How forgiving are you of 'problems' in restaurants?

HangTime

HangTime

HangTime

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Just wanted to guage opinions on how you (and family) react to problems encountered at restaurants. By problems I mean things such as these:

-Slow/inattentive service (e.g. making you wait ages before taking drinks orders)
-Bringing the wrong dish out
-Poor quality / cold food
-Contaminated food (e.g. bit of plastic or hair etc)
-Dirty plate/glass/cutlery
-Mistake on the bill
-Poor reaction to issues raised by patrons (rudeness or indifference)
-Failing to notify you of dishes off the menu at or prior to the point of ordering
-Some kind of safety issue e.g. hot liquids spilled on you, protruding nails in furniture etc

Personally I feel I am fairly forgiving of the odd indiscretion, and it usually takes multiple 'offences' to prompt me to complain. Restaurants are staffed by humans often on limited wages so I do not expect perfection every time. When I feel forced to complain I usually do so in a calm and almost apologetic manner. Only a couple of times have I been so annoyed by persistent failures that I have felt the need to ask to speak with a manager.

My wife on the other hand is quite easily riled by what she perceives as poor service and will usually complain in a tone/fashion I can't quite describe, not aggressive per se but very flat and almost personal/condescending toward the staff. At times it makes me cringe if I feel the issue isn't that serious (e.g. I remember once her saying "er hello, I'm still eating?!" when a waitress in a pub cleared my plate away before she'd finished). Amongst our friends she has a reputation now as someone who isn't afraid to complain.

Then when it comes to tipping there is a somewhat awkward situation. Unless I think the service has been genuinely bad I feel compelled to leave a tip of some description even if not entirely satisfied. I don't know why because I don't believe in tipping for the sake of it (only for exceptional service) yet still do it.
 
I tend to not go back again and wont recommend the place to friends rather then complain, but I know a few people who always find something to complain about, which I find a total mere, as they do it everywhere we go, never happy as the steak too over cooked or undercooked, not hot enough, I just cant go out for a meal with them.

The only time I have complained recently I did it online with Harvestor who served my kids two burgers that looked like they were deep fried they wee so overdone.
 
I tend to complain about things if I feel that I'm not getting my money's worth so if it's somewhere super cheap I'll probably cut them more slack than a decent restaurant.

I also go the polite but firm route. Especially if I'm speaking to the person that isn't directly responsible for what I'm complaining about.
 
Fairly forgiving if things are average.
Generous if things are very good.
Will complain if things are awful.

My expectations totally depend on where we go though. I feel in some nicer restaurants the staff have paid very little attention to us given that we both tend to be at the younger range of their clientele and that is probably the most frustrating problem I encounter.
 
As long as the foods cooked I don't care, even if I don't like it I'll just leave the bits I don't like and not return in the future. I really don't want to make the staffs job harder than it already is, some of them are working 12 hour shifts for peanuts and are bound to make mistakes under the pressure they're under.
 
Minor issues = no tip
More significant = no tip and a whinge at the table staff
Serious issues = no tips, complaint to senior staff, possibly even refusal to pay

I don't buy the whole 'oh hard job, bound to make mistakes' sob story. My job can be hard too and if I screw up, I have to take it on the chin, I don't see why people in service industries should be let off giving bad service just because it's 'hard'.
 
i will complain if i find somthing seriously wrong but normally i just dont reccomend the place. a lot of the expectations depend on the price, at a 2 for £10 place (ie places with kids play areas) i pretty much expect mediocre to decent at best service and food, at more expensive i expect it to be worth it.

it will never effect the ammount i tip as in this country 95% of the time i dont tip, i find people now expect it and i absolutely hate the gratuatary screen on the pay unit. i understand in some countrys but this country has a minimum wage.
 
Kenai said:
Minor issues = no tip
More significant = no tip and a whinge at the table staff
Serious issues = no tips, complaint to senior staff, possibly even refusal to pay.
Click to expand...

More or less this with me, though I'd expect a large discount rather than refusal to pay. If its a restaurant that's part of a chain I make a note of the person who served me & the manager's name, I have a draught letter on my PC ready to send to their head office just in case! :D

Father takes no prisoners though, he complains about everything & anything, especially slow service. I think he wanted to be a restaurant critic when he grew up. :rolleyes:
 
Unless it is "meal changing" I won't mention it at the time however I'll mention it in a review on TripAdvisor. That being said, I don't only write reviews if I have a bad experience. I try to write something on TA for each restaurant I go to (where possible).

As I said in a previous thread, I don't tip. Nothing personal, but they get paid their wage just like anyone else. I've had several taxing minimum wage jobs (manual labour) with no reward of tips, hence I don't see why they are any different.
 
I'm usually more forgiving than I probably should be. I've only lost my temper once at a restaurant, an Indian restaurant on top of an Irish bar in San Francisco (should have known :p).

It looked good and the tables were rammed which is usually a confidence booster. To cut a long story short, it took 30 minutes to get drinks, a further 45 minutes for starters to appear and when they did they contained a ball of hair, presumably human, and were freezing cold. I refused to pay and the manager threatened to call the police. So I did the most logical thing to do in such a situation. I lost my rag, became violent and threw the food on the floor. It helped that some other patrons were also voicing their gripes about the food and service. We upped and left, went and got drunk on an empty stomach and never heard another peep about it.

Apart from that isolated incident, I'll usually say nothing or make a suggestion rather than a complaint unless the service is so shockingly bad that I have to get upset.
 
After working in a restaurant, if you have any issues raise them. There's nothing worse than saying to someone on the way out "thanks for coming, did you have a nice meal?" and them saying no, we had this with our main meal etc and your like why didn't you say anything then when I could have done something about it!

Oh and tipping is for good service, not just plain old bog standard service. Tipping arose in the US but their staff are barely paid a wage and over time it's become the norm there. It's supposed to be a reward for good service, tipping staff who don't bother and deliver the bare minimum only encourages them to continue.
 
I know what you mean about raising issues at the time, however sometimes after a hard day at work the last thing you want to do is get into a debate and hassle about some issue with your meal, you just want to eat what you can and get out rather than have that awkward situation where one of you sends a meal back and is sat waiting while other eat and then has to play catch-up when it comes back out. You'd then perhaps mention the problem at the end on the way out so they are aware of it.

Example would be I once ate at a local 'gastro pub' (table service, reasonably pretentious menu, you know the drill) and cut my hand on the chair (it had like industrial staples or something holding fabric in place, but one was sticking out). It drew blood but not the end of the world, I raised it when we finished our meal as I considered it a safety issue and didn't want a child to injure themselves on it. Bloke seemed totally non-plussed about it "oh, we'll get that looked at", no apology or anything, suffice to say 3 years or so later we still haven't been back :)
 
I'll normally only complain if there is something wrong with the food or the service has been rude.

Everything else I just moan to the wife about or refuse to tip or not go back to the restaurant.

Two things that do annoy me though:

Slow service because the restaurant is busy. You've got 30 tables for god sake you must have anticipated 30 tables wanting food at a given time. If you can't cope hire some more stuff or cut the number of tables.

Waiters/waitresses who walk passed dirty tables multiple times empty handed. I find these are the same people who walk passed your drinks multiple times instead of collecting them from the bar and bringing them over to your table.
 
Totally depends on what type of place it is, what it's costing me and what I expect. I'll let a lot more go in a pub than I would in a restaurant of some standing.
 
Having been a waiter for years during school/uni I tend to forgive problems easily but this does not mean I stay silent about them. Best thing is to quietly state problem to waiter and if the place is at all decent it should be resolved without a fuss.

The things that do get to me are aggressive reactions to issues raised, and when waiters ignore you. Found of late that a lot of franchise's waiters seem to ignore the golden rule of waitering - Make sure that guest get a drink as soon as they arrive, and keep these topped up. Gets the bill up and therefore increases the tip (and profit for restaurant).
 
Depends on what I pay and it's reputation tbh. Pay peanuts you're fed peanuts.. I tend to stay clear of commercial chained restaurants and stick to independent ones but they are becoming far and few between which is a great shame.

I like restaurants where my wife and I can be left alone for the evening with out being rushed or disturbed too much.. Basically it's our table for the evening and that's what I look for. If i'm not happy with the service or the cleanliness then I simply won't return. This is where the Independent restaurants used to be so good as they had more pressure to get clients back.. That said, If i were waiting an hour for a starter, then I would most likely question if there is a problem and request to leave. i have done this before once and I was asked back on their expense. Sometimes it's just a case they are a chef down but it's best they are open and honest up front, rather than trying to get by.

The only exception to the chained restaurant is LochFyne. The Chelmsford one is very pleasant good service and excellent food :)

My current favoutrite is a place called Russell's in Great Baddow, nr Chelmsford
 
HangTime said:
Just wanted to guage opinions on how you (and family) react to problems encountered at restaurants. By problems I mean things such as these:

-Slow/inattentive service (e.g. making you wait ages before taking drinks orders)
-Bringing the wrong dish out
-Poor quality / cold food
-Contaminated food (e.g. bit of plastic or hair etc)
-Dirty plate/glass/cutlery
-Mistake on the bill
-Poor reaction to issues raised by patrons (rudeness or indifference)
-Failing to notify you of dishes off the menu at or prior to the point of ordering
-Some kind of safety issue e.g. hot liquids spilled on you, protruding nails in furniture etc
Click to expand...

Poor/slow service annoys me but would take a bit to get me to the point where I'd go and complain. No excuse on being slow for drinks.

Bringing wrong dish - mistakes happen but down to staff attitude, if they are apologetic then no problem but if they act as though you remembered wrong or are just being difficult then I would complain.

Poor quality or cold food - absolutely 100% would complain, especially with the poor food. I have walked out of a restaurant (not paying for drinks) due to poor quality food and staff/chef basically shouting at me at my table telling me I’m just fussy.

Contaminated food – I would ask for another dish.

Dirty cutlery etc – I would ask for it to be changed.

Mistake on the bill – I would point it out either way.

Poor reaction to issues – I have no patience with rudeness

Failing to notify of dishes – things happen but wouldn’t be happy if other people eating with me had their food and I had to wait.

Safety issue – spilling stuff on me, again accidents happen but depends what it is and where it is. I would expect them to pay for cleaning or replacement if spillage bad. Damaged furniture I would ask to move.

I have been known to send my food back to the kitchen and just have a drink because the food was so bad.

Most of my friends wouldn't complain but after getting into cooking over the last few years, I know what good food looks/tastes like so would stand my ground, especially when paying good money for it
 
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