Restaurant/Bar Annoyances

[Toliver]

...Touching face or hair...almost as bad as andies' long fingernail incident.

It's so simple, isn't it?

I've had similar issues when picking up sandwiches at Subway. The person making my sandwich donned clear plastic gloves and then, as she slid my sandwich down the line on a paper sheet, she wiped the counter clean into the little trash openings with her gloved hand and then went back to making my sandwich. I yelled at her to stop and put new gloves on.

I had another Subway employee stop making my sandwich to answer the phone and then she came back to finish making my sandwich with her now-contaminated gloves. I also stopped her from touching my sandwich and told her to put new gloves on.

What's sad is they have this deer-in-the-headlights look when you try to explain what they did wrong and they just don't get it.

[weinoo]

And/Or they don't care.

[Porthos]

What I really abhor and will either leave the restaurant or ask to be seated at another table served by a different person, is when female servers have long fingernails.

Having a long thumbnail inserted into my salad (on one occasion, an omelet) is absolutely disgusting to me.

I complained to a manager at one restaurant, and explained that I would not pay for a dish that as far as I was concerned had been "contaminated" by the server having her extremely long thumbnail in it.

He shrugged and said that he had no control over the "personal" affectations of servers who wanted to wear piercings and have long fingernails.

I have not been back to that restaurant.

Some years ago my wife, daughters and I went to a "nicer" chain restaurant near our home. While visiting the men's room I watched a waiter use the restroom and leave without washing his hands. When I complained to the manager his answer was the waitstaff washes their hands somewhere else. What about all of the surfaces he touched before he finally did wash his hands. We never went back.

I almost hesitate to post this but then there was the time I stepped into a restaurant's men's room and one of the waitstaff was pleasuring himself standing in front of the urinal. Haven't been back there either. Keep it private and away from the customers already.

[weinoo]

What I really abhor and will either leave the restaurant or ask to be seated at another table served by a different person, is when female servers have long fingernails.

Having a long thumbnail inserted into my salad (on one occasion, an omelet) is absolutely disgusting to me.

I complained to a manager at one restaurant, and explained that I would not pay for a dish that as far as I was concerned had been "contaminated" by the server having her extremely long thumbnail in it.

He shrugged and said that he had no control over the "personal" affectations of servers who wanted to wear piercings and have long fingernails.

I have not been back to that restaurant.

Some years ago my wife, daughters and I went to a "nicer" chain restaurant near our home. While visiting the men's room I watched a waiter use the restroom and leave without washing his hands. When I complained to the manager his answer was the waitstaff washes their hands somewhere else. What about all of the surfaces he touched before he finally did wash his hands. We never went back.

I almost hesitate to post this but then there was the time I stepped into a restaurant's men's room and one of the waitstaff was pleasuring himself standing in front of the urinal. Haven't been back there either. Keep it private and away from the customers already.

I think that was a Seinfeld episode.

[Panaderia Canadiense]

For me, it's when the waiter/waitress waits until I've got a nice big bite of whatever stuffed into my face, then comes over to ask if everything is OK. I am always very tempted to spit out what I've got in my mouth and tell them that the food is absolutely terrible, send it back, and not pay.

If there's a problem, I won't eat the food: I'll call you over and let you know what the problem is! I'm fine with being asked if it's all OK when I'm not chewing. But for crying out loud, if you want my opinion you should wait until I can voice it! I have the sneakng suspicion that waitstaff do this just so that they never have to take a complaint....

[Porthos]

What I really abhor and will either leave the restaurant or ask to be seated at another table served by a different person, is when female servers have long fingernails.

Having a long thumbnail inserted into my salad (on one occasion, an omelet) is absolutely disgusting to me.

I complained to a manager at one restaurant, and explained that I would not pay for a dish that as far as I was concerned had been "contaminated" by the server having her extremely long thumbnail in it.

He shrugged and said that he had no control over the "personal" affectations of servers who wanted to wear piercings and have long fingernails.

I have not been back to that restaurant.

Some years ago my wife, daughters and I went to a "nicer" chain restaurant near our home. While visiting the men's room I watched a waiter use the restroom and leave without washing his hands. When I complained to the manager his answer was the waitstaff washes their hands somewhere else. What about all of the surfaces he touched before he finally did wash his hands. We never went back.

I almost hesitate to post this but then there was the time I stepped into a restaurant's men's room and one of the waitstaff was pleasuring himself standing in front of the urinal. Haven't been back there either. Keep it private and away from the customers already.

I think that was a Seinfeld episode.

On my second entry: I could drive you to the restaurant in Tustin, Calif where it happened. I'm trying to be fair to the restaurant itself by not naming it. How could they know they were hiring sure a fool. Still, don't care to go back.

[pastameshugana]

Can't stand when they auction off your food: "who had the prime rib? And who had the soup?"

It's your job to remember who ordered what!

[cookingdiva]

I also had an experience before where I spent 20 minutes waiting for my food to be served. I followed-up with the waiter and they informed me that the food I ordered is no longer available since it's currently out of stock. Why did they make me wait for 20 minutes without informing me that my order is out of stock. I walked out and never went there again. I even made a topic about it on a local forum in our place to warn other people.

[Shel_B]

He shrugged and said that he had no control over the "personal" affectations of servers who wanted to wear piercings and have long fingernails.

Lots of places have dress and appearance codes.

[Taveren]

I've had similar issues when picking up sandwiches at Subway. The person making my sandwich donned clear plastic gloves and then, as she slid my sandwich down the line on a paper sheet, she wiped the counter clean into the little trash openings with her gloved hand and then went back to making my sandwich. I yelled at her to stop and put new gloves on.

I had another Subway employee stop making my sandwich to answer the phone and then she came back to finish making my sandwich with her now-contaminated gloves. I also stopped her from touching my sandwich and told her to put new gloves on.

What's sad is they have this deer-in-the-headlights look when you try to explain what they did wrong and they just don't get it.

If that bothers you I suggest you never eat in a restaurant again. Edited August 23, 2013 by Taveren (log)

[Tri2Cook]

I've had similar issues when picking up sandwiches at Subway. The person making my sandwich donned clear plastic gloves and then, as she slid my sandwich down the line on a paper sheet, she wiped the counter clean into the little trash openings with her gloved hand and then went back to making my sandwich. I yelled at her to stop and put new gloves on.

I had another Subway employee stop making my sandwich to answer the phone and then she came back to finish making my sandwich with her now-contaminated gloves. I also stopped her from touching my sandwich and told her to put new gloves on.

What's sad is they have this deer-in-the-headlights look when you try to explain what they did wrong and they just don't get it.

If that bothers you I suggest you never eat in a restaurant again.

I was thinking the same thing. There aren't a lot of cooks out there wearing any gloves at all while they handle your food and for every one you see on tv where the chef is yelling at the line cook for not taking a shower after touching the endive and before touching the arugula, there's a whole bunch of them answering phones, wiping their hands on their already dirty shirt, putting lettuce on your sandwich directly after putting a raw burger on the grill, etc. I guess it's easier to not think about since they're not standing right in front of you like at Subway... but there are much more offensive things than wiping some lettuce off the assembly line going on in a lot of places.

[Toliver]

I've had similar issues when picking up sandwiches at Subway. The person making my sandwich donned clear plastic gloves and then, as she slid my sandwich down the line on a paper sheet, she wiped the counter clean into the little trash openings with her gloved hand and then went back to making my sandwich. I yelled at her to stop and put new gloves on.

I had another Subway employee stop making my sandwich to answer the phone and then she came back to finish making my sandwich with her now-contaminated gloves. I also stopped her from touching my sandwich and told her to put new gloves on.

What's sad is they have this deer-in-the-headlights look when you try to explain what they did wrong and they just don't get it.

If that bothers you I suggest you never eat in a restaurant again.

The pretense of the employees putting on gloves and then dirtying the gloves in plain view while making my sandwich just ticked me off. If you're going to bother to pretend to be sanitary, then keep up the charade completely until I'm gone or why bother?

[Arey]

In the Asian Supermarket I go to in a nearby community, the cashiers wear those blue disposable gloves. Only they don't dispose of them. They use them over and over again until they're almost black. Yes, it's disgusting, but if I want my Lee Kum Kee Oyster Sauce , chive dumplings, and MaMa Sita's barbeque sauce where else am I going to get them?. It's almost 60 miles to Philadelphia.
In a similar vein, I frequently order 16 chicken drumsticks, skin off at my butcher shop.When peeling them. they reach under the butcher block, grab a very much used, and frankly, filthy apron and use it to yank the skins off after they've peeled the skin down to the bottom of the drumstick. When done they then wipe off the butcher block with the same apron, and throw it back down under the butcher block. Several years ago there was a food blog from an eguletteer who had returned to their hometown in India and was posting fascinating pictures of street food they were eating. They did however caution people that if they hadn't grown up eating this food in this community they might not want to eat it. Well, I feel the same way about my butcher and his aprons. I've been going there for almost 40 years and have built up an immunity to anything I could catch.
But those cashiers in the Asian Supermarket with their coal black once blue gloves give me pause.

[David Hensley]

My personal pet peeve these days, believe it or not, is the overwhelming use of the term "aioli". I'm sick to death of every damned flavored mayonaise out there being referred to as Aioli! Traditional handmade mayo, flavored with real, raw garlic? Thats aioli! Your personal mix of Hellman's, dijon mustard, and raspberry vinegar? Not at all....

[quiet1]

I've had similar issues when picking up sandwiches at Subway. The person making my sandwich donned clear plastic gloves and then, as she slid my sandwich down the line on a paper sheet, she wiped the counter clean into the little trash openings with her gloved hand and then went back to making my sandwich. I yelled at her to stop and put new gloves on.

I had another Subway employee stop making my sandwich to answer the phone and then she came back to finish making my sandwich with her now-contaminated gloves. I also stopped her from touching my sandwich and told her to put new gloves on.

What's sad is they have this deer-in-the-headlights look when you try to explain what they did wrong and they just don't get it.

If that bothers you I suggest you never eat in a restaurant again.

The pretense of the employees putting on gloves and then dirtying the gloves in plain view while making my sandwich just ticked me off. If you're going to bother to pretend to be sanitary, then keep up the charade completely until I'm gone or why bother?

I've unfortunately seen this in some health care staff, too. (Not nurses or doctors, but aides working at nursing homes and that sort of thing.) As far as I can tell they think the gloves are to protect THEM from touching things, not to also protect you/other things from cross contamination. And some people seem to be completely unable to grasp the concept. Drove me nuts when I was dealing with it all the time.

As far as other pet peeves - similar to not telling me if a dish isn't available promptly, not telling me promptly (or at all!) if a dish can be prepared the way I asked. MSG is an instant migraine trigger for me in anything other than tiny amounts, so I have to ask about it in places that traditionally are heavy with the MSG - I am perfectly fine with the concept that some dishes have to be marinaded or sauces prepared ahead of time and so there's no way they can prepare it without the MSG if they usually use it, just tell me that's the case so I can pick something else. Don't wait until everything else is ready so that I'm stuck sitting there, the lone one from my party with no food.

[annabelle]

My personal pet peeve these days, believe it or not, is the overwhelming use of the term "aioli". I'm sick to death of every damned flavored mayonaise out there being referred to as Aioli! Traditional handmade mayo, flavored with real, raw garlic? Thats aioli! Your personal mix of Hellman's, dijon mustard, and raspberry vinegar? Not at all....

Heh. How about "confit"? A confit of tomatoes? Really?

[David Hensley]

I know, right?!!? When I "confit" something, I make it a point to refer to it on the menu as a "preserved" whatever...

Also, if I hear one more server describe the "umami" of a given menu item, somebody id getting shanked...

[GlorifiedRice]

People who ask a cook/chef what they can substitute for half the ingredients in a recipe

or substitute for an integral ingredient or people who wanna substitute most of the ingredients.

Like wtf!

Exagerated example:

'Hi, this cake looks good, but Im a low carber, what can I substitue for the flour and sugar?"

Its a cake fer gods sakes!

[SobaAddict70]

#1 is probably the phrase "Are you still working on that?", which if I had the ability to do so, I would immediately eliminate from every language on Earth, past, present and future.

[gfweb]

Waking up an old topic to proclaim my dislike for "bake" as a descriptor. For some reason seeing "blah, blah and blah with bleh bake" as a recipe title drives me nuts. I tend to automatically write the recipe off without even reading it. Just needed to get that off my chest.

Absolutely. Shows up in the sort of recipes found in advertisements for canned green beans.

[Kim Shook]

Restaurants that don't take reservations.  I hate this and wish that I had the resolve to boycott those places.  It is basically saying "We are so successful that we don't care if you have to wait an hour or more."  Great first impression.

[gfweb]

Other than not taking reservations, my biggest gripe is menus that aren't accurate. Tonight we at a a nice enough place...Merge on Amelia island...and the menu description was nothing like the dish in several instances.

For exp.

CRAB AND CORN 'NUDI' was actually a plate of mussels with a few gnudi. Not a pasta dish at all.

RABBIT SPRING ROLLS was a curried thing. No curry was noted on the menu. Vile in any event.

What is the chef thinking?

[Martin Fisher]

Several pet peeves but one that really drives me crazy is when a server says "Enjoy!"....I hate it!

I don't pay attention to other diners, it's none of my business! I'm not there with the goal to impress them and I assume they're not there to impress me...so we generally get along.

Edited May 18, 2014 by DiggingDogFarm (log)

[lindag]

Sorry.

Edited May 18, 2014 by lindag (log)

[palo]

Reading a number of threads regarding inadequate service in restaurants and decisions by diners to find their own missing silverware, find the coffee station etc. Has anyone ever had the gall to cook their own food? Obviously we are referring to a decidedly down-scale eatery, with an extremely informal standard. Due to health and legal regulations this would probably never happen in N. America.

p