Things I won't tolerate in a restaurant

Ruby · November 16, 2001

After reading the lively postings about bottled water - "Babbo - a chink in Super Mario's Armor" - it got me thinking about quirks that I have and won't tolerate in a restaurant. That is, I'd rather leave before being served than put up with much of the following:

Being seated at a really rotten table - near a smoky noisy bar, coat check, bathroom, etc.

As the old saying goes, I'll pay more for more but won't pay more for less - such as inflated prices for mediocre wine and bottled water, surcharges for additional ingredients that are cheap imitations such as sea legs passing for crabmeat; ingredients that are listed for a dish that really aren't there or contain a token amount (shrimp, lobster).

Pushy, intimidating, pretentious or arrogant restaurant staff: servers, managers or owners. I am not frequenting an establishment to have a screaming match with any of them.

Fortunately, all of the above happens infrequently and my radar goes off if and when it does happen and I speak up and usually get satisfaction.

Would be interested to hear about your intolerance levels and/or quirks and pet peeves.

Simon Majumdar · November 16, 2001

One great bugbear, the inability of restaurants to serve butter at room temp.

When I was in las Vegas in April, I ate at JG's Prime ( OK- no more ) and got the usual rock hard bullets to hack away at. When I ask the bus boy if we could get some room temp so we were not in danger of taking someones eye out with the chippings, he put it in a microwave and brought us back a melted puddle. Finally, we asked our waiter and he brought us some whipped butter.

A small thing but if you are paying 贶 a pop ( or even ฟ a pop ) it shouldn't be impossible

S

Andy Lynes · November 16, 2001

Probably the only things that would make me walk from a restaurant would be a bad table exactly as Ruby describes or an inordinate wait for a menu and a drink after having been seated.

Thankfully, these have happened to me infrequently and I have only ever walked from a restaurant once, but I can think of quite a few occassions when it turned out that I should have done and went on to have a dreadful evening.

Rosie · November 16, 2001

I walk when I go into a half empty restaurant with a reservation and am ushered to the bar. This is the restaurant's way of getting you to buy a drink.

I hate sea legs. If crab is in a dish I ask if it is real crab and tell the waiter that I am allergic to sea legs. I am often surprised at how many restaurants list crab and serve sea legs.

Andy Lynes · November 16, 2001

Can you explain what sea legs are - we have crab sticks in this country which are pink and white things that are not made from crab at all.

tommy · November 16, 2001

Quote: from Andy Lynes on 8:05 am on Nov. 16, 2001
Can you explain what sea legs are - we have crab sticks in this country which are pink and white things that are not made from crab at all.

that's them!

Wilfrid · November 16, 2001

I often dine alone, and therefore often have to put my foot down when offered the table next to the door, or indeed a seat at the bar. I must say, almost every time I have been offered, and refused, a seat at the bar, I have then been given a decent table. I can't think of anything else which has caused me to walk, although I do tend to react badly to absence of service. In other words, not so much delays in the food coming, but situations where one cannot get a waiter's attention or get anyone to come to the table. After attempting all the usual ways of getting noticed, I go into slow but ostentatious waving of a fully extended arm above the head. I had to do that at Le Cirque once, and a captain almost jumped over a table to get to me before everyone noticed. The next step is to get up and actually walk up to a waiter. That freaks them out.

Once, in L'Estaminet in London, the waiters were so nervous that they all vanished from the (slow) dining room. I chased them down and cornered them in a corridor leading to the kitchen! I was almost too amused to be angry.

Holly Moore · November 16, 2001

While I'm not a fan of cell phones in restaurants, on a couple of occasions, when the floor staff is either absent or totally unattentive, I've called the restaurant and asked them to track down my server.

I particularly hate being held hostage at the end of the meal, being ready to leave and no one either presents the check and/or comes to pick up the payment.

As far as what actually makes me leave. Most often it's the noise level. At places where it is so loud that I can't talk with others at the table, I'm gone. It's not just music, that can be turned down upon request. Some restaurants seem to be intentionally designed to heighten the noise. There is a very successful restaurateur in Philadelphia that wants a high noise level because it makes the places seem always busy.

yvonne johnson · November 16, 2001

Quote: from Holly Moore on 10:41 am on Nov. 16, 2001
While I'm not a fan of cell phones in restaurants, on a couple of occasions, when the floor staff is either absent or totally unattentive, I've called the restaurant and asked them to track down my server.

What a hoot. Reminds me of the story about people getting really impatient waiting for a table at, was it, Bouley Bakery? They got on their cell phone and ordered a pizza to eat while they waited. When the delivery arrived the group was immediately seated!

Bilmo · November 16, 2001

I particularly hate being held hostage at the end of the meal, being ready to leave and no one either presents the check and/or comes to pick up the payment

I couldn't agree more.

macrosan · November 16, 2001

Oh Holly, please let me know the next time you're booked into ANY restaurant in the UK. I want to come and watch you at work !!! I would love to see your cellphone technique (I think that's just brilliant). Any time, any place --- I'll buy the wine :)

Wilfrid · November 16, 2001

I particularly hate being held hostage at the end of the meal, being ready to leave and no one either presents the check and/or comes to pick up the payment

I believe that if you have made at least one clear request for the check, there comes a point at which you can stand up and prepare to leave. That usually injects some urgency into the response. Note, I do not recommend that you make a dash for the door, which might be misinterpreted.Speaking of which, the question of 'walking' raises some legal issues. Once you have placed the order, have you made a contract with the restaurant? I suspect so (although I know UK restuarant law better than US). Now if the restaurant fails to deliver the order to a reasonable standard or within a reasonable amount of time, I think (again, in the UK I'm sure) you can explain the situation, refuse to pay the check, or a fair portion of it, and leave. If you place the order, but then decide you don't like the noise level, or the decor, or the waiter's face, and get up to go, I think the restaurant may have grounds to say you should pay for the food whether you've eaten it or not.I did have this experience once. I was in a large party which placed a dinner order in a Chinese restaurant. The most domineering member of the party took a dislike to the decor, stood up and insisted we all leave. The manager said: You ordered dinner, you need to pay for it. And I think he was right.

Ruby · November 16, 2001

Quote: Speaking of which, the question of 'walking' raises some legal issues. Once you have placed the order, have you made a contract with the restaurant? I suspect so (although I know UK restuarant law better than US). Now if the restaurant fails to deliver the order to a reasonable standard or within a reasonable amount of time, I think (again, in the UK I'm sure) you can explain the situation, refuse to pay the check, or a fair portion of it, and leave. If you place the order, but then decide you don't like the noise level, or the decor, or the waiter's face, and get up to go, I think the restaurant may have grounds to say you should pay for the food whether you've eaten it or not.I did have this experience once. I was in a large party which placed a dinner order in a Chinese restaurant. The most domineering member of the party took a dislike to the decor, stood up and insisted we all leave. The manager said: You ordered dinner, you need to pay for it. And I think he was right.

Wilfrid, you raise interesting points about the legal issue of walking. Personally, I never eat the bread or any complimentary appetizers offered before I order food so if something negative occurs and I want to walk out (which is infrequent but it happens) I'm not obligated. Often I'll order a drink and if something then goes awry (lack of service/attention/rudeness) I'll ask the server for a check and explain why I'm leaving. This works all the time.

If I'm with a group of people and we do decide to leave, we leave a small tip if someone has eaten any bread.I do agree that your group should have paid at the Chinese restaurant. Not liking the decor is no reason to not pay for food that's already been ordered. Anyway, with few exceptions, most people don't go to Chinese restaurants for the decor but the food.

Bux · November 16, 2001

Interesting issues. As far as being held hostage while waiting for the check, this is a national and regional thing in some ways. In many European countries, American tourists go nuts waiting for the check. They whole system seems to operate on the principle that the house is willing to let the diner occupy the table after dinner and that the diner is honored to do so. In certain parts of this country the check arrives with coffee, or dessert. In NYC it would be considered offensive to bring the check before it was demanded.

Noise is another issue that seems to have proponents on both sides. I abhor noise in a restaurant. Generally I don't care much for music either. I certainly don't want any noise that makes it difficult to hear the conversation at my table. We had lunch at one very good restaurant in NY not long ago. Everything was superb, but the noise level, music with a hard beat, was obnoxious. As we paid our bill, we noted our displeasure at the music. Our waiter said it was a post attack policy to lend an upbeat ambience to the restaurant. I thought the problem was in getting people to go out. Once they're at your restaurant, you don't have to hit them over the head. This was not an inexpensive restaurant. What are they thinking.

mamster · November 16, 2001

My top pet peeve is an old saw: the empty water glass. I like to drink a lot of water--tap water--with dinner, and I consider a perpetually full glass a natural right. This is almost never a problem in Seattle; in New York, I often felt like a panhandler, holding my water glass out for alms.

As for awaiting the check, I agree with Bux. Knowing that I won't be shooed out until I request the check is one of my favorite things about dining in Europe.

Gail Hughes · November 29, 2001

Quote I hate sea legs. If crab is in a dish I ask if it is real crab and tell the waiter that I am allergic to sea legs. I am often surprised at how many restaurants list crab an serve sea legs.

How about shark-meat discs instead of scallops??? :angry:

Gail

Gail Hughes · November 30, 2001

Annoying things about restaurants ... that's an easy one. Crummy tea!

I'm not a coffee drinker, and I do love to round off a meal with a hot cup of tea. In American restaurants however, tea is apparently beneath contempt. What a downer, when the waiter places before me a cup-and-saucer full of tepid water, the teabag lying dispiritedly on the bottom in a little dark-reddish-brown lagoon. I have occasionally ordered tea and asked that the water be BOILING first; the waiter's eyebrows disappear into his hairline. "Boil? BOIL???"

"Yes, I'm from the Planet Zebulon. We're weird that way."

Gail

B Edulis · November 30, 2001

How about shark-meat discs instead of scallops???
Gail

I've heard about this practice, but, as far as I know, haven't experienced it. Shark has such a different texture and flavor, I think I would have noticed. Also, wouldn't it be just as expensive to have people slicing and cutting out circles, then having all the scraps? Does this really happen very often?

Pan · December 18, 2001

"I was in a large party which placed a dinner order in a Chinese restaurant. The most domineering member of the party took a dislike to the decor, stood up and insisted we all leave. The manager said: You ordered dinner, you need to pay for it. And I think he was right."

Unless the food was already being cooked, I think the manager was wrong. But I also think that the person who insisted on leaving after ordering was more wrong. How was the food, by the way?

cabrales · December 18, 2001

I find it discourteous for waiters to assume that amounts, in excess of the restaurant bill, paid in cash at low-to-moderate priced establishments represent tips. I encounter this problem from time to time when dining as a group that shares the bill.

While I may well intend to leave the waiters the full amount returned on me on the little tray, I'd like them to not assume that's a foregone conclusion :)

Wilfrid · December 18, 2001

Quote: from Pan on 3:16 am on Dec. 18, 2001
How was the food, by the way?

This restaurant always had good food. It was the Man Lee Hong in Lisle Street in London's Chinatown. Sadly, no longer there. It was one of the old-style Cantonese restaurants where you could fill up on solid (not fancy) Cantonese food for about Ů. Our party had ordered a huge meal, when Miss Fussy decided that some holes in the scruffy old curtains had doubtless been made by rats. Who knows, who cares?

January 10, 2002

<a href="http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/columnists/story.asp?id={6BB52289-781B-4288-AB42-B804E196D4CB}">This</a> is from a daily consumer column in the Ottawa Citizen. The column is usually quite sensible. The issue appears to concern 28 cents (Cdn!).

Fat Guy · January 10, 2002

Thanks for the link. I think the columnist handled it well. Too many consumer advocate types are too willing to assume the corporation is always at fault.