It's So Hard to Get Good Help These Days

Andy and I went out to dinner tonight to the Tuscan Grill, a restaurant we used to go to quite a bit but hadn't been to in years (for no real reason, just that we don't go out that much anymore). Everything started off fine; we ordered and got our wine and appetizers with no problem. Then we waited for our entrees. And we waited. And we waited some more. It was a ridiculously long time, not just a little bit longer than usual. I tried desperately to make eye contact with our waitress, but she just kept sailing by with her head up. We asked one of the bussers to check on our meal, and she said that the kitchen was extremely backed up. (Duh!) Finally the host, who had walked by a couple of times and noticed our empty table, saw us again and made a bee line for the kitchen. He came right back and told us our entrees would be out in exactly 2 minutes. And they were—he brought them. Our waitress was apparently still too busy for us. Then she committed the final inexcusable sin of not coming by to ask us how our food was within the first few minutes. We finished eating and she reappeared with dessert menus, which we shooed away in favor of the check. I insisted that we give a lousy tip, and I was even considering stiffing her completely. I wanted to have a word with her, but Andy strongly encouraged me to let it go. All I was going to say was something along the lines of this: "It's not your fault when the kitchen is slow, but it is your responsibility. As soon as you noticed that our food was very late, you should have come over and apologized to us for the wait and promised to go check on it. Then you should have gone to check and come back to report to us. Then you should have brought the food and come back promptly to ask us if everything was OK. That's all you need to do, is show that you feel my pain." So, instead, she surely thinks she got a lousy tip just because the kitchen was slow. No one wins.

Comments

[Susan W.]

Janice and I sometimes used to get caught in the Catch-22 of giving a bad tip because of bad service but we got bad service because we were two women out together and women were thought to be bad tippers. Now, we hardly ever go out so it's a non-issue! As for the Tuscan Grill, we gave up on them when they gave away our reservation several years ago. Good to hear we're not missing much.