bad experience happened at a local diner that we visited very infrequently before this stopped us completely. I was on my way back from the airport and my husband and visiting daughter went to eat there. They ordered their food and a take-out meal for me. They got soup and salad. Then the meal was brought out. My husband’s medium rare steak was quite well-done….dark brown through and through. While my daughter ate her meal, he asked if his order could be redone. My daughter had finished her meal, when the server then put a raw steak in front of him. He asked to see the manager and the manager blew up and told him to get out of the restaurant. My husband is not one to cause a scene and my daughter couldn’t believe their treatment. They had already had soup and salad and my daughter had finished. They picked up my meal, which had been delivered and walked out. We have since heard quite a few stories about the crazy manager and why others have stopped going to that place. We think he is actually the owner and not worth investigating.
Pet beef: Restaurant staff who clean the seats, then the tables, with the same unwashed/unrinsed cloth. The most horrific example I witnessed: after a family with a high chair using toddler — whose diaper was so full the exterior clothes were soaked and soiled — left the restaurant, the hostess grabbed rag, wiped down the seat of the high chair, then the tray, then the bench seats of the booth and finally the table. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she then tossed the same rag to a waiting server, who proceeded to clean the next table. No rinsing. No washing. We left. I did ask to speak to the manager, who was less than receptive to the information. I then called the local health department.
Screaming kids! Kids running up and down. Kids banging on their tables. Kids doing pretty much anything, especially having their diapers chaged IN the dining room.
Please, now that all restaurants are “no smoking,” may we have “no children” sections?
We eat out a lot, and have experienced virtually everything listed above. I make no excuses for bad restaurants and service personnel, but feel compelled to comment that the good ones should be treated accordingly. Running a restaurant is an extremely difficult business, and being a server is even worse. Therefore, I always leave a tip greater than the standard15% even if the service is only “acceptable.” Of course, I leave 20% or more if the service is excellent. In the past month, I have asked to speak to managers twice because the servers were superb. On the other hand, in the same month I refused to leave a tip in a restaurant where the service was so bad that we were infuriated (even though the food was pretty good).
Sometimes, patrons are so obnoxious that it is embarrassing. Remember, servers and managers have to put up with that every day. So give them the benefit of the doubt.
@Elaine: I don’t think Joe misunderstands that wait staff in restaurants make less than minimum wage. His point was that if one restaurant would pay its servers a decent wage, and note on its menus that fact and that tipping is thus not necessary, others might follow suit. Federal law does require that the paid wage plus tips MUST equal federal minimum wage, but that requires servers to report their tips accurately (and many do not).
From the list: I’m not bothered by servers who don’t write things down, as long as they get it right. My favorite restaurant of all time (now sadly closed) had a policy of not allowing a waiter to serve a table alone until he could correctly memorize the orders for a table of eight. The service there was always impeccable. Then again, they weren’t trying to be all things to all people, with a seven-page menu; the restaurant had about four appetizers, two salads, about eight entrees, and four desserts. All Italian, all superb, and the place was usually busy (and blessedly quiet).
@Liz Zollner I have to agree with you…you only have to be vomitted on once by someone else’s child to make you not want to go to that restaurant ever again…(and yes, this happened to me)
Additionally, I agree somewhat with Terry…but I would like to add that if I’m eating a meal, I don’t want to be listening to a vacuum cleaner going on next to me…or smell of the spray of an aerosol cleanser being sprayed on the table behind me. The smell of Windex can turn you off your food very quickly!.
What also gets me is that my wife is very beautiful and if we have a male waiter, he invariably converses with my wife on everything and only gives me a passing “what d’you want”….
ed
My husband and I used to dine in a local steakhouse. One day I noticed a red stain on the tablecloth and hoped it wouldn’t transfer to my clothing. Funny thing, we went back two weeks later and I noticed the exact same stain on the tablecloth….they used double linens and NEVER changed the bottom linen. I called the busser over and he explained that management saves money by only changing the top linen. Needles to say, we’ve never returned. I would have called the health department but the owner golfed with my husband! YUK!
Also, I dislike unruley children. For heavens sake, if you have to bring a child, bring a book or toy. Over the years I have taken both of my sons to restaurants (expensive 5 star too) and they have been perfect. I’ve received numerous comments about their excellent behavior. It’s up to the parents to take the kids out when they are monsters.
I usually pay with cash and about half or more of the time the waitperson will ask “do you need change?” If I had paid with a credit card would they ask if they could apply any amount of tip they wished? Of course not! This is one of the rudest arm-twists going on out there right now. When they do this my wife wants to crawl under the table because I not only let them have it with both barrels I tell the owner or manager in no uncertain terms that I will not return. If they give me any static I also write a letter to the editor and mention their restaurant by name.
@Kevin M Yes, perhaps if servers were paid a decent wage tipping wouldn’t be a problem, but although as you said Federal law states everyone must be paid minimum wage, many restaurants ignore that law or say “You will make at least minimum wage when you add in your tips.”
@Liz and @Ed I agree there should be a no-children area, especially in places where you are going for a fine dining experience. @Diane, if every parent raised their children as you do, there would be no need to call for a separate area for kids.
Freezing temperatures…how can one relax and enjoy what is meant to be a special treat of eating out if the temperature of the restaurant is geared for the employees because it’s so hot in the kitchen?!!