So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[p51]

Also, I might have typed this here before...
Can anyone explain to me why I have to wait so long to get the check at a restaurant anymore? They all do it, you sit around for a long time, just waiting for the server to show up. Hold the card in your hands doesn't do any good. These days, it's very common that you get fast service when you show up, but after they check the one time after you get your food, you need a flare gun to get your check so you can pay and get out.
It makes no sense, as you're just tying up the table that they could use for another customer.
That, and my tip decreases if I have to wait way too long. They're only hurting themselves by doing this, so why is that? Is there anyone here in the industry who can answer this?

 

[2jakes]

Also, I might have typed this here before...
Can anyone explain to me why I have to wait so long to get the check at a restaurant anymore? They all do it, you sit around for a long time, just waiting for the server to show up. Hold the card in your hands doesn't do any good. These days, it's very common that you get fast service when you show up, but after they check the one time after you get your food, you need a flare gun to get your check so you can pay and get out.
It makes no sense, as you're just tying up the table that they could use for another customer.
That, and my tip decreases if I have to wait way too long. They're only hurting themselves by doing this, so why is that? Is there anyone here in the industry who can answer this?

When I’m done & there is no one around to give me the check.
I go to the front register & explain what I had & am ready to pay.
Followed by the waiter/waitress who apologizes.


As far as returning food .
When in high school I worked at a hamburger drive-in.
Customer returned the hamburger because there was something missing.
The 2nd time it was returned because it was now cold.
The cook made a new one & before wrapping it up spit into it. True story !

 

[p51]

When I’m done & there is no one around to give me the check.
I go to the front register & explain what I had & am ready to pay.
Followed by the waiter/waitress who apologizes.

And this is consistent wherever you go now. There's got to be a reason for it as it happens so often, but that reason escapes me.

As far as returning food .
When in high school I worked at a hamburger drive-in.
Customer returned the hamburger because there was something missing.
The 2nd time it was returned because it was now cold.
The cook made a new one & before wrapping it up spit into it. True story !

I once ordered a hamburger from a drive through and was specific for no cheese.
Cheese.
Again.
I went inside, and could see the people as they made them. I was nice about it and said, "Just want one without cheese, please." New burger came back in a few minutes.
Cheese again.
I said, "This one has cheese, too."
They'd throw away the wrong ones each time, so I wasn't getting the same one again.
Third time:
Cheese again.
[huh]
By now, the other customers were laughing out loud at the situation. One was in line and decided to leave. As he left he said, "If they can't understand 'no cheese', I don't think I can trust them for anything else..." People were openly saying things like, "Seriously? It's not like he's asking for something odd," and a few remarked it'd happened to them in the past, too.
The manager was looking like a fool at this point and she said, "Let me do this again."
I was calm. I said, "Look, this is a big thing now and the people behind you know something's gonna happen when I leave. I really don't think I want whatever they'll make, now that a big deal's been made about it. Don't want people spitting in my food," and a few people were nodding and one said, "Yeah, I wouldn't want it, either, if I was him." The manager assured me it wouldn't happen. Several customers were saying things like, "Yeah, right," or agreeing they'd had done stuff like that when had worked in places like that in their youth.
I asked for my money back. You'd think I asked for them to hand over the title to the building.
I then went across the street to another burger place and got exactly what I'd ordered. It must have been obvious to people inside that I was crossing the street to get what I wanted as a few customers were giving me thumbs up form inside the place when I walked out of the second place in a few seconds. I gave a thumbs up back to confirm I got what I ordered and could see they were smiling. I bet it got really ugly for the employees after I was gone.
I've never gone back.

 

[Hercule]

I hear ya about the cheese business. You should hear what I have to go through to get a proper milk shake - it would seem that a glass crammed full of soft-serve ice cream is a milk shake around here. Anymore when I go out I simply expect to be disappointed and try to order accordingly. But damnit! I'm paying for it I SHOULD be able to get what I want. Heavy sigh...

What I've noticed is that anymore there is virtually no gap between the cost of what can be considered "bar food" and higher end things on menus. You get wings and a salad or a burger and fries and it costs just as much as the salmon entree.

 

[p51]

I hear ya about the cheese business. You should hear what I have to go through to get a proper milk shake - it would seem that a glass crammed full of soft-serve ice cream is a milk shake around here.

When I still lived near a Chilli's restaurant, I loved the chocolate shakes for their taste but you had to wait until the end of the meal to have it as it was so thick that I'm sure that a metal straw would probably collapse trying to drink it that way. They came with a spoon for good reason.
Haven't been anywhere near one of those places for several years. Wouldn't waste my time with a shake now...

 

[ingineer]

Hercule;
Steak 'n Shake in Akron / Cleveland for the best i've found.
Even whipped cream and cherry topping.
Careful in Maine
Its a Frappe
http://www.yankeemagazine.com/article/new-england-101/milk-shakes-frappes-cabinets#_
No one in OH10 knew what a Black and White was
Or an egg cream

 

[LizzieMaine]

I always hated having sandwiches cut. The filling would leak out onto the plate or the wrapper at the split, and you had to go back and lick off all the cheese/grease/fat/peanut butter/whatever that you should have had in the middle of the sandwich. Waste of time and resources to cut it.

 

[p51]

My wife has to cut her burgers in half. I've never understood that.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
It's the ritual, man. Some things are just wrong if they aren't done certain ways. Because they just are, and there ain't no sense in debating it, as I'm confident you have learned, seeing how you're still married and all.

 

[Edward]

Also, I might have typed this here before...
Can anyone explain to me why I have to wait so long to get the check at a restaurant anymore? They all do it, you sit around for a long time, just waiting for the server to show up. Hold the card in your hands doesn't do any good. These days, it's very common that you get fast service when you show up, but after they check the one time after you get your food, you need a flare gun to get your check so you can pay and get out.
It makes no sense, as you're just tying up the table that they could use for another customer.
That, and my tip decreases if I have to wait way too long. They're only hurting themselves by doing this, so why is that? Is there anyone here in the industry who can answer this?

I find standing up and making to put my coat on like I'm leaving usually brings them pretty quick. Failing that, if, for some reason, they should imagine I'm about to strip naked and dance on their table, they come running pretty fast. It's amazing what a little, carefully deployed 'I might be a nut' can achieve.

I do remember one night in Belfast, years ago, sitting for about an hour before anyone came near us with the bill. Nowadays, I'm not sure I'd feel any moral guilt at walking out without paying if they were that lazy about it....

 

[HudsonHawk]

No slam on you, but it always cracks me up when any one person's opinion, on anything, is voiced as "THE" way to do or think something...

Cracking you up was the point. This entire thread is lighthearted tongue in cheek material. I thought that was plainly obvious, but I guess not.

 

[HudsonHawk]

And HH, yes, please cut the sandwich all the way through - Cosi is a constant violator of this simple rule.

This often happens with pizza too, and you end up pulling the crust in who know what direction. Equally unsatisfactory.

 

[HudsonHawk]

...you had to go back and lick off all the cheese/grease/fat/peanut butter/whatever that you should have had in the middle of the sandwich.

I'm missing where this is necessarily a bad thing. Scooping up the oozing cheese from your GCS is one of the reasons we stay alive.

 

[p51]

This often happens with pizza too, and you end up pulling the crust in who know what direction. Equally unsatisfactory.

Yep. The local pizza place does a horrible job with this. I even brought my pizza cutter from home once when I came to pick it up and asked, "Hey, do you need a real cutter that works?"
They got the point, finally.

 

[p51]

What's up with older folks writing stuff over the top of photos? My Mom, a few years ago, made up a photo album of photos from my childhood to high school, and did the same for my brother. Over top of almost every single one of them, with a ball point pen, she wrote info about the photo, right over the image itself!
When my Grandmother was alive, she told me she had a photo of one her brothers, taken in WW1. She mailed it to me one day and when I got it, there were the names right over top of each person in the photo, with a ball point pen.
WTF?
I brought this up with a guy with parents about the same age range as mine and he said they did that, too. Must be a generational thing...

 

[LizzieMaine]

At Fenway Park, they cut the pizza with a big pair of scissors. No fooling around, and the slices are always cleanly cut.

 

[St.Ignatz]

I always hated having sandwiches cut. The filling would leak out onto the plate or the wrapper at the split, and you had to go back and lick off all the cheese/grease/fat/peanut butter/whatever that you should have had in the middle of the sandwich. Waste of time and resources to cut it.

But a diagonal cut gives you that perfect corner bite to begin.
BLT the exception. You loose too much bacon.

Tom D.

 

[dh66]

The only sandwich that needs cutting is a muffaletta.
And that's only because I'm rarely hungry enough to eat a whole one.


All joking aside, though, what really ticks me off is when a joint feels the need to warm one up. They're cold cuts for a reason.

 

[LizzieMaine]

During my early years in radio, when I worked a late-night shift, my evening meal was always a microwaved ham and cheese sandwich bought from an all-night gas station. With a streak of yellow mustard on a puffy white "Italian sandwich" roll. I'd get home when it was just starting to congeal, and then I'd sit there eating it while watching "Burns and Allen" reruns. Ambrosia.

 

[Fading Fast]

At Fenway Park, they cut the pizza with a big pair of scissors. No fooling around, and the slices are always cleanly cut.

I've never been, but I'm told this is how they do it in Italy.