Service Waiter?

This is an official rant post.  A rant about restaurants, waiters and the horrific treatment that the poor people of Britain have to endure in most eateries.

I’ll start by telling a story about a recent cheeky time at Baker Street.  We were celebrating our Mum’s birthday.  All was going well.  The food was delish.  The waitress was not.  Well, at first there was a bit of a language barrier, but she seemed friendly enough.  Anyway, before the meal started, we gave the waitress a surprise Birthday Cake, and told her we’d let her know when we wanted it bought out with candles.  She seemed a bit confused, but ‘bless her’ we thought.  Maybe she’s new?

Meal over.  Yummy.  The waitress kind of disappears, so my brother goes and finds her and tells her to bring out the cake.  We’re all perusing the dessert menu, trying to throw my mum off.  She comes over to the table and asks ‘So who is this cake for?’  We all awkwardly giver her the ‘SHUT UP IT’S A SURPRISE’ look, and she doesn’t seem to get it.  My brother drags her away and tells her it’s a surprise birthday cake.  She disappears again, and we’re all waiting for a glowing cake to make it’s way to the table.  It doesn’t…she walks over with the cake (still in it’s plastic casing) and a pack of candles and dumps them onto our table.  ‘No lighter’, she says, and walks off.  Like, literally.  Noone could even speak from the shock.  Did that just happen?  Did she actually just dump an unlit cake on the table?  Nahhhh.  Dreaming right?  I was actually about to pass out from rage, so I asked her for the manager.  ‘Why do you want to talk to her?’  Errrr…why do you fucking think you Donkey tit?  The manager comes over and I explain the situation.  I said I’d never known anything like it and I wanted a fat chunk knocked off the bill.  She just looked at me in disbelief.  Someone is complaining?  What do I do? She says ‘Shall I go light the cake and bring it back in?’  Ummmm no…moment’s kind of gone there sweetcheeks.  So she brings out plates, and we sit there weeping over our cheesecake.  We’d been so thrown off that we hadn’t even sung Happy Birthday to my mum (I may sound dramatic here, but Birthdays are always a big deal with my family).

The waitress finally comes over, and still can’t bring herself to apologise about it.  ‘I don’t smoke you see, so I didn’t have a lighter or matches’.  Errrrrr wtf?  How did you light all the candles on the table then fanny-breath?

Anyway, the manager I think finally twigged as to how angry we were, and realised that there’s nothing worse than shit like this happening on a birthday.  And thankfully totally redeemed herself with 50% off the bill, a free round of Limoncellos and a special birthday cocktail for mum. This is a total rarity though.  Usually when I complain they ‘can’t’ do anything about it, we’re left to suffer and the only damage we can do is take off the tip.

The only problem is, that we shouldn’t have had to complain so ferociously and asked for the discount.  It should be a given.

My British-based restaurant rage started when I was 19 on a visit to Miami.  Something went wrong with our order, and I swear the staff bent-over-backwards to redeem themselves afterwards.  Free food.  Free cocktails.  Anything to ensure we didn’t give the restaurant a bad name.  And that’s how it should be right?  Well apparently not in the UK.  I can safely say that about 1 in 10 waiters can’t even bring themselves to even apologise when something goes wrong.

Mistakes happen.  That’s ok.  We’re all human.  But when you are made to feel bad and guilty about something going wrong with your food, that’s when it becomes all sorts of wrong.

Another recent episode happened at Carluccio’s.  We were ignored for 20 minutes and not even given a menu.  Then when we finally did order, and hour later my fiancee’s food came out ice-cold.  We told the waiter, and he took away his plate without a single WORD.  And left mine.  I told him I didn’t want to eat without him, so told him to take mine back too.  He snatched my plate and dropped most of it on the floor in his rage, and again silently left.  MATE.  I was chargrilled with anger.  I asked for the manager and thank FUCK he was American, and we received American treatment that night.  He was so upset about it.  Free mains and wine.  We only paid for the dessert.  And fuck it.  That’s how it should be!  How fucking dare anyone have to sit there and lump that kind of attitude from anyone?  The best part was when we heard him SCREAMING at the waiter and threatening to fire him.  Gutted prick.

Anyway.  What I’m saying is this.  Every single meal I’ve ever had in America has had perfect service.  And if anything did go wrong with the food, you still left feeling like you had a wonderful night.  We need to start doing this in the UK.  British diners get treated like shit, and are too scared to even say anything half the time.  I’ve witnessed countless people receiving the wrong order and taking it anyway.

There’s just no care.  At all.  People, you do realise that you have to earn your tip right?  It’s not just forked out for a laugh.

NO MORE.  YOU DESERVE THE BEST MY HUNGRY LITTLE CRITTERS.  STAND UP FOR YOUR TASTY RIGHTS.

Tags: bad service