We went to a restaurant which I won't mention, but those of you who know where I live know it is just down the main drag from McDonald's and has a teepee in front of it. It was raining icy rain and due to the blood thinners I'm on, I was chilled to the bone. Plus my appetite isn't so keen. So when we ordered our food, I decided shrimp would go down easy, although it was a bit of an extravagance, I can only eat like a half dinner at a time so I figured it would be worth it.
Well, the cole slaw came and it was like mayonnaise-saturated mush. Any plant fiber was long gone from the dish, so I kinda shoved it aside and hoped the entree would be better. The shrimp came, and I noticed it was dark brown and the first bite was like way too crunchy. Overdone, tasteless, and overpriced. I tried peeling off the crust but it was still tasteless and not moist at all. So, I told the waitress. They hammered away at me, insisting over and over they would bring me a replacement shrimp dinner. By that time, I just wanted to leave. You know, I wasn't really enjoying myself that much anyway. The fries were not bad, and I filled up on a handful or so.
But I let them try to make it right. So about 15 minutes later, the dish comes back out. And to my absolute astonishment, the shrimp looked EXACTLY the same...and it tasted the same and CRUNCHED the same, too! I looked at Fritz and he looked at me, and we were like "DUH!"
As I said, almost anything that happened that day was much more newsworthy than a bad meal. I just wanted to say, "What the HE>>!? Is this some kind of joke? Am I on Punk'd or Candid Camera, or Boiling Points?" Anyway, I know we have all had these unfortunate experiences. Feel free to tell me yours.
11 comments:
I've had some really crappy service as well. Last weekend CHris & I were working at Albee so I went to Wendy's for lunch. I got a salad and a meal for Chris. When I got up to the window to pay/get my food, the girl never said one word to me, just grunted and shoved stuff at me and stomped away. I checked my bag and sure enough, they gave me a dressing that had sugar not the dressing I asked for so I patiently waited at the window for the girl to come back. Again, she whipped open the window with a scowl and a malevolent silence to which I kindly asked for Ranch and salt which she huffed and shoved at me again. Boy was I furious.
You can't help but feel that with so many people out of jobs, why do these people act so imcompetent, and like it's such a chore to do their jobs!? It makes you feel like telling them, "Hey, you can be easily replaced. Let me talk to your boss?!" Well, okay, we probably don't want to be responsible for getting someone fired, but hey.....
P.S. I threw the whole meal in the garbage when I got it home.
I can't think of any bad ones recently, but there's always the classic tiny Mexican restaraunt story where none of us got our food for over an hour, and then it was another half hour for one of the girls. Member dat?
Yes, I do remember that. That was the same restaurant (which by this time had moved next door, but it's the SAME restaurant). I also had a very bad experience there involving an unbelievably rude server and food that was greasy and unacceptable. I remember going there that time with your family and how bad it was! You can bet places like those aren't going to be in business in these bad economic times. You may notice some restaurants still fill the tables and have waiting areas because they are always excellent. Too bad those are the expensive ones!
I've had lots of unfortunate experiences over the years but the one that sticks out in my mind was during a visit to McDonalds in the super Walmart (Tulsa)getting new tires prior to a run up to Michigan. I decided to go early in the morning to avoid the crowds, Michelle was staying the weekend at Ada's house so it was just Michael and me.
I stood at the counter waiting for service, I could hear the employees talking and laughing in a small room off of the counter area but I coudn't see them. I called out "hello" the giggling ebbed but nobody came right out. Finally this contempt-o-saur lumbers out at a leasured pace never once making eye contact.
"thankyooforchoozingmcdonaldscaneyetakeyourorder" absently oozed from her coffee and cigarette stained tongue.
I ordered sausage biscuit with egg breakfast sandwich meals for Michael and I but when I got to our table I noticed there wasn't any meat?
I went back to the counter, same thing...had to call someone away from the breaktable...
I explained that our sandwiches didn't have any meat. The warm body attending the counter still without making eye contact says what kind of meat do you want? I said "Sausage!, that's why I ordered SAUSAGE biscuits with egg".
She replies ok one sausage biscuit with egg? "NO, TWO....I WANT TWO"
So she tries to charge me for two more sandwiches....I show her the receipt, and explain once again:
"I ordered two sausage biscuit with egg meals and the sandwiches didn't have any meat on them....they were suposed to have sausage on them but they only had egg and cheese"
Yes, those are egg and cheese biscuits" she replies...."but I wanted sausage biscuits!"
Did you want egg and cheese on them too? she askes...any way this went on way too long, I finally talked her into frying two sausage patties that I inserted into our little sandwiches. It was so hard to get that simple idea across I like Vi thought I was in the twilight zone!
Yoob
Holy crap, Yoob, that was perty dang bad. Makes you wonder if they got her off the short bus.....
Personally, I think the worst service is always served up at drive-thrus and occassionally a sit-down restaurant. Why does it have to be the places where you eat for goll-darn sakes?!?!?!?
Ever pay extra for the "jumbo" shrimp only to find minescule shrimp encased in massive amounts of batter?
Yoob
I have a shrimp story but it's not about that...but first, Bunnyjo and I were reminiscing and we remembered going to a Ponderosa and all the baked potatoes were raw...remembering, I started laughing so hard I had to hang onto my chest because it hurt!!!!! No kidding, every customer in the whole place was pissed and complaining, no one's potato was cooked, it was like they were handing out raw potatoes...we couldn't believe it...and then they put them in a microwave, and of course that takes forever, and they could only cook a few at a time and everyone was still mad. I guess their oven wasn't working. At the time we were really mad but looking back it seems so funny...
The shrimp fiasco....
Susan Treutler is a writer for the Chronicle. She is from Whitehall, and in her youth she worked for Tom Jones, who owned a drive-in root beer stand that was a famous gathering place for teens. She recently wrote a column about those days, about working for Tom and how horrible he was...well, here is how I found out how horrible he was...
After the root beer stand closed, he opened up a little fast food diner outside of town. On his window advertisements were 2 shrimp dinners. One was chopped up shrimp formed into little shrimp-shaped bites for a lower price than the big, beautiful, golden buterfly shrimp, which of course sold for a higher price.
So I went in and ordered the butterfly shrimp, which I dearly love, as a special treat. And after I drove away, found (you guessed it!) I got the cheaper shrimp. So, next time I went in, I pointed out the ad on the window and made it clear that is what I wanted. Oh yes, AGAIN...the old fart did the same thing. Now you would think I would have figured out it was a scam, but I still wanted those gorgeous shrimp, and I was naive enough to think it was just an unfortunate mistake. So again, I went in there and explained how he had made an error, and made sure he understood that I wanted the BUTTERFLY shrimp. This time, I stood right there and opened the container up. Sure enough, it was the inferior crappy shrimp. So we proceeded to argue. And being a young female I lost. He talked so fast and so long and so confusingly that I kind of gave up.
Suffice it to say, I finally got it, the S.O.B saw me coming, and saw a buck to be made. In those days I wasn't much of a fighter or complainer. Have you ever seen Mr. Krabs on Spongebob? That was Tom Jones. Gosh, I just hated getting screwed like that.
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