Why do we go out to eat in restaurants? I don’t know about you, but I want to sit in a comfortable chair, relax, have someone serve me well and hopefully have a meal which, since it’s being prepared by a professional, will be better or at least as good as what I can prepare myself. How come it so rarely happens, at least not for me? As far as I’m concerned good service will overcome a mediocre meal, but a good meal is rarely able to overcome bad service.
By no stretch of the imagination can I be considered a world traveler, but I have had the opportunity to visit several other countries and have usually been very impressed by the high quality service I’ve experienced in their restaurants. Perhaps European patrons just do not tolerate what we in the states seem to consider normal. Here in the US, we get excited when we’re lucky enough to have some top notch service.
Have you had any of these experiences? I certainly have.
The hostess sits you down at your table, hands you a menu and says, Cindy your waitress will be with you shortly. Not quite sure what her definition is of “shortly”, definitely not mine since Cindy has somehow disappeared off the face of the earth and when she does finally show off and goes to a table of patrons who just got seated.
Quite the opposite also occurs. Hostess completes your seating and hands you an elaborate nine page menu (especially if you’re in a diner type restaurant). You have just leafed through it and located the appropriate section and there’s Cindy pencil in hand, “can I take your order?” Sure Cindy after I finish reading this novel in front of me.
Then you ask a question, “What’s today’s soup?” Well now that’s a real tough one for our informed girl….lol... Wait, I’ll go check. My goodness what a tough job to find out the soup of the day before you start waiting on tables-duh!
And here’s one that seems to always happen to me. I love soup and frequently will order a cup with a sandwich to follow. I sit patiently for my soup, but as more and more time goes by I know I’ll be getting the soup with my sandwich. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like eating soup with my sandwich. If end up having to, you know the soup will be get cold before you finish. So what do you do, to get her attention and ask for your soup to be served before your sandwich?
Have you ever tried to get the eye of a waitress when you needed them for a situation like this or if you wanted a coffee refill or even to just ask a question? Well now for some reason or other this girl’s eyes are surrounded by some sort of invisible blinders. She will never, ever turn your way. You begin to wave your hands frantically to no avail. Then you start calling, oh miss, miss, loader and loader. Unbelievable, the whole restaurant hears you in your desperation except for Helen Keller who eventually just continues her stroll and disappears. Oh well, screw the coffee, I’ll just sip my water (if I ever even got one).
I could go on and on and I’m sure after you think about it you would be able to add many of your own.
And I don’t even want to start on food quality. That’s fodder for another blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment