Last night we went to a new restaurant we found on Yelp. We had a terrible experience. Food was terrible (although this isn't fault of waitress). Service was terrible. There was only one other table occupied in the whole place so you would think service would be good. Nope. It took forever for them to bring drinks. Then the food came. DH and DD got theirs. Mine didn't come out. Then waitress goes and sits down two tables away from me and starts eating her dinner. (I have not issue with her eating BUT I think she should make sure her customer has her food first). When she done with her food she goes and gets my food and brings it to me. By this time DH and DD were done eating.
Then it is another long wait to get the check. and forget about drink refills.
I tipped 10%. I seriously debated giving nothing. In my opinion tips are voluntary. I believe you should always tip and I do, usually 20% but I am NOT giving 20% for terrible service.
What say you? should I have given nothing?
Re: Restaurant Tipping
I probably would not have tipped, personally.
You should have complained to the manager. It sounds like the waitress didn't get her break, and there was no one to cover her table(s). That's management's screw up.
My grandmother would have written a letter. It's actually not a bad idea if you can find a contact email address. The owner may not be the manager and may not be aware of such a huge breakdown.
In terms of what I would do? I tend to be a sucker when it comes to tipping and probably would have left 15, on the low end for me, and been done with it. I tend to fall on the side of "waitressing is a hard, thankless job and those extra few dollars mean more to her than to me." Benefit of the doubt because everyone has rotten days. But I would not go back to that restaurant.
I plan on it!
The only people around were the cook and two waitresses.
I totally agree.
Who does that? Why would they torture you like that?
That was how I felt.
My friend left a bad review on yelp for one restaurant and the manager contacted her and offered her a free meal. maybe it will happen to you, too!
ETA: not the free meal, cause you don't want to go back there (my friend did not accept) but at least you will know the manager saw it.
I feel a little sad any time I get fake maple syrup instead of the real deal.
I'm usually a pretty good tipper (20%), but I have given a quarter (or maybe it was a dime) in the past (only once) for absolutely terrible service.
We had a group of friends out to celebrate someone's birthday and our server was just horrible. He was rude to us, giving us attitude and "forgot" to bring us drinks when we asked. I think the whole table barely tipped him, that's how bad the service was.
I normally leave 12-15%, if I honestly feel like they deserve less, I do get the manager involved. Since I was a server through high school and college, I tend to be a little more forgiving and generous. However, there are just some things I do not let go - rudeness and cleanliness are two of them.
I hate having to ask for things, so if I have to ask for things more than once or twice, I get so annoyed. I also try to think of everything I need, so I don't have too run the poor person like crazy.
When we went on vacation several weeks ago, we had driven 8 hours only to get into our cabin and find the water was working. We had already unloaded two cars and had to load everything back and drive to another cabin. At this point, we were tired and sweaty. No one felt like showering or getting dressed up and we ended up at a Western Sizzling (a buffet restaurant) an hour before they were supposed to close. The people were all so nice and friendly. Our server was a young guy and went above and beyond, told us to take our time and we never had to ask for anything. Our table's bill was $48, we left $20 and I called the manager over to compliment our server.
That said, I left a terrible review on a dry cleaner's page on Yelp a few months ago and he harassed the hell out of me [constant anonymous phone calls, commenting on the post, messaging me] and threatened to sue me for libel. El oh el.
SCANDAL!
My question is WHY didn't you go up to her to get your food instead of SUFFERING like that, huh?
I would have stiffed her, but I also would have tried to make my experience no so horrible either but not letting her do that to me.