Tacky Ain’t Pretty and Other Stories of Customers Behaving Badly

I am truly amazed at human behavior: I think I’ve talked before about how being a server in a restaurant is not only serving food and drinks, there’s somehow more to it. It’s really a study in human behavior.

I have developed a sixth sense for cheap people, angry people, fun people, contrived foodies, real foodies and on and on. This sense helps me and many of my fellow servers stream line our approach to customers. Sometimes however, I still miss things that people do and find myself rolling my eyes and thinking, wow, not only would I never do “that,” it wouldn’t even occur to me to think about doing “that.”

For example, if someone orders a beer and in the middle of pouring it, the keg empties, I drop off the 2/3rds full beer and tell them it will be few minutes until we change our keg out, but please start on this and I will come back and top you off. That way, they don’t have to wait at all for the beer. Until this past Saturday, no one has ever taken this opportunity to “slam” the beer back so that when I return to “top it off,” it’s empty. Essentially the guy got his first 2/3rds of a beer for free. I came back and was thinking, Wow, you are so tacky! The funny part was after about 45 minutes, his companion said “is that your first beer still?” I didn’t pause to hear the answer, I just thought TACKY!

Another thing people like to do is, when you drop off a tea caddy, people will take two or 3 or 4 bags out of the tea caddy and put them in their personal belongings so that later, I guess at home, they can have a free cup of tea. I never thought of even doing that. Plus guess what folks the restaurant buys everything you are using. So just to clarify, that’s called stealing! Here’s how the social rule works, one tea bag per cup while you are in the restaurant, and no not one for later or for home or another restaurant where you are going to just ask for hot water. TACKY!

Did someone send out a memo that when you’re eating out, it’s no longer necessary to put your napkin in your lap like a proper person? Lately there has been a steam of patrons that unroll the cloth napkin with the silverware in it (we call it a rollup), simply pull out their fork and leave the napkin half unrolled with the rest of the silverware still in it on the table. Then they leave that in the center of the placemat, often at a diagonal, so when someone like me comes to drop off the food, I can’t put it down. To top it off, typically, I have to put all the plates down that I am carrying, move the rollup out of the way (no they don’t always move it for me to the side), then deliver the plate. So is this a big deal no, but here’s the part that kills me: Let’s say at a table of 4 people, 4 bread plates, 4 bread, butter, 4 water glasses, 4 wine or beer glasses, dressing, 4 main course plates, shell bowl and well, yes, and the rollup all precariously balanced on the table, you would think just for practicalities sake they would put that roll up on their lap, but no no, they leave it. TACKY!

Sometimes, rarely, I just can’t hold back and when my sixth sense goes on overload, I have to just let it rip! I do this so that as servers we will survive the service and as patrons, you can enjoy your meal in peace. Saturday a couple came in and sat down. We always ask that patrons don’t sit with a chair empty between them unless it’s slow because especially on Saturdays, it maximizes our seating capacity and when it’s raining as it was this past Saturday, there are people waiting for seats inside for quite while and well they are hungry! We did have to ask the woman to move down, but unfortunately the woman was really annoyed. My fellow server asked what they wanted to drink and they had a beer and an Arnold Palmer. Then the woman asked if we had any King Crab legs. He said no, but we have whole fresh Dungeness Crab or we have Dungeness Crab leg in both the Fish Stew and in the Cioppino. Unfortunately we didn’t have what she wanted so he asked for a few more minutes. (As a side note, the servers all work as one big team because as the restaurant is set up, it’s very difficult to divide it up into sections.) I came by and saw they were looking at the menu and asked if they were ready to order when the gentleman said “no, please just give us a few more minutes.” “OK,” I said.

I went through to the dish room where there’s a window and I turned around after dropping off some dishes and said to the server that they first talked to, “they aren’t happy, and she looks really cranky.” That’s when he told me about the King Crab Leg story. I said Oh, OK. I came back a few minutes later and she said “I’ll have the Cesar Salad.” I said “great!” Then she said, “does it have anchovies?” I said “Yes they are pureed in the dressing.” She said “Oh…… no, never mind, I’ll have a crab cocktail.” Then the gentleman said, “no, you know what, can you just give us a few minutes.” I said, “sure…..”

So another few minutes passed by and I said “listen you two seem like you are not finding what you want to eat. Please, don’t feel as though you have to stay and pick something you won’t be happy with. Why don’t you go out to the main hall, discuss amongst yourselves what you really want to do with no pressure, and if you come back we’d love to have you, but if not, that’s OK too and I’ll buy your drinks for you.” To this, the woman responded, “Well! Now I really don’t want to eat here!” and they left. The people next to them were laughing and laughing and we filled the seats in less than 2 minutes.

I know, I know, perhaps, I should have let them stay, but trust me, my sixth sense tells me, that they would have sent back something and it would have cost us a lot more than a beer and an Arnold Palmer. Plus, we would have had to deal with their odd interpersonal issues the whole time. Anyways, please dear reader, don’t be tacky in public it’s not attractive.

Give Me a Break!

So did you know that the Caesar salad isn't Italian at all?

A few weeks ago we had a customer ask for an”Italian style Caesar salad.” Well, in doing some research I learned that the beloved, sometimes bastardized version of the salad was actually first made in Mexico. Yes, Tijuana, Mexico but, the salad was created by an Italian -born Mexican, Caesar Cardini (which is probably why there is the Italian association). The salad was born out necessity when according to Wikipedia, "His daughter Rosa recounted that her father invented the dish when a Fourth of July 1924 rush depleted the kitchen's supplies. Cardini made do with what he had adding the dramatic flair of the table side tossing."

Interestingly, the original recipe does not include anchovies or parmesan cheese.....

Chilled romaine lettuce, croutons, lemon juice, lemon juice, olive oil, egg, Worcestershire sauce, black pepper.

Well the month wouldn’t be complete unless I told at least one customer encounter story.

Two women came in for a snack a few weeks ago. The first part of the conversation was about wine tasting. For some reason, even though we have 2 different size pours of wine, a tasting size and a full glass, occasionally we have customer try to get us to give them “a taste.” In their mind, “a taste” is not the same as a “tasting.” Yes, I’m serious I have this conversation with people fairly often. This dialogue goes on for a minute or so and of course, they typically give in and have a tasting. After we got through this, the woman tasted her friend’s tasting, and decided she didn’t care for it so she got a full glass of something else from a different server. I asked how her wine was and she said “she thought the glass she was about to have would be better than the tasting.”

By this point you know I’m thinking oh lord here we go……..

Next question was, “what kind of oysters do you have today?” I said we have two from Washington State. Now I think sometimes I’ve seen it all, but literally, she leaned back in her chair, rolled her eyes toward the back of her head, and said “Oh.” I was so taken back, that I said, “I’m sorry is there something wrong with Washington State?” She said “No, no, I just, well, I don’t eat oysters from there.” I said “Oh, well that’s unfortunate, they are quite lovely and people have been enjoying them all day.” So off I went leaving her and her companion with a cup of soup and bread.

Oh, yes she loved the bread and soup….. I mean luuuved the bread and soup.

Later, our owner came by to check on them and she told me the woman asked if she could buy half of a crab cake. I started laughing……. Then our owner was laughing and then I was thinking to myself who does that? “I said what did you say?” She said, “I said, no so they ordered a shrimp quesadilla.”

Anyway, another day another dollar as they say, but I guess this is one of those John Stossel moments, who I think came up with the phrase, “Give me a Break!”