Post by marjancin on Apr 1, 2008 21:33:25 GMT -6
In the "Pet Peeves" thread, I made many mentions of bad restaurant experiences I've had in the past. I decided that this could use a topic of its own (and I give credit to Phalon for the title of the topic!) and let the "Pet Peeves" topic be just that - pet peeves, not stories about unpleasant eating experiences.
Before I tell you about the latest one, let's review the ones I've posted (yes, I know we can just look in the Pet Peeves topic, but seeing as they're spread over several different pages...).
The first one I told you about was the lady in Fazoli's who pretty much announced to the restaurant that her baby had plopped in his diaper, and the kids that were with her were horsing around, throwing wet napkins at each other and stuff. I moved away from them and the woman got all bent out of shape and started cussing at me, sort of implying that I was just jealous that I didn't have a baby, which was not at all true. As I said in that post, I'm almost 25, single, childless, and a virgin and damn proud of it!
The next one, which had happened three years before, was at Red Lobster. Two people were discussing the movie "Passion Of The Christ", which has many gory scenes, which was what they were talking about. We could have tuned them out, but they were talking in rather loud voices and got pissed off when my then-boyfriend asked them to please keep their voices down if they had to talk about that crap. Fortunately, we were able to be moved to another table.
Then, there was the one three years before that one (see a pattern forming here?), about the kitchen worker in the Italian restaurant giving another employee a foot massage in the dining room, with the girl's bare feet and discarded shoes and socks in plain view of everyone (of course, at the moment, "everyone" only consisted of myself, since I had arrived at a slow time.) I said something to them, but they pretty much ignored me. Even the manager didn't really care what they were doing, although it was clearly against the board of health, whom I contacted the next day. I have a feeling that it's a little more than coincidence that they went out of business the following year (although the fact that it was a Mom and Pop establishment could have been instrumental in that, too).
Moving right along, there was that one crazy lady who was reaming me out for chewing on my fingernails. I kept trying to play it down, but that made her even more angry and she would not get out of my face to save her life. Fortunately, she came over and started up with me as I was leaving, so it was pretty easy to just get away from her. I haven't seen her since, so the paddy wagon must have come to take her away, ha-haaa!
Exactly a month later (I ate out at restaurants this past year much more than I had in the past, making it likely to have more bad experiences, and did I ever!), I was at KFC with my ex-boyfriend and there was a guy there who should have taken five minutes to groom himself and he would have been just fine. Instead, he was wearing a tank top, which revealed his gross, hairy armpits. And he had the worst B.O that I had smelled in a long time, and on his tank top was a DEAD FLY!! He tried to sit down at the table next to ours, but we were like, no way, so we moved as far away from the guy as we could. Not before our appetites were pretty much ruined. I ended up taking more than half of my food home for later. I still think that restaurants should have a policy that you can't wear tank tops. I mean, the place is air conditioned. Surely, even in the hottest weather, you can bear to wear a regular T-shirt for just a few minutes!
The next one was the ultimate. It was at McDonalds, where my choice of tables was quite limited, since it was during the lunch rush. I was sitting down next to a family who had a kid who was totally fidgety. He was talking with his mouth full and he kept swinging his feet up on the seat. When he knocked into me, I asked him to stop, and his mother kept making excuses for him. Right about when I was about to say something along the lines of "Excuse me, but you've mistaken me for someone who gives a s--t", another table opens up, so I just move over to it. Well, apparently, they went to the manager/owner and told them that I was "harassing" them, because he came over to me, started chewing me out, and told me to leave. I told my ex-boyfriend and his sister, whose house I was on my way to when I stopped at McD's, about what happened and my ex sent me an e-mail a few days later, saying that he had a cousin who used to work at the restaurant and these people were good friends with the owner, who would sit and talk to the family, who were known to hang out at the restaurant for hours at times, and what really killed me was that he let them into the work area during business hours. Who knows what would happen with that little kid, as rambunctious as he is!
Earlier this year, I found out that the McDonald's is under new ownership. I have no idea why - it's apparently top secret information, for several people I've asked have remained hush-hush about it. But I guess it doesn't really matter - I have an idea or two, but, due to a few not-so-good circumstances that materialized back in September, soon after I posted the story, I've grown more cautious about being judgmental on these boards. My McDonald's story was twice as long back then as it is now, but I have since edited it down quite heavily (for anyone who might be interested, I still have the original written down in WordPerfect, so you're welcome to PM me )
Well, finally, we're up to my latest dining experience. Fortunately, nothing gross happened, but the situation was equally as aggravating. I was at a popular chain restaurant (for privacy purposes, I choose not to name it) with my best friend (yes, my ex-boyfriend's sister) for breakfast this past weekend. We put our order in and, as I expected, there was a long wait, like there usually is at that particular restaurant. Well, we waited and waited. I was beginning to think that they had to go out to the farm and gather the eggs. Finally, when a table that had been seated quite a while after we had arrived was being served, I called the waitress over and asked what was taking so long, as nicely as I could. She went to check on it and then came back and said that the order had been put down somewhere away from the kitchen area. My friend said, "Oh, how nice", not in a disgusted voice, but in a voice that implied humor. The waitress said, "We'll get it to you as fast as we can. It's OK, that kind of stuff happens." I was thinking, well, yes that kind of stuff DOES happen, but I'm afraid you don't get to say that! It's the person who was inconvenienced whose right it is to say that it's OK. It's bad enough that the waitress wasn't paying attention to what she was doing, but to excuse herself like that was totally out of line. I told my friend, who was footing the bill (since I had paid for our meal last time we ate out) that she should ask for at least a discount (because if I was the manager of that restaurant, it would have been on the house and would have come out of the waitress' paycheck!), but she just shook her head, saying that it wasn't that big of a deal. That's the problem with her, she's so passive about everything. I guess that does help to make her more easygoing than I am, but still. I kept trying to convince her, especially because the damn waitress never apologized in any way. I was toying with the idea of contacting the manager and telling him about what happened, but, in case he offered to refund our money, that might be stepping on my friend's toes, and the last thing I want to do is to sour our friendship. And besides, since she was the one who paid for our meal, it wasn't really my place to say anything. But I'll tell you what, that restaurant isn't going to get anymore of my business! I'll avoid it just like the one McDonald's.
Well, that's my story. Let's hear about your unpleasant dining experiences. I'm sure a few of you have an interesting story or two.
Before I tell you about the latest one, let's review the ones I've posted (yes, I know we can just look in the Pet Peeves topic, but seeing as they're spread over several different pages...).
The first one I told you about was the lady in Fazoli's who pretty much announced to the restaurant that her baby had plopped in his diaper, and the kids that were with her were horsing around, throwing wet napkins at each other and stuff. I moved away from them and the woman got all bent out of shape and started cussing at me, sort of implying that I was just jealous that I didn't have a baby, which was not at all true. As I said in that post, I'm almost 25, single, childless, and a virgin and damn proud of it!
The next one, which had happened three years before, was at Red Lobster. Two people were discussing the movie "Passion Of The Christ", which has many gory scenes, which was what they were talking about. We could have tuned them out, but they were talking in rather loud voices and got pissed off when my then-boyfriend asked them to please keep their voices down if they had to talk about that crap. Fortunately, we were able to be moved to another table.
Then, there was the one three years before that one (see a pattern forming here?), about the kitchen worker in the Italian restaurant giving another employee a foot massage in the dining room, with the girl's bare feet and discarded shoes and socks in plain view of everyone (of course, at the moment, "everyone" only consisted of myself, since I had arrived at a slow time.) I said something to them, but they pretty much ignored me. Even the manager didn't really care what they were doing, although it was clearly against the board of health, whom I contacted the next day. I have a feeling that it's a little more than coincidence that they went out of business the following year (although the fact that it was a Mom and Pop establishment could have been instrumental in that, too).
Moving right along, there was that one crazy lady who was reaming me out for chewing on my fingernails. I kept trying to play it down, but that made her even more angry and she would not get out of my face to save her life. Fortunately, she came over and started up with me as I was leaving, so it was pretty easy to just get away from her. I haven't seen her since, so the paddy wagon must have come to take her away, ha-haaa!
Exactly a month later (I ate out at restaurants this past year much more than I had in the past, making it likely to have more bad experiences, and did I ever!), I was at KFC with my ex-boyfriend and there was a guy there who should have taken five minutes to groom himself and he would have been just fine. Instead, he was wearing a tank top, which revealed his gross, hairy armpits. And he had the worst B.O that I had smelled in a long time, and on his tank top was a DEAD FLY!! He tried to sit down at the table next to ours, but we were like, no way, so we moved as far away from the guy as we could. Not before our appetites were pretty much ruined. I ended up taking more than half of my food home for later. I still think that restaurants should have a policy that you can't wear tank tops. I mean, the place is air conditioned. Surely, even in the hottest weather, you can bear to wear a regular T-shirt for just a few minutes!
The next one was the ultimate. It was at McDonalds, where my choice of tables was quite limited, since it was during the lunch rush. I was sitting down next to a family who had a kid who was totally fidgety. He was talking with his mouth full and he kept swinging his feet up on the seat. When he knocked into me, I asked him to stop, and his mother kept making excuses for him. Right about when I was about to say something along the lines of "Excuse me, but you've mistaken me for someone who gives a s--t", another table opens up, so I just move over to it. Well, apparently, they went to the manager/owner and told them that I was "harassing" them, because he came over to me, started chewing me out, and told me to leave. I told my ex-boyfriend and his sister, whose house I was on my way to when I stopped at McD's, about what happened and my ex sent me an e-mail a few days later, saying that he had a cousin who used to work at the restaurant and these people were good friends with the owner, who would sit and talk to the family, who were known to hang out at the restaurant for hours at times, and what really killed me was that he let them into the work area during business hours. Who knows what would happen with that little kid, as rambunctious as he is!
Earlier this year, I found out that the McDonald's is under new ownership. I have no idea why - it's apparently top secret information, for several people I've asked have remained hush-hush about it. But I guess it doesn't really matter - I have an idea or two, but, due to a few not-so-good circumstances that materialized back in September, soon after I posted the story, I've grown more cautious about being judgmental on these boards. My McDonald's story was twice as long back then as it is now, but I have since edited it down quite heavily (for anyone who might be interested, I still have the original written down in WordPerfect, so you're welcome to PM me )
Well, finally, we're up to my latest dining experience. Fortunately, nothing gross happened, but the situation was equally as aggravating. I was at a popular chain restaurant (for privacy purposes, I choose not to name it) with my best friend (yes, my ex-boyfriend's sister) for breakfast this past weekend. We put our order in and, as I expected, there was a long wait, like there usually is at that particular restaurant. Well, we waited and waited. I was beginning to think that they had to go out to the farm and gather the eggs. Finally, when a table that had been seated quite a while after we had arrived was being served, I called the waitress over and asked what was taking so long, as nicely as I could. She went to check on it and then came back and said that the order had been put down somewhere away from the kitchen area. My friend said, "Oh, how nice", not in a disgusted voice, but in a voice that implied humor. The waitress said, "We'll get it to you as fast as we can. It's OK, that kind of stuff happens." I was thinking, well, yes that kind of stuff DOES happen, but I'm afraid you don't get to say that! It's the person who was inconvenienced whose right it is to say that it's OK. It's bad enough that the waitress wasn't paying attention to what she was doing, but to excuse herself like that was totally out of line. I told my friend, who was footing the bill (since I had paid for our meal last time we ate out) that she should ask for at least a discount (because if I was the manager of that restaurant, it would have been on the house and would have come out of the waitress' paycheck!), but she just shook her head, saying that it wasn't that big of a deal. That's the problem with her, she's so passive about everything. I guess that does help to make her more easygoing than I am, but still. I kept trying to convince her, especially because the damn waitress never apologized in any way. I was toying with the idea of contacting the manager and telling him about what happened, but, in case he offered to refund our money, that might be stepping on my friend's toes, and the last thing I want to do is to sour our friendship. And besides, since she was the one who paid for our meal, it wasn't really my place to say anything. But I'll tell you what, that restaurant isn't going to get anymore of my business! I'll avoid it just like the one McDonald's.
Well, that's my story. Let's hear about your unpleasant dining experiences. I'm sure a few of you have an interesting story or two.