There is one thing that we all enjoy and that is going out to eat. It gives us a break from cooking and cleaning up after ourselves.
The meal that most of us enjoy at the restaurants is dinner. It could be to celebrate a special occasion, a night with the family, friends or a romantic dinner for two.
Whatever the occasion may be, we look forward to it and plan to enjoy it as much as possible. We want this night to go great and have fun.
One thing we expect when we go to the restaurant is good service. We don't want to wait too long for our tables, drinks or food. We look forward to being catered to and at time seem to forget that we are not the only ones at the restaurants. There are others there that are also trying to enjoy an evening out. When our wait time starts to get longer, we get irritated and take it out on the servers. Before we lose our tempers with those that are serving our foods, let's take a moment and think about what we are about to do. First of all, let's take into account the time of the day. During lunch hours, it is hectic and when dinner time rolls around it can get even worse, especially if it's a weekend. Remember, everyone wants to go out for dinner as a treat for a long hard work week.
What we should do, as soon as we arrive, is take a good look around. Most likely there are people waiting to get called to their tables. Restaurants at times have a 15 to 45 minute wait and even if we make reservations, there is still a wait. So, at that point, we know that the kitchen may be overwhelmed and so are the servers. Also, remember that they can't just tell people get up and leave. They may want to so that they can sit you at your table but they can't. Once seated, your server will do their best to at least get everyone something to drink and maybe some appetizers. This is a good way to start. They will do this, in order to give themselves time to serve others. Understand that they do know you wish to be waited on but they can only go so fast. They depend on others, such as the kitchen staff, the bar and even the other customers.
How many times have we gone to a restaurant and seen a customer go off on a server? They get blamed because the food is undercooked or overcooked. They get blamed if the salad doesn't have the dressing on the side; there are peppers on their plate, etc. No doubt the server wrote down everything you asked for; they do read it back to us. It is not their fault if in the kitchen, from being so overwhelmed, they overlooked a special request. Experience has taught us that kindness and respect gets us what we really want. When things like this happen, let them know and ask them politely if they can ask the cook to redo your meal. They are truly apologetic and will make sure the next plate is correct. They will do anything to make you happy especially since they are hopeful you will remember to tip them. This is what they really work for, that tip at the end of the meal.
However, when you mistreat a server, hostess, cook, etc you may be walking into something that later on you will regret. When they are being yelled at and insulted, they will shut down. Not only that, they will make sure to make your life a living hell. We have all seen it in movies, where the servers and kitchen staff do horrible things to meals. Many of us don't believe this is true but it is. If any of you have any friends that have been servers or cooks, ask them. Not all will tell you the truth but many will. When the food is returned to the kitchen with an attitude from the customer, they will spit in it, drop it on the floor and put it back on the plate. Some have gone as far as rubbing food on certain parts of the body just out of anger. It's disgusting when we think about this but again it's true.
There are horror stories out there of what servers or cooks will do to your food because of the way they were treated. Don't misunderstand this, it's not because you asked them to redo your plate, is how you asked. How many of us enjoy being called stupid, slow, idiots, morons, etc? None of us do, as a matter of fact, if we all take a second to think about this, at work we get irritated when someone waltzes in and begins to humiliate us without reason. This is what we are doing to the servers.
Next time we go out to dinner, let's put ourselves in their place. How would we feel, working all day on our feet, trying our best to please everyone and at the end of it all being insulted for a simple mistake that can be corrected. None of us would enjoy this at all, so let's be polite and patient. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt. You will be surprised what they will do for you, when you work with them. Many times, when we return to a restaurant and we have been nice to our server, we get even better service. It's all a matter of understanding and being kind. Remember, we want to have a nice meal why ruin it by arguing and later on getting something we really didn't want.