are another thing which make me very glad that I have never opened a restaurant.
Yelp reviews
- Thread starter kelbro
- Start date
I don't very often ... but we had such a horrible experience last week at a fairly new restaurant, I felt compelled to leave one.
1. Our server watched us walk in (there was no hostess) and it took her 10 minutes to come to the table and bring menus/water/say hello
2. My wife saw an acquaintance of hers in the restaurant, and we asked their waitress to put their next round of drinks on us. They didn't.
3. My wife's meal came out 10 minutes before mine. She literally tried to wait to eat while I was waiting, but I told her not to because it would get cold. As we waited, we saw the exact same situation play out at the table next to us. My food finally came, that table's second plate never did, and finally the husband at that table just told the waitress to forget it and they shared the one plate that did come.
4. My dinner, blackened pheasant breast, was not blackened, and it was horribly overcooked. Had they taken it out at the same time they were delivering my wife's dinner, it probably would have been perfect.
5. In addition to failing to put my wife's friend's drinks on our tab, they forgot to put our second round on our tab. By then I was too worn out from the experience to point it out.
There were other issues as well, that didn't happen to us, but it's REALLY rare we have such a bad experience.
Granted, it's a new restaurant, but there was no manager around to talk to about our experience, hence the Yelp review.
1. Our server watched us walk in (there was no hostess) and it took her 10 minutes to come to the table and bring menus/water/say hello
2. My wife saw an acquaintance of hers in the restaurant, and we asked their waitress to put their next round of drinks on us. They didn't.
3. My wife's meal came out 10 minutes before mine. She literally tried to wait to eat while I was waiting, but I told her not to because it would get cold. As we waited, we saw the exact same situation play out at the table next to us. My food finally came, that table's second plate never did, and finally the husband at that table just told the waitress to forget it and they shared the one plate that did come.
4. My dinner, blackened pheasant breast, was not blackened, and it was horribly overcooked. Had they taken it out at the same time they were delivering my wife's dinner, it probably would have been perfect.
5. In addition to failing to put my wife's friend's drinks on our tab, they forgot to put our second round on our tab. By then I was too worn out from the experience to point it out.
There were other issues as well, that didn't happen to us, but it's REALLY rare we have such a bad experience.
Granted, it's a new restaurant, but there was no manager around to talk to about our experience, hence the Yelp review.
I did the whole yelp thing for a couple months, trying to remember to write a review for each place we went. I ended up getting free sushi out of it one time.
Our favorite sushi place had changed management and undergone a renovation, and when we went back the service was awful and the sushi looked like I had gone back there and prepared it with a Swiss Army knife. I wrote a sufficiently negative review bemoaning the management change, and ended up getting a message on yelp a few days later asking us to come back and try the place out again on them. We did end up going back, but I decided not to invoke the 100% discount discussed in our yelp conversation. However, the owner recognized me and discounted the meal anyway.
Turns out that the bad experience was a combination of a bad hire and some of the pains of getting a business up and running. Our second experience was significantly better! The owner even took the time to suggest to us what to order that would be most like the rolls we loved from the old restaurant. She made a point of coming over and saying hello to us every time we came back.
If we hadn't moved halfway across the country, we'd still regularly patronize that place, because we know that the owner takes care of her customers.
Our favorite sushi place had changed management and undergone a renovation, and when we went back the service was awful and the sushi looked like I had gone back there and prepared it with a Swiss Army knife. I wrote a sufficiently negative review bemoaning the management change, and ended up getting a message on yelp a few days later asking us to come back and try the place out again on them. We did end up going back, but I decided not to invoke the 100% discount discussed in our yelp conversation. However, the owner recognized me and discounted the meal anyway.
Turns out that the bad experience was a combination of a bad hire and some of the pains of getting a business up and running. Our second experience was significantly better! The owner even took the time to suggest to us what to order that would be most like the rolls we loved from the old restaurant. She made a point of coming over and saying hello to us every time we came back.
If we hadn't moved halfway across the country, we'd still regularly patronize that place, because we know that the owner takes care of her customers.
- Thread starter
- #24
kelbro
Alfred Spatchcock
One trend that I've noticed is that the level of service in many restaurants has definitely dropped off since the implementation of the new minimum wage. Lots of those ancillary jobs have been eliminated. Hosts, busboys, etc...
I'm trying to be a little more tolerant of slowness but I believe that restaurant owners are hesitant to raise their prices to offset the added expense. I would personally pay a little more for better service.
I'm trying to be a little more tolerant of slowness but I believe that restaurant owners are hesitant to raise their prices to offset the added expense. I would personally pay a little more for better service.
I've noticed service problems increasing in general. They seem most apparent when the restaurant is mostly empty. I'm willing to give the waitstaff a bit of latitude when they're clearly working their tails off to serve a full section, but things like forgetting that you have tables on the patio, sitting people in a corner of the restaurant and then completely forgetting to greet them and get their drink order, and not checking on your tables for 15 minutes are breaches of the basic tenets of service. Oh, and write the dang order down so that it doesn't get screwed up when you relay it to the kitchen.
Getting a little further off-topic, but somewhat related: My wife and I were talking about how Chick-Fil-A has much better service than all the other fast food places. I think hiring practices make a huge difference. Chick-Fil-A tends to employ a lot more high school and college kids, whereas the other fast food joints (as well as chain sit-down restaurants) lean much more heavily on underemployed 20-somethings.
Getting a little further off-topic, but somewhat related: My wife and I were talking about how Chick-Fil-A has much better service than all the other fast food places. I think hiring practices make a huge difference. Chick-Fil-A tends to employ a lot more high school and college kids, whereas the other fast food joints (as well as chain sit-down restaurants) lean much more heavily on underemployed 20-somethings.
Our latest service experiences are kind of a mixed bag. Aside from our tale of woe up above, we went out the following night, and to be fair, this was a higher end establishment, but we weren't having a huge dinner or anything. Our aim was to go to their bar, share a bottle of wine and maybe have a couple of appetizers. We ended up staying for like four hours there. The bartender was charming and charismatic, and most importantly, quick with a drink as well as quick with a recommendation from the menu. We also enjoyed the company of a couple of people who were sitting there with us. I tipped the bartender very well that night, and we're planning to go back again this Saturday.
A few weeks prior, we went out to dinner with the kids, to a place we've been before, kind of a pub type place, and our waitress was the WORST. Took her forever to come to the table and when a hostess or co-worker pointed us out, she responded with an eye roll. Largely absent during the meal, we had to make sure we asked for drink seconds or extras with dinner as the meal was delivered because we were sure to never see her again. At the end of the meal, she was at a back table with other servers, standing and "wrapping silverware" but it was obvious she was doing little more than chatting and gossiping. My wife finally interrupted her while walking back to the restroom so she would bring us the check. Her tip was pretty poor.
I'm not generally an extravagant tipper, if you do a basic good job you'll get 20%. If you ignore us like the second experience here, you get 10% or even less, depending on how busy we observe you to be otherwise. Our bartender the other night? He earned 30% plus.
A few weeks prior, we went out to dinner with the kids, to a place we've been before, kind of a pub type place, and our waitress was the WORST. Took her forever to come to the table and when a hostess or co-worker pointed us out, she responded with an eye roll. Largely absent during the meal, we had to make sure we asked for drink seconds or extras with dinner as the meal was delivered because we were sure to never see her again. At the end of the meal, she was at a back table with other servers, standing and "wrapping silverware" but it was obvious she was doing little more than chatting and gossiping. My wife finally interrupted her while walking back to the restroom so she would bring us the check. Her tip was pretty poor.
I'm not generally an extravagant tipper, if you do a basic good job you'll get 20%. If you ignore us like the second experience here, you get 10% or even less, depending on how busy we observe you to be otherwise. Our bartender the other night? He earned 30% plus.
We mostly frequent pretty small, independent spaces where it's impossible to get lost or forgotten, lucky if they can seat a couple dozen customers. Service is usually super.
dave
dave
This is pretty much where I am, too. 18% is my baseline walking into the restaurant, and it goes up or down from there. Most times, I end up with average service and to 18% rounded up to the next dollar (It's a cheap anti-fraud detector for my credit card bill... if the charge isn't an even dollar, then it wasn't me (ask me why I don't do that at the gas pump anymore)) I do find it interesting that the baseline has seemed to creep up from 15% to 18% to 20%. I've seen people advocating for the commonly accepted baseline to go to 25%.
When the baseline move to 25%, and I know it will, the frequency of me eating out will drop drastically
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