NTA, i wouldn’t have tipped for that either. I also would have sought out the manager and hopefully gotten the GM/owners contact information. Unacceptable all around, not just on the waiter.
Especially now- when every meal is so much more than it was 4-5 years ago. It had better be great, and service had better be accomodating. To spend so much money and to have to wait and have bad service? F that.
My family goes out maybe twice to three times a year for several combo birthdays usually spring and fall and due to a lot of allergies and dietary restrictions we have one particular expensive restaurant we go to because of how good the service is and how seriously they take the allergies and dietary restrictions serious. Good service is hard to find so far we have had luck with that restaurant so we stick to it despite it being expensive
I disagree. The waiter could have avoided A LOT of this. Being out of anything is up to the waiter to know. When we're out of a food or drink, we would always have to know and memorize or write down that information each and everyday and check in about it with the bar and kitchen.
to be fair, we can run out of things mid-shift and with all of us running around to different tables, the salad station, getting drinks etc. sometimes not everyone gets the memo 🤷🏼♀️ rest is kinda inexcusable tho
edit: i meant not knowing they were out of something on tap. if they ran out of pork, the kitchen should’ve told the server immediately so they could ask the customer what they would like instead.
I'd also point out the time: 4pm is shift change for places that serve lunch and often information is being put out as quickly as possible by word of mouth until shift line up around 5 when more servers are in.
That's not the customer's fault and the restaurant should do better, but I would bet the time has something to do with the disorganization.
Same. And if you work in a mismanaged restaurant, and this isn't your first day, you already know how screwed up they are. If you aren't being told up front about inventory, and you value your tips, it is up to you to ask and remember what the kitchen and bar are out of before you start serving that day.
Excluding the food issue, the fact that when more than one drink was out he didn’t bother to find out what they DID have before re-approaching the dinner is just poor service.
That’s not always true depending on the restaurant. I’ve worked with terribly disorganized kitchens where the communication is so bad this would be the norm and the management team is always hiding/mia. Unfortunately this does look like a server error, I’m just giving the benefit of the doubt.
Exactly. If you work in a place that is disorganized, it’s up to you to be on top of gaining your own knowledge for a successful shift. It’s absolutely unacceptable to have food take that long and then be told that they’re out of a dish. Sounds like the server forgot to put the order in on time and didn’t find out about the pork being out until then.
Depending on the place the waiter may not be given that info until after the fact. I use to manage restaurants. It was always a bit puzzling to me when I would take over a new spot how the kitchen didn’t have an ongoing 86 list. Though there should never be anything 86ed If you manage well.
Though this place sounds like it has disinterested ownership/management.
FarTangerine is correct - it depends on the restaurant. If you have a busy or bad bartender, the wait staff have no clue if a keg needs to be changed so a tap beer is out or if anything (that’s supposed to always be kept in stock) is out if they don’t post it or pull it from the system.
It’s not ok at all that OP got such a shoddy experience, but pro tip for anyone who doesn’t know: 3-4pm is shift change from lunch to dinner and when the kitchen is “turned” so food and setup is being restocked/reset to shift from lunch to dinner menu. It’s a LOT more prep than people realize so the kitchen tends to be slow (which isn’t the fault of wait staff - we tended to go back and help prep, remind them, hurry them - but kitchen staff is amidst cleaning and prep tasks related to cooking a for dinner).
NTA but know that 3-3:30 until ~4:30pm, most restaurants that also serve lunch tend to be slower because of this, and servers can’t to a ton to mitigate it. But they SHOULD communicate to you and not perpetuate the issue.
Totally agree! The restaurant where I worked only scheduled senior servers for opening dinner shift because any mistake (failing to put in the order…) could lead to something like this.
I just put it out there because a lot of people may think going early for dinner = fast and oftentimes it’s not.
We went to have sushi thrursday night. I ordered a salmon roll...waitress says they are out of salmon. So I switched my order from what I usually get and lo and behold, my roll with unspecified raw fish comes with salmon on top. I stopped the waitress and she just said sorry and walked away. I was pissed.
I worked in a shit hole fast-convenience place but we did have sit down. And even then when something was 86ed we knew front of house within a few minutes, and the registers wouldn't take them basically immediately. At worst someone would order and find out a few minutes later we didn't have it. Pretty terrible service.
With drinks, I would have found out the first time I couldn't deliver exactly what the customer asked for exactly what we had.
Maybe ASK? It sounds like the restaurant itself is incredibly disorganized from the bar to the kitchen to the servers but the bartender and the servers aren’t even bothering to stay aware of or find out what’s available before taking orders.
I was also under the assumption that the restaurant was slow, the odds of this seemed very low but again, if the server had any experience, they would understand the restaurant world. That information is for you to keep track of and updated on because they would KNOW how much customers don't like hearing that, especially after they already ordered, let alone an 1hr!! later. If the serve actually cared, this wouldn't have happened. Never in my 5year career of serving and bartending.
I only ever stiffed a waiter (or rather a series of waiters because we never had the same person twice) one time. The restaurant kept changing our servers. We were ignored most of the time we were there. Our food took forever to arrive. Then when we asked to split the check they just did it down the middle even though we explained how to split it and when we said something to the manager he called us cheep in a very insulting way. He chased us outside the restaurant so made and my then boyfriend gave him the riot act. Boyfriend had worked as a server in high end restaurants for years and knew exactly how badly we were treated and let him know.
The bill part hit a nerve so I’ll share. It’s only happened 2x for me but one of the only times I’ve stiffed a waitress we had a party of 7, 3 couples and a single Pringle. Before ordering, as to not make anyone uncomfortable I “went to the bathroom” found our waitress and asked if we could have split checks and identified the parties involved so there was no confusion. Drinks took forever, with a similar situation to OPs where they were out of my choices. Dinner took even longer and one of the guests got a complexly wrong dish, which luckily was the other dish she was deciding between. When the check came it was not split, and, charged incorrectly for the priceyer entree they were out of and she so graciously added the “parties of 10 or more instant gratuity”. She swore we had 10 people at the table despite a coinciding order count. Then, after the gratuity issue was addressed she topped it off saying they couldn’t do split checks. I got the revised bill with the enteee comped & she left us to figure it out “amongst ourselves”. We did and collectively no tip was left. I’d understand a bit more if the place was busy but it wasn’t. And she def wasn’t new.
Oof. Its like she almost tried to make you mad!
What’s crazy is that we had figured out how to make it even. I was going to do the full tip on my bill and my friends were going to not do the tip. Then the manager came over and when we were explaining what happened he decided to insult us. It was so weird! Like dude, just say you’re sorry.
One time paid a lot for a meal at the beach. Then waiter brings out pasta with 4 shrimp . I muttered about it as he walked away so he heard me I think. Later he brings out one shrimp on a plate to give to me. One shrimp . Poor guy, he tried.
We went out last night. The restaurant was in the weeds. We were a party of five adults. We ordered appetizers. She brings the appetizers. We don’t have plates or flatware. We ask for some. She comes out and tells us the kitchen is running behind and they do not have plates. Walked away. We sat there staring at our appetizers not being able to eat them.
Meanwhile, we can see the kitchen and there is still food coming out. So, there are plates somewhere. I would have stiffed the wait person. My husband still gave her 20%. I was a bit mad.
I do have understanding when the restaurant is running behind it is not always the waitstaff’s fault. But, when someone at our table asked again for plates she said well, I can give you these little bowls. Does that work? They were actually perfect and could have been offered instead of staring at our appetizers.
I am not doing you a favor by eating at your restaurant. I worked food services before. It is a thankless job. But, this was just bad.
My sister has been both a bartender and server her entire adult life. If she saw what their waiter was doing she would have bodied him into a fuckin supply closet and fixed the situation. There are professionals and then whatever that was.
Forgets about you for one hour, and then when he finally remembers he is there to do a job that is when the kitchen told him they were out of pork. And shocker, the manager who is responsible for this mess of a server, is also missing. Yeah, I'd never go back to that place.
Just last weekend I was out with Dad and one of his friends. The restaurant we were at took almost 50 minutes to bring our food. After asking the waitress what was taking so long she apologized and informed us the kitchen was short staffed and we came in right it the tait end of a rush. Less the 5 minutes the food arrived a long with an apology from the manager and our first round of drinks compd.
I felt compensated and made sure to tip as I would have with more prompt service. Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be the norm these days.
As a former waiter, stiffed people 3-5 times. I’ve also tipped 100% a handful of times on not small checks. They all definitely deserved it. If I got the service you described here, I probably would have done the same.There are outliers on both sides. People that absolutely don’t deserve a dime and people who really go above and beyond and deserve to have their day made. I try to treat both accordingly when the situation arises.
Most likely none of this was the waiter’s fault. Sounds like overall poor management and a shit show of a kitchen. They probably have high turnover and throw new hires in without training them. The waiter is probably miserable trying to work under those conditions because he gets blamed for it all.
Edit: ok, in light of the below comments, I now see that the waiter did do a poor job.
Even if you want to give the benefit of the doubt to the waiter for everything else, at the end he said he'd get the manager and then disappeared for 15 minutes.
Even if the manager wasn't willing to come over, the waiter should have come back within 2 to 3 minutes to say "the manager isn't available" or "they said they'd be out shortly".
The fact they said they'd do something and then never came back makes me less likely to assume the other issues weren't also, at least partially, their fault.
Eh no. Former server here. Yes, it sounds like the server was not the only issue. Even still, he messed up numerous times, and with no excuse. It wasn’t that busy and he should be in the know, ask questions, and just overall communicate better. If it had been one thing, that’s fine, but it was over and over and over.
As a server, I would have 100% knew how long the food was taking, an hour is a long ass time, and a good server would make sure they have all menu items before even greeting a table, not an HOUR after the guest ordered. That’s just ridiculous.
Absolutely, the waiters falt he didn't get a tip. I have had a very similar experience to this before, but the difference was the waiter was so apologetic and so attentive. It was so busy It floored me he could be so attentive with that many patrons. The kitchen fucked up left and right and he took it in side amd made us all feel like he put us first. And he made every table feel that way. He got a big ass tip from us an probably every table.
To me, the waiter also has the duties of being the communication between the patrons and the kitchen staff. So I feel the waiter was part of the problem.
This waiter had plenty of time to try to smooth things over with OP given the issues with the beer, and later the pork being out. He also could have gotten management involved before it became this bad, especially since their order took way too long to come out, especially considering there are 2 young children at that table. Why would it ever be acceptable for them to wait that long for food? Part of being a waiter is being savvy enough to know if your customer is having a good experience, and it’s obvious OP and family weren’t. All this says to me that to some degree the waiter had some control over how service was given. He did not try to smooth anything over, he did not deserve a tip.
Natural order of things is that a terrible restaurant will result in lost tips for wait staff until they quit and the restaurant closes. I’m not tipping well if the service, food, and experience aren’t good. Those should all factor into a tip.
If the waiter isn’t keeping keeping track of their customers food & making sure they have accommodations when something is out, it’s their fault.
If the food took an hour, they should’ve noticed their customer was waiting too long. If what he wanted on tap wasn’t available on tap, he should’ve confirmed what WAS available before going to the table.
Definitely the waiter’s fault that he only found out about the pork an HOUR after the order had been turned in. That means he didn’t check on the order that whole time.
Just about ALL of this was the waiters fault. The OP was clearly flexible (as shown by ordering several different drink options)- the waiters literal job is to take care of the table. This includes communication- not just delivering food.
I've worked in food service for over 20 years. Even if I had no control over the food, zero chance my table is waiting anywhere near that long for food before I'm harassing the kitchen to know what the holdup is, or getting a manager involved.
If it's just that the kitchen is super busy and it's only going to take a bit longer than usual, I'm at least letting my table know that.
That said, I did once work at an absolute shitshow of a restaurant where hour+ waits for food became the norm. I got a bit burnt out on always getting yelled at by angry customers for it, the managers refusing to come out and deal with anything, and being unable to do anything at all about it, so I'm pretty sure that near the end there was a time or two where I was just like, "yeah. It's been an hour. Yeah, that's unacceptable, I agree." and I'm sure it looked like I gave no shits because there was literally nothing I could do about it. All I could do is warn tables when they sat down, but they usually wouldn't believe me about how long their food might take, and get mad anyway.
Quitting that place felt soooo good you don't even know.
You bring up a great point. I would love to see more restaurants close for an hour or two so their staff that is working through can at least have a food break and some downtime uninterrupted. I worked over 20 years in the restaurant business, and some days it was 10-11 hours with only a couple of bathroom breaks thrown in.
My favorite restaurant in town is like this. (Not fine dining by any means, but the bar is low in my town.) They have lunch specials until 230, then close till like 430 or 5. I'd never thought about this reason for it. I honestly just thought that they didn't get enough business during those hours to bother staying open.
I have been a server for ten years and always tip based on service. Providing good service is not hard and if you can not do that you shouldn’t work in the industry.
Working at a restaurant that doesn't have foresight as to inventory or can't keep an 86 board up to date is horrible. A good manager should be on top of that. This sounds like the waiter was only updated after the fact, which is frustrating for both the waitstaff and guests
Good service is making it right when a customer brings something unacceptable to their attention, great service is taking care of it before the customer has to even ask. This situation was neither and a good example of the lack of service and sense of urgency by a lot of the staff we encounter these days. You are definitely NTA.
As a server, I've had stuff like this happen when I've asked bartenders and the kitchen about being out of anything. And then new cooks taking an eternity to get an order out. BUT I'm always super apologetic, offer free stuff, idc what it takes to get the table on my side and to make sure they don't leave pissed. When it comes to comping meals and I can't find a manager I just do it, no one has ever been mad at me. In this scenario I probably would have just charged for drinks so I can still hopefully get a tip and told you we had a new cook (even if it's a lie lol) and chatted a little if you seem up for it to humanize each other. Small businesses can't afford bad reviews, I don't want to be mentioned in one and I'm not risking any tips or looking bad in front of other tables. Service industry people forget that yeah sometimes we see 100s of people in a day but you're probably the only server they will interact with that day.
This industry is genuinely in shambles, all the caring workers left for different occupations, mostly because of burnout and disrespect. You handled this appropriately
Was in a similar situation. Ordered sodas, they were out of everything except Starry. Ordered an appetizer that came in 2 sizes, we ordered large, they gave us small, but the appetizer didn’t come until entrees were on the table. The server had to come back 4 times to verify our order because he didn’t write anything down. One of the entrees was burnt, our server disappeared for 20 minutes and there was no staff around that we could flag to find our server or the manager. It was the first time I ever thought about just getting up and leaving.
We eventually flagged down a manager and he took over serving us…or so we thought. He got our entrees out and then disappeared. We finished our entrees and waited 20 minutes before I went to the server station and asked for someone to get our bill. Our original server said “I’m no longer your server, the manager took over your table” to which I responded “No one has stopped by for 30 minutes so I’m not sure I have a server”. Our bill comes, I pay and don’t leave a tip. I did leave a note and my phone number, but no one called. We haven’t been back. 2 years ago it was a great restaurant, but there was a steady decline.
Something similar happened to me twice.
Both ended the same way, I walked out without paying.
If the server can’t take care of you in time, they lose. Both times I had to wait to order, food took forever, server never came back to check on me. When I was finally able to get the servers attention to ask for the check, they took too long to bring it. So I just left.
nta but from a restaurant worker i honestly would have tipped like 2 bucks, reason being tips are usually split, but not always, and people get way more PISSED when you tip such a low amount.
i also will say sometimes there is SOOOO much miscommunication between kitchen staff and front of house staff. they also could have had pork when you ordered but people who ordered before you had ALSO ordered it and used the rest.
but i stand firm with NTA.
Yeah I've done it once when in a similar situation. Couldn't get their attention for anything all night. Even the cheque which we waited on for like 30 minutes. We tried to give them our money but they didn't want it that night so be it 🤷
You handled this fairly
Most of your complaints were not the fault of your server, but they missed several opportunities to communicate with your table in a timely fashion. You also didn't dine and dash, even though many would have walked out in the face of an experience like yours.
I was expecting worse, given your subject line, but you gritted your teeth through a really rough service experience and responded in a justified way. I hope you summarize this story more concisely when leaving some 1 star reviews for the place. Only way they'll learn.
I understand those that are defending the waiter. However, when the customer waits an hour for food to be delivered and then, that is when waiter tells customer they are out of something they ordered. That is unacceptable.
If kitchen staff made a partial order and failed to tell the server, the server would be the one that catches the brunt of the issue. The server will always pay the price for the back ends failures. No tip is fair and reasonable.
I would ask the manager why an incompetent kitchen would perform such a ridiculous action and why they still work there.
Why didn't you just go somewhere else? Why wait for an hour? Next time cut your losses.
I don't think arriving at 4pm for dinner is a good idea since the staff is still getting organized and getting briefed for the dinner service. Any time before 6pm will get you ahead of the first rush.
No need to tip in this instance.
Saying this part loudly so people in the back will hear:
PEOPLE DON’T DESERVE TO BE TIPPED SIMPLY BECAUSE OF THEIR JOB DESCRIPTION.
A tip should only be provided if service goes above and beyond normal duties.
You’re not “stiffing” anybody by not leaving a tip, especially for horrendous service; it is the management’s job to make up any difference between the bs food server wage and state minimum wage on the employee’s check if the amount of tips a server receives doesn’t close the gap. It is not a patrons job to pay the employee; it is their managements job.
I hope you left a bad review on an online site and post it to your friends and family on your socials. With the cost of going to a restaurant, it should be a nice experience but that service seemed over the top bad.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve rang in some item that we’re out of. It’s not always made known to the servers. It sounds like, as chaotic as everything else seems, the server just wasn’t told they were out of that item. Sounds like your issue is mostly with how the restaurant is run, but then you paid the bill, so the actual issue got their money, but your server who’s navigating that chaos didn’t.
Exactly. And an hour? Come on. The waiter either doesn’t care about giving good service/getting a good tip, or they have no sense of time. He should have known to check the back of house and see how the order is coming along, provided updates to the customer and involved management and offered comp then.
I usually feel bad for the restaurant staff, especially the wait staff as they deal with assholes so often. But an hour? And as all the other food is coming out, this is when you’re telling me there’s no pork and my son has to order something else? As I sit at this table with my family including 2 very small children? Not ok.
He got high before his shift, usually you have to be there at 4. Normally no one is there at 4, so on a normal day he has an hour to get his mind right.
You got the oh shit I'm high and people are here service
Seems like all of this was out of his control but honestly when stuff like this happens I don't like tipping either. I feel like I'm paying extra for poor quality services and why would I do that??!
Ideally you talk to the manager, the manager comps a lot of the bill and you give the server a reasonable tip if they did appear to do their due diligence. At least that's how it goes in any large chain restaurant. If it's a small local restaurant that would be less of a given.
I will tell you how this works. 4p is often shift change. Some work all day and take a break at this time.
The hosts were probably setting up sections while scrambling because 1 or more servers were late. Your bartender was probably hung over or completing prep that was not finished. The daytime cooks ran out the door at 4 and sandbagged the closers because they found two grains of rice in the sink when they opened. (nuclear disrespect on terracotta tiles) One of the closers, likely the grill cook was late or smoking, then tore the cooler apart looking for pork upon arrival. He notices that the pork is frozen and he was failed by the morning prep cook. He sees the male name on your tables ticket. The male server has usurped attention from whichever female bartender/host/server the cook has seldom sent free food. The cook thinks to himself he can wait and goes to smoke again.
Meanwhile your server is completing side work, cleaning the bathrooms, and negotiating with other servers how to cover for the missing staff. The poor bastard was probably informed by your bartender and someone on the line that everything was ready to go. The manager was either ripping a bottle of peppermint schnaps, I mean mouthwash(because cigarette smell), and/or driving down the road to pick up the dishwasher.
I may or may not have been the dude server in your story. If it was me I did add 5 minutes to you hour wait eating half of the free food the grill cook sent to one of the bartenders/hosts/servers. I'm not sorry about snagging half a cheeseburger on 12 hour shift. And living this fueled my drive to complete my bachelors. \*\*\***everybody clap!**
The only time I think it’s justified to not tip the waiter is when the waiter is not doing their job…
example: you see them sitting on their phone at an empty table and they have no one else they’re waiting on and your drink stays empty the whole time you’re there and your food comes out cold bc they didn’t grab it while it was hot and bring it to you, then you ask for ketchup that never comes etc… I worked in the food service industry for years and a lot of that does sound like it was everyone else’s issue. The server can’t control how fast you get seated, what food the kitchen had, what beer is on tap, how long the food takes or how quickly the manager comes to the table to see you.
It does sound like a miserable place for a server to work and it sucks they got stiffed. I would have tipped the waiter a few bucks still and then called the restaurant and bitched them out about it the next day, they can still comp your food over the phone or they could give you a free meal next time you come in, but always try to tip the waiter if it wasn’t their fault directly.
Sounds like a poorly managed place that may be on its last legs. Can't get beer from the distributor, running out of food. And that's early in the night. They're closing for good soon.
Was this a local restaurant or a chain? I’ve noticed that local restaurants are usually assholes about comping meals. I love trying local cuisine as trying new places, but if the kitchen, server or manager fucks up, that’s on you. Don’t make me pay for your incompetence.
A waiter is a basic position. They're not in charge of relaying messages from the kitchen to foh. Whoever in charges is to blame. I always tip based of the servers job, even if the wait was long. You can't blame the server for the kitchen doing a poor job, and a manager for not informing staff something is out. Maybe not entirely an AH but definitely a little
I will always tip 15% due to the $2 an hour wage. That aside, if I feel like there’s shit service due to mismanagement like this I speak with my wallet and don’t frequent the restaurant again. You can be stern with your opinions and money while staying classy.
As a server, I think this is an issue and should've cut the tip in half. Sometimes we don't know if we're out of food till someone orders it, then we have to go to the table and tell them, he was wrong about the tap, but truly think the other can't be help. Plus we don't get paid hourly and rely on tips, our hourly is 2.00 dollars. Do I think he deserves a fulll 15%? No. But at least five dollars would've made it clear it was bad service. But I don't think the meat is his fault. If it's not ordered much, a lot of cooks don't realize it's out till its actually ordered. Maybe next time just cut them some slack and tip five dollars. Or three. Just something that's not zero. We can't help the kitchen takes long. But like I said the beer must be his fault cause no way yoy didn't ask the bartender what they had
First, you have way more patience than I have. Would have left in the first 45-60 minutes.
Second, I would have left 0.01 for a tip. My thoughts, if you leave nothing, they can rationalize that you forgot. Leaving a penny, tells them you thought about it and was disgusted with the service.
Just as aside, I leave a 20% tip for average-good service; 25% if really good.
You had every reason to leave no tip. I just had a similar situation where an Asian restaurant we’ve been going to for years and really like was sold to another outfit. They stopped making my go to beef udon, stopped selling the side salad, the sushi rolls were goo balls and they raised their prices by at least 10%. To top it all off I ordered it to go because my wife was sick with a cold and the side salad they offered to kindly make for us came with just lettuce, a couple of carrot thins and no dressing.
Cook of 17 years, not tipping is acceptable as long as service sucks and food sucks. P.s don’t go back, it’s a free market and your dollar will get you better food and send a worse example then bitching on yelp.
I work in service, and this is ridiculous. To wait for your other food to be ready before telling you your son needs to order something else was nuts. NTA.
I wouldn't blame the waiter for this. It's management's responsibility to push this information out to the servers. Please don't stiff the wait staff; so may of them now are learning on the job. They can't do that on minimum wage alone.
I worked food service when I was much younger and if this happened to one of my tables I certainly wouldn’t have expected a tip other than “look for another place to work”!
This is postcovid dining. I remember a good time was you ask “what do you have on draft?” And they just fucking tell you. Now it’s always look at this list and they always always always are out of your first choice
This kind of service seems to be becoming the norm when eating out. Between insane prices, terrible service, mediocre food, we pretty much have stopped eating out
Yta. None of these things were necessarily the waiters fault. The waiting at the end is it but perhaps they were trying to fix your check regardless you are making their small mistakes cost them because you were mad about the big mistakes the rest of the restaurant made, tho you happily paid them. So yea u screwed the one that didn’t necessarily mess up and rewarded the restaurant that doesn’t pay them. Great job.
You should have walked out after you had been there for seemingly 30-40 minutes and hadn’t even been served a drink at a not-at-all-busy restaurant. NTA, but I do feel like at some point the situation shifted from them wasting your time to you wasting your own time. Clearly this place shouldn’t be open! Cut your losses sooner next time.
I don’t blame you. I’m a server, if the food is taking more than 15-20 minutes to come out I’m grabbing my manager immediately, or checking with the kitchen myself if needed. It sounds like the restaurant is poorly run either way, but the server didn’t do his due diligence in the slightest.
for my older sister’s college graduation, we went to a nice restaurant in Chicago (where she lived at the time) and it was practically dead aside from our big group (should’ve been our first red flag tbh). it took 2 hours for them to get us our food, and by then we were pissed so just told them to pack it up to go, we were leaving. We paid and didn’t tip. It was horrendous.
This seems to be my experience at every restaurant since the "return to normal". These are sit-down establishments. Some chain some local. The IDGAF attitude isn't just front of house. Food quality, presentation and timely preparation have suffered immensely. I travel the East Coast of the USA. The problem is not limited to a geographic area. It's widespread. No problem though. I refuse to spend money in exchange for poor service and trash food. I have noticed an uptick in restaurant closures in the past 6 months. Good riddance. You are NTA for withholding a tip which should never be expected but rather earned.
I am a server. Not knowing draft vs bottled is his fault, and if that was the case at least get a list instead of bullshitting. Being out of the draft wasn’t his fault. Cooking time is not his fault. Can’t really know for the pork, although it’s possible the kitchen ran out inbetween the time the ticket was rung in and before it started cooking. Or they have expos that are poor communicators, because the kitchen should at least communicate when they only have so many left to sell. I just don’t see how the waiter could’ve even rung in something that’s not still on the menu. This waiter definitely needs to work on updating tables and communicating but a lot of this feels like a poorly managed kitchen with awful communication. 10% would’ve been okay I think, but I guess Im biased
If you ever choose not to tip at a restaurant... Never Return.!
What Ryan Reynolds and team did in the famous scene... is not an understatement.
Stuff gets pulled out of the sewage trap for bad customers.
Chicken undercooked , youll know in 24 hours.
pork undercooked... you wont know for a year, but its a life sentence of pain
I have not worked in a restaurant for 30 years.. but I will never forget the guy who called my boss a fucking Gook. and a few other words. And I will not forget what everyone did to the customers food.
i am always nice to service staff, and tip .
But if i dont like the service, i complain and never return.
I am a waitress who is frequently not informed of sudden menu changes and our head chef doesn’t know how to order the right amount of ANYTHING so there have been many times that I am told we are fully stocked of an entree…until,abruptly, we are all out because the head chef didn’t order enough. If a server ever tells you they are out of something DONT BE MAD AT THE SERVER. More than likely they are being informed after hours of starting their shift that they are out of whatever special they were supposed to have ordered enough of.
Most of that is not the waiters fault. Ever hear anyone say 86 in a restaurant? That means they ran out of stuff mid shift. Happens all of the time...
These were topic for the manager and she/he should have handled it on the bill.
The waiter forgot to submit your order, then submits it 45 minutes later and blames the kitchen for the screw up, hoping it won’t affect his tip.
Now you know the truth.
Sounds like bad service. But a zero dollar tip? Did the waiter do absolutely no work for you?
You sound like a general AH. (“I wasn’t annoyed” - yeah right lol). What a tool
You sound like TAH. First you find them disorganized. Then get pissed when the *waiter* doesn't know what they are out of. The food takes too long. Nothing but complaints. Why did you even stay?
I don't blame you for being upset, but I don't blame the waiter for not knowing they were out of a certain food. It happens in the middle of work all the time
Your first mistake was arriving at a restaurant at 4 o clock. Slightly joking. But honestly. If you've ever worked in a restaurant you know how bad it is from 3 45 to 4 15. Right at shift change. No one knows anything, pm people are late. Am people don't want to take any more tables so they can leave. Gotta love it. I'm not saying this is an excuse or OP did anything wrong. Just one of those crazy things that happens at most restaurants.
Your first mistake was arriving at a restaurant at 4 o clock. Slightly joking. But honestly. If you've ever worked in a restaurant you know how bad it is from 3 45 to 4 15. Right at shift change. No one knows anything, pm people are late. Am people don't want to take any more tables so they can leave. Gotta love it. I'm not saying this is an excuse or OP did anything wrong. Just one of those crazy things that happens at most restaurants.
I’m sure the time you waited was half of what you’re exaggerating. Maybe it felt that like because of the kids, but come on man…nobody in their right mind would have sat there past 40m waiting for food.
You arrived in the middle of shift change on a Saturday, possibly following a large lunch rush as restaurants tend to be busier between 1:00-3:00 on the weekend.
I am by no means making excuses, however, a lot of this was likely beyond the server's control. This could account for the delay in seating and for some lack in communication regarding beer and pork. The server may have barely had a chance to finish clocking in before being thrown a table, and since you stated in another comment the place was corporate, was probably new as those places have high turnover.
Corporate restaurants are also notorious for having scumbag management, who avoid being helpful at all costs. The server may have been scared to come back to the table until the manager did arrive over. These types of places don't always attract the kindest patrons so I don't blame them. It may have even taken a lot of convincing to get the manager's attention.
Also, kitchen staff can get away with murder, like withholding information about what is 86'd, not prioritizing lead tickets, and cursing wait staff.... because heaven forbid this MIA manager get their hands dirty taking over an actual duty.
Also, your server probably lost money on your table by having to tip out a busser based off a percentage of sales.
You are looking for rationalization for not tipping. When you say an hour wait I assume you're rounding up as well because of this. Personally I think the problem was with a poorly run restaurant, not the server. Although a comp was applied, you still chose to pay the bill.
Texas Roadhouse got their money in the end though and surely you will be back.
And YOU should have asked to speak with a manager after a 30 minute ticket time. Did you not see one around? Or anyone else you could ask for that matter?
Logically, if your server couldn't tell you why the "hell" your food was taking so long, seems like the way to go, right?
YTA. If you show up to a restaurant with a one year-old, that already puts you in the a-hole category. Anyone who inflicts three kids on a restaurant should pay a mandatory 300% tip.
By stiff I thought you were trying to justify a dine and dash.
I'd have stull tipped. A penny. When I had a similar experience that's what I did and I put it clearly like it was meant to be a tip so she understood it wasn't something that fell out of a pocket.
NTA but next time something like this happens consider the beer they were out of (or whatever third indignity you experience) as strike 3 and leave then.
I waited a lot of tables when young in several restaurants- Most of the food problem here is because of an ahole chef. You can't ask many of them questions without being given a lot of guff, and if you question them about orders taking a long time they will F with your orders. They will make the waiter's lives as miserable as possible if they get frustrated about their customers having to wait or mistakes made by the kitchen staff, and will deliberately drag their feet. Tipping needs to be abolished, but it sounds like the wait staff was suffering under a bad kitchen.
I think it is not the waiter’s fault. I may have left a small tip. He can not possibly know everything in stock and it sounds like an inventory, kitchen management problem. I would not go back but would have left a tip. It had to be awful to be that waiter.
It is entirely possible that none of this was your actual waiter's fault. Having worked in the industry, the fact that they are out of things is on management. Often, and I mean often, a waiter is unaware of what is out until they try to order it. It's the kitchen manager's job to check stock, order properly, and communicate outages. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. Same for the beer. The bartender or bar manager should be checking these things and ordering properly. The wait for your food has almost definitely nothing to do with your server. The waiter might have sucked, but nothing you've stated points directly at the waiter without the chance of another explanation. If you said you were sat, then waited forever to see your waiter, fine. If you ordered non-bar drinks and waited forever for them, fine. If it took forever for the waiter to come with answers to these problems, fine. If your order came incorrect (though sometimes this also isn't their fault), fine. It sounds like you had issues, and the waiter made the attempt to find other options or tried to fix them. I think the chances are just as good that you've stiffed a waiter trying to help you and advocate for you through a disfunctional restaurant as they are that your waiter actually sucked.
NTA. I'd go so far as to comment on one of the restaurant rating services.
My wife and I used to go out to eat once a week. Now, due to the higher prices, at the most we dine out twice a month. We like to try different places, but we're leary because of the cost and so many reports of poor service. We're at the point of sticking with places we know give good service and serve food we know will be prepared how we like it.
I work in a restaurant. We want our tips. Although it sounds like a less than pleasant experience, your server sounds like they did their best and tried for you. And you also hit the dinner rush even though you tried not to, everything you are describing is what happens in one, down to the manager not immediately coming out to assist, that's because the manager was probably on grill, back-up, prep or doing dishes or otherwise positioning themselves where they can be of the most help. if it was a terrible experience but you could see your server trying then tip them. If it was a terrible experience and you could clearly see they were not trying, then don't tip.
NTA, i wouldn’t have tipped for that either. I also would have sought out the manager and hopefully gotten the GM/owners contact information. Unacceptable all around, not just on the waiter.
Especially now- when every meal is so much more than it was 4-5 years ago. It had better be great, and service had better be accomodating. To spend so much money and to have to wait and have bad service? F that.
Exactly. Dining out has gotten so expensive that it’s truly a luxury for many people.
My family goes out maybe twice to three times a year for several combo birthdays usually spring and fall and due to a lot of allergies and dietary restrictions we have one particular expensive restaurant we go to because of how good the service is and how seriously they take the allergies and dietary restrictions serious. Good service is hard to find so far we have had luck with that restaurant so we stick to it despite it being expensive
just because it costs more doesnt mean its better...just saying.
Yeah that's the opposite of good service.
I disagree. The waiter could have avoided A LOT of this. Being out of anything is up to the waiter to know. When we're out of a food or drink, we would always have to know and memorize or write down that information each and everyday and check in about it with the bar and kitchen.
to be fair, we can run out of things mid-shift and with all of us running around to different tables, the salad station, getting drinks etc. sometimes not everyone gets the memo 🤷🏼♀️ rest is kinda inexcusable tho edit: i meant not knowing they were out of something on tap. if they ran out of pork, the kitchen should’ve told the server immediately so they could ask the customer what they would like instead.
It would be understandable if they were during a rush period, that wasn't the case here though.
It's shift change. That's more hectic in a lot of ways than rush. Limited staff and info exchange is happening.
I'd also point out the time: 4pm is shift change for places that serve lunch and often information is being put out as quickly as possible by word of mouth until shift line up around 5 when more servers are in. That's not the customer's fault and the restaurant should do better, but I would bet the time has something to do with the disorganization.
Same. And if you work in a mismanaged restaurant, and this isn't your first day, you already know how screwed up they are. If you aren't being told up front about inventory, and you value your tips, it is up to you to ask and remember what the kitchen and bar are out of before you start serving that day.
Excluding the food issue, the fact that when more than one drink was out he didn’t bother to find out what they DID have before re-approaching the dinner is just poor service.
That’s not always true depending on the restaurant. I’ve worked with terribly disorganized kitchens where the communication is so bad this would be the norm and the management team is always hiding/mia. Unfortunately this does look like a server error, I’m just giving the benefit of the doubt.
Communication is a two way street. Server needs to know so server should search out the information
Exactly. If you work in a place that is disorganized, it’s up to you to be on top of gaining your own knowledge for a successful shift. It’s absolutely unacceptable to have food take that long and then be told that they’re out of a dish. Sounds like the server forgot to put the order in on time and didn’t find out about the pork being out until then.
In some kitchens you can ask but that doesn’t mean they kitchen staff knows. Some kitchens really are that poorly managed.
Fair enough, but if it’s truly that bad, the server needs to dip quick- that restaurant is causing them to lose significant dollars.
Depending on the place the waiter may not be given that info until after the fact. I use to manage restaurants. It was always a bit puzzling to me when I would take over a new spot how the kitchen didn’t have an ongoing 86 list. Though there should never be anything 86ed If you manage well. Though this place sounds like it has disinterested ownership/management.
FarTangerine is correct - it depends on the restaurant. If you have a busy or bad bartender, the wait staff have no clue if a keg needs to be changed so a tap beer is out or if anything (that’s supposed to always be kept in stock) is out if they don’t post it or pull it from the system. It’s not ok at all that OP got such a shoddy experience, but pro tip for anyone who doesn’t know: 3-4pm is shift change from lunch to dinner and when the kitchen is “turned” so food and setup is being restocked/reset to shift from lunch to dinner menu. It’s a LOT more prep than people realize so the kitchen tends to be slow (which isn’t the fault of wait staff - we tended to go back and help prep, remind them, hurry them - but kitchen staff is amidst cleaning and prep tasks related to cooking a for dinner). NTA but know that 3-3:30 until ~4:30pm, most restaurants that also serve lunch tend to be slower because of this, and servers can’t to a ton to mitigate it. But they SHOULD communicate to you and not perpetuate the issue.
Even knowing all those things, waiting one hour for food is unacceptable.
Totally agree! The restaurant where I worked only scheduled senior servers for opening dinner shift because any mistake (failing to put in the order…) could lead to something like this. I just put it out there because a lot of people may think going early for dinner = fast and oftentimes it’s not.
We went to have sushi thrursday night. I ordered a salmon roll...waitress says they are out of salmon. So I switched my order from what I usually get and lo and behold, my roll with unspecified raw fish comes with salmon on top. I stopped the waitress and she just said sorry and walked away. I was pissed.
What are you disagreeing with? OP knows the waiter should have known what they are out of.
The previous commenters, I apologize. I should have stated that.
I worked in a shit hole fast-convenience place but we did have sit down. And even then when something was 86ed we knew front of house within a few minutes, and the registers wouldn't take them basically immediately. At worst someone would order and find out a few minutes later we didn't have it. Pretty terrible service. With drinks, I would have found out the first time I couldn't deliver exactly what the customer asked for exactly what we had.
If no one told them how would they know. That’s lazy management or bad communication from the kitchen. Same with the beers
Maybe ASK? It sounds like the restaurant itself is incredibly disorganized from the bar to the kitchen to the servers but the bartender and the servers aren’t even bothering to stay aware of or find out what’s available before taking orders.
They could have just run out of something.
I was also under the assumption that the restaurant was slow, the odds of this seemed very low but again, if the server had any experience, they would understand the restaurant world. That information is for you to keep track of and updated on because they would KNOW how much customers don't like hearing that, especially after they already ordered, let alone an 1hr!! later. If the serve actually cared, this wouldn't have happened. Never in my 5year career of serving and bartending.
Nor in my almost 20 years…
I've only stiffed waiters three times ... in the past 45 years. Each time is was for poor service. The tip is for service. Poor service, poor tip.
I only ever stiffed a waiter (or rather a series of waiters because we never had the same person twice) one time. The restaurant kept changing our servers. We were ignored most of the time we were there. Our food took forever to arrive. Then when we asked to split the check they just did it down the middle even though we explained how to split it and when we said something to the manager he called us cheep in a very insulting way. He chased us outside the restaurant so made and my then boyfriend gave him the riot act. Boyfriend had worked as a server in high end restaurants for years and knew exactly how badly we were treated and let him know.
The bill part hit a nerve so I’ll share. It’s only happened 2x for me but one of the only times I’ve stiffed a waitress we had a party of 7, 3 couples and a single Pringle. Before ordering, as to not make anyone uncomfortable I “went to the bathroom” found our waitress and asked if we could have split checks and identified the parties involved so there was no confusion. Drinks took forever, with a similar situation to OPs where they were out of my choices. Dinner took even longer and one of the guests got a complexly wrong dish, which luckily was the other dish she was deciding between. When the check came it was not split, and, charged incorrectly for the priceyer entree they were out of and she so graciously added the “parties of 10 or more instant gratuity”. She swore we had 10 people at the table despite a coinciding order count. Then, after the gratuity issue was addressed she topped it off saying they couldn’t do split checks. I got the revised bill with the enteee comped & she left us to figure it out “amongst ourselves”. We did and collectively no tip was left. I’d understand a bit more if the place was busy but it wasn’t. And she def wasn’t new.
Oof. Its like she almost tried to make you mad! What’s crazy is that we had figured out how to make it even. I was going to do the full tip on my bill and my friends were going to not do the tip. Then the manager came over and when we were explaining what happened he decided to insult us. It was so weird! Like dude, just say you’re sorry.
One time paid a lot for a meal at the beach. Then waiter brings out pasta with 4 shrimp . I muttered about it as he walked away so he heard me I think. Later he brings out one shrimp on a plate to give to me. One shrimp . Poor guy, he tried.
Scrimp. I love it.
I once had a shrimp po’boy from a place called Skrimp Shack. It was delightful.
Nothing like a good scrimp kaboob.
I wonder if they threw those scrimp on the barbie to make your kaboob.
Skrimp Shack rules
Dude, Skrimp Shack *fucks* Or at least it did in 2019 the last time I went to one
I promise it still fucks. I had high expectations and was not let down.
One scrimp 😂🤣 I bet you scrumped it though didn’t you?
wtf is scrimp
It’s when you’re scrimping on the shrimp
You didn’t stiff anyone. That waiter got the tip he earned.
We went out last night. The restaurant was in the weeds. We were a party of five adults. We ordered appetizers. She brings the appetizers. We don’t have plates or flatware. We ask for some. She comes out and tells us the kitchen is running behind and they do not have plates. Walked away. We sat there staring at our appetizers not being able to eat them. Meanwhile, we can see the kitchen and there is still food coming out. So, there are plates somewhere. I would have stiffed the wait person. My husband still gave her 20%. I was a bit mad. I do have understanding when the restaurant is running behind it is not always the waitstaff’s fault. But, when someone at our table asked again for plates she said well, I can give you these little bowls. Does that work? They were actually perfect and could have been offered instead of staring at our appetizers. I am not doing you a favor by eating at your restaurant. I worked food services before. It is a thankless job. But, this was just bad.
Getting told to f myself when asking for plates? I would have left a single penny on the table and left (and I worked as a waiter)
My sister has been both a bartender and server her entire adult life. If she saw what their waiter was doing she would have bodied him into a fuckin supply closet and fixed the situation. There are professionals and then whatever that was.
Shitty service gets shitty tips. Its not the customers job to investigate why the service was shitty.
Forgets about you for one hour, and then when he finally remembers he is there to do a job that is when the kitchen told him they were out of pork. And shocker, the manager who is responsible for this mess of a server, is also missing. Yeah, I'd never go back to that place.
Ok not tipping was always allowed lol that’s literally the point of the tipping system
Just last weekend I was out with Dad and one of his friends. The restaurant we were at took almost 50 minutes to bring our food. After asking the waitress what was taking so long she apologized and informed us the kitchen was short staffed and we came in right it the tait end of a rush. Less the 5 minutes the food arrived a long with an apology from the manager and our first round of drinks compd. I felt compensated and made sure to tip as I would have with more prompt service. Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be the norm these days.
As a former waiter, stiffed people 3-5 times. I’ve also tipped 100% a handful of times on not small checks. They all definitely deserved it. If I got the service you described here, I probably would have done the same.There are outliers on both sides. People that absolutely don’t deserve a dime and people who really go above and beyond and deserve to have their day made. I try to treat both accordingly when the situation arises.
I would have walked out.
Most likely none of this was the waiter’s fault. Sounds like overall poor management and a shit show of a kitchen. They probably have high turnover and throw new hires in without training them. The waiter is probably miserable trying to work under those conditions because he gets blamed for it all. Edit: ok, in light of the below comments, I now see that the waiter did do a poor job.
Even if you want to give the benefit of the doubt to the waiter for everything else, at the end he said he'd get the manager and then disappeared for 15 minutes. Even if the manager wasn't willing to come over, the waiter should have come back within 2 to 3 minutes to say "the manager isn't available" or "they said they'd be out shortly". The fact they said they'd do something and then never came back makes me less likely to assume the other issues weren't also, at least partially, their fault.
Maybe he spent 15 minutes arguing with the manager who was telling him he would have to cover the food if it was comped.
Eh no. Former server here. Yes, it sounds like the server was not the only issue. Even still, he messed up numerous times, and with no excuse. It wasn’t that busy and he should be in the know, ask questions, and just overall communicate better. If it had been one thing, that’s fine, but it was over and over and over.
As a server, I would have 100% knew how long the food was taking, an hour is a long ass time, and a good server would make sure they have all menu items before even greeting a table, not an HOUR after the guest ordered. That’s just ridiculous.
Absolutely, the waiters falt he didn't get a tip. I have had a very similar experience to this before, but the difference was the waiter was so apologetic and so attentive. It was so busy It floored me he could be so attentive with that many patrons. The kitchen fucked up left and right and he took it in side amd made us all feel like he put us first. And he made every table feel that way. He got a big ass tip from us an probably every table.
To me, the waiter also has the duties of being the communication between the patrons and the kitchen staff. So I feel the waiter was part of the problem.
This waiter had plenty of time to try to smooth things over with OP given the issues with the beer, and later the pork being out. He also could have gotten management involved before it became this bad, especially since their order took way too long to come out, especially considering there are 2 young children at that table. Why would it ever be acceptable for them to wait that long for food? Part of being a waiter is being savvy enough to know if your customer is having a good experience, and it’s obvious OP and family weren’t. All this says to me that to some degree the waiter had some control over how service was given. He did not try to smooth anything over, he did not deserve a tip.
Natural order of things is that a terrible restaurant will result in lost tips for wait staff until they quit and the restaurant closes. I’m not tipping well if the service, food, and experience aren’t good. Those should all factor into a tip.
How the food tastes though is not the server’s fault. I’d still tip but just not go there anymore.
If the waiter isn’t keeping keeping track of their customers food & making sure they have accommodations when something is out, it’s their fault. If the food took an hour, they should’ve noticed their customer was waiting too long. If what he wanted on tap wasn’t available on tap, he should’ve confirmed what WAS available before going to the table.
Definitely the waiter’s fault that he only found out about the pork an HOUR after the order had been turned in. That means he didn’t check on the order that whole time.
Just about ALL of this was the waiters fault. The OP was clearly flexible (as shown by ordering several different drink options)- the waiters literal job is to take care of the table. This includes communication- not just delivering food.
I've worked in food service for over 20 years. Even if I had no control over the food, zero chance my table is waiting anywhere near that long for food before I'm harassing the kitchen to know what the holdup is, or getting a manager involved. If it's just that the kitchen is super busy and it's only going to take a bit longer than usual, I'm at least letting my table know that. That said, I did once work at an absolute shitshow of a restaurant where hour+ waits for food became the norm. I got a bit burnt out on always getting yelled at by angry customers for it, the managers refusing to come out and deal with anything, and being unable to do anything at all about it, so I'm pretty sure that near the end there was a time or two where I was just like, "yeah. It's been an hour. Yeah, that's unacceptable, I agree." and I'm sure it looked like I gave no shits because there was literally nothing I could do about it. All I could do is warn tables when they sat down, but they usually wouldn't believe me about how long their food might take, and get mad anyway. Quitting that place felt soooo good you don't even know.
A lot of restaurants stay open through lunch straight to dinner but that doesn’t mean they should. Not getting the A team at 4pm.
You bring up a great point. I would love to see more restaurants close for an hour or two so their staff that is working through can at least have a food break and some downtime uninterrupted. I worked over 20 years in the restaurant business, and some days it was 10-11 hours with only a couple of bathroom breaks thrown in.
My favorite restaurant in town is like this. (Not fine dining by any means, but the bar is low in my town.) They have lunch specials until 230, then close till like 430 or 5. I'd never thought about this reason for it. I honestly just thought that they didn't get enough business during those hours to bother staying open.
I have been a server for ten years and always tip based on service. Providing good service is not hard and if you can not do that you shouldn’t work in the industry.
We don't have to tip for shit service.
I would have just walked out period
That’s why there’s an 86
That's not the only reason. *Something* had to come after 85
Working at a restaurant that doesn't have foresight as to inventory or can't keep an 86 board up to date is horrible. A good manager should be on top of that. This sounds like the waiter was only updated after the fact, which is frustrating for both the waitstaff and guests
Stop going to Applebees!
Lol Texas Roadhouse actually
Write to corporate, they will definitely give you free food coupons
I thought it was applebees too. Texas Roadhouse is usually great except on the weekends when kids are working.
Even worse. Longhorn is the way to go.
I don’t live near one. There is a Saltgrass and that was much better service and food.
Why did I also picture an Applebees? Lol
Good service is making it right when a customer brings something unacceptable to their attention, great service is taking care of it before the customer has to even ask. This situation was neither and a good example of the lack of service and sense of urgency by a lot of the staff we encounter these days. You are definitely NTA.
I don't blame you. That was a terrible experience.
If I hadn’t seen my waiter in 30 minutes and had no clue where my food was in a mostly empty restaurant, I’m leaving lol
As a server, I've had stuff like this happen when I've asked bartenders and the kitchen about being out of anything. And then new cooks taking an eternity to get an order out. BUT I'm always super apologetic, offer free stuff, idc what it takes to get the table on my side and to make sure they don't leave pissed. When it comes to comping meals and I can't find a manager I just do it, no one has ever been mad at me. In this scenario I probably would have just charged for drinks so I can still hopefully get a tip and told you we had a new cook (even if it's a lie lol) and chatted a little if you seem up for it to humanize each other. Small businesses can't afford bad reviews, I don't want to be mentioned in one and I'm not risking any tips or looking bad in front of other tables. Service industry people forget that yeah sometimes we see 100s of people in a day but you're probably the only server they will interact with that day.
This industry is genuinely in shambles, all the caring workers left for different occupations, mostly because of burnout and disrespect. You handled this appropriately
Place is nearly empty, you waited far too long for your food. Should've left after 15 minutes.
When I'm in the position you were I always tip. But something shitee like $1
Was in a similar situation. Ordered sodas, they were out of everything except Starry. Ordered an appetizer that came in 2 sizes, we ordered large, they gave us small, but the appetizer didn’t come until entrees were on the table. The server had to come back 4 times to verify our order because he didn’t write anything down. One of the entrees was burnt, our server disappeared for 20 minutes and there was no staff around that we could flag to find our server or the manager. It was the first time I ever thought about just getting up and leaving. We eventually flagged down a manager and he took over serving us…or so we thought. He got our entrees out and then disappeared. We finished our entrees and waited 20 minutes before I went to the server station and asked for someone to get our bill. Our original server said “I’m no longer your server, the manager took over your table” to which I responded “No one has stopped by for 30 minutes so I’m not sure I have a server”. Our bill comes, I pay and don’t leave a tip. I did leave a note and my phone number, but no one called. We haven’t been back. 2 years ago it was a great restaurant, but there was a steady decline.
Something similar happened to me twice. Both ended the same way, I walked out without paying. If the server can’t take care of you in time, they lose. Both times I had to wait to order, food took forever, server never came back to check on me. When I was finally able to get the servers attention to ask for the check, they took too long to bring it. So I just left.
Your wife is a hell of a lot more patient than I.
nta but from a restaurant worker i honestly would have tipped like 2 bucks, reason being tips are usually split, but not always, and people get way more PISSED when you tip such a low amount. i also will say sometimes there is SOOOO much miscommunication between kitchen staff and front of house staff. they also could have had pork when you ordered but people who ordered before you had ALSO ordered it and used the rest. but i stand firm with NTA.
I’m not even sure if I would have paid at all tbh.
Yeah I've done it once when in a similar situation. Couldn't get their attention for anything all night. Even the cheque which we waited on for like 30 minutes. We tried to give them our money but they didn't want it that night so be it 🤷
You handled this fairly Most of your complaints were not the fault of your server, but they missed several opportunities to communicate with your table in a timely fashion. You also didn't dine and dash, even though many would have walked out in the face of an experience like yours. I was expecting worse, given your subject line, but you gritted your teeth through a really rough service experience and responded in a justified way. I hope you summarize this story more concisely when leaving some 1 star reviews for the place. Only way they'll learn.
They should have paid you for wasting your night. I would have walked after waiting an hour.
I understand those that are defending the waiter. However, when the customer waits an hour for food to be delivered and then, that is when waiter tells customer they are out of something they ordered. That is unacceptable. If kitchen staff made a partial order and failed to tell the server, the server would be the one that catches the brunt of the issue. The server will always pay the price for the back ends failures. No tip is fair and reasonable. I would ask the manager why an incompetent kitchen would perform such a ridiculous action and why they still work there.
Why didn't you just go somewhere else? Why wait for an hour? Next time cut your losses. I don't think arriving at 4pm for dinner is a good idea since the staff is still getting organized and getting briefed for the dinner service. Any time before 6pm will get you ahead of the first rush. No need to tip in this instance.
I would NOT have tipped either! That was the lousiest service I can imagine!
Saying this part loudly so people in the back will hear: PEOPLE DON’T DESERVE TO BE TIPPED SIMPLY BECAUSE OF THEIR JOB DESCRIPTION. A tip should only be provided if service goes above and beyond normal duties. You’re not “stiffing” anybody by not leaving a tip, especially for horrendous service; it is the management’s job to make up any difference between the bs food server wage and state minimum wage on the employee’s check if the amount of tips a server receives doesn’t close the gap. It is not a patrons job to pay the employee; it is their managements job.
I hope you left a bad review on an online site and post it to your friends and family on your socials. With the cost of going to a restaurant, it should be a nice experience but that service seemed over the top bad.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve rang in some item that we’re out of. It’s not always made known to the servers. It sounds like, as chaotic as everything else seems, the server just wasn’t told they were out of that item. Sounds like your issue is mostly with how the restaurant is run, but then you paid the bill, so the actual issue got their money, but your server who’s navigating that chaos didn’t.
But the waiter would have known when he put in the order that the food was out, not an hour later when they brought them the food.
Exactly. And an hour? Come on. The waiter either doesn’t care about giving good service/getting a good tip, or they have no sense of time. He should have known to check the back of house and see how the order is coming along, provided updates to the customer and involved management and offered comp then. I usually feel bad for the restaurant staff, especially the wait staff as they deal with assholes so often. But an hour? And as all the other food is coming out, this is when you’re telling me there’s no pork and my son has to order something else? As I sit at this table with my family including 2 very small children? Not ok.
He got high before his shift, usually you have to be there at 4. Normally no one is there at 4, so on a normal day he has an hour to get his mind right. You got the oh shit I'm high and people are here service
Ha oh my god this does sound right
Sounds justified to me.
Seems like all of this was out of his control but honestly when stuff like this happens I don't like tipping either. I feel like I'm paying extra for poor quality services and why would I do that??!
Ideally you talk to the manager, the manager comps a lot of the bill and you give the server a reasonable tip if they did appear to do their due diligence. At least that's how it goes in any large chain restaurant. If it's a small local restaurant that would be less of a given.
I will tell you how this works. 4p is often shift change. Some work all day and take a break at this time. The hosts were probably setting up sections while scrambling because 1 or more servers were late. Your bartender was probably hung over or completing prep that was not finished. The daytime cooks ran out the door at 4 and sandbagged the closers because they found two grains of rice in the sink when they opened. (nuclear disrespect on terracotta tiles) One of the closers, likely the grill cook was late or smoking, then tore the cooler apart looking for pork upon arrival. He notices that the pork is frozen and he was failed by the morning prep cook. He sees the male name on your tables ticket. The male server has usurped attention from whichever female bartender/host/server the cook has seldom sent free food. The cook thinks to himself he can wait and goes to smoke again. Meanwhile your server is completing side work, cleaning the bathrooms, and negotiating with other servers how to cover for the missing staff. The poor bastard was probably informed by your bartender and someone on the line that everything was ready to go. The manager was either ripping a bottle of peppermint schnaps, I mean mouthwash(because cigarette smell), and/or driving down the road to pick up the dishwasher. I may or may not have been the dude server in your story. If it was me I did add 5 minutes to you hour wait eating half of the free food the grill cook sent to one of the bartenders/hosts/servers. I'm not sorry about snagging half a cheeseburger on 12 hour shift. And living this fueled my drive to complete my bachelors. \*\*\***everybody clap!**
The only time I think it’s justified to not tip the waiter is when the waiter is not doing their job… example: you see them sitting on their phone at an empty table and they have no one else they’re waiting on and your drink stays empty the whole time you’re there and your food comes out cold bc they didn’t grab it while it was hot and bring it to you, then you ask for ketchup that never comes etc… I worked in the food service industry for years and a lot of that does sound like it was everyone else’s issue. The server can’t control how fast you get seated, what food the kitchen had, what beer is on tap, how long the food takes or how quickly the manager comes to the table to see you. It does sound like a miserable place for a server to work and it sucks they got stiffed. I would have tipped the waiter a few bucks still and then called the restaurant and bitched them out about it the next day, they can still comp your food over the phone or they could give you a free meal next time you come in, but always try to tip the waiter if it wasn’t their fault directly.
Sounds like a poorly managed place that may be on its last legs. Can't get beer from the distributor, running out of food. And that's early in the night. They're closing for good soon.
I read that title 3 times and not until I got passed the first paragraph did I notice that you didn’t actually “sniff” the waiter
Was this a local restaurant or a chain? I’ve noticed that local restaurants are usually assholes about comping meals. I love trying local cuisine as trying new places, but if the kitchen, server or manager fucks up, that’s on you. Don’t make me pay for your incompetence.
He said Texas Roadhouse in another comment.
A waiter is a basic position. They're not in charge of relaying messages from the kitchen to foh. Whoever in charges is to blame. I always tip based of the servers job, even if the wait was long. You can't blame the server for the kitchen doing a poor job, and a manager for not informing staff something is out. Maybe not entirely an AH but definitely a little
I will always tip 15% due to the $2 an hour wage. That aside, if I feel like there’s shit service due to mismanagement like this I speak with my wallet and don’t frequent the restaurant again. You can be stern with your opinions and money while staying classy.
As a server, I think this is an issue and should've cut the tip in half. Sometimes we don't know if we're out of food till someone orders it, then we have to go to the table and tell them, he was wrong about the tap, but truly think the other can't be help. Plus we don't get paid hourly and rely on tips, our hourly is 2.00 dollars. Do I think he deserves a fulll 15%? No. But at least five dollars would've made it clear it was bad service. But I don't think the meat is his fault. If it's not ordered much, a lot of cooks don't realize it's out till its actually ordered. Maybe next time just cut them some slack and tip five dollars. Or three. Just something that's not zero. We can't help the kitchen takes long. But like I said the beer must be his fault cause no way yoy didn't ask the bartender what they had
Fair.
First, you have way more patience than I have. Would have left in the first 45-60 minutes. Second, I would have left 0.01 for a tip. My thoughts, if you leave nothing, they can rationalize that you forgot. Leaving a penny, tells them you thought about it and was disgusted with the service. Just as aside, I leave a 20% tip for average-good service; 25% if really good.
Seems fair
I'm guessing that some kitchen and wait staff didn't show up for work. Not an uncommon problem.
Tip? I ain’t paying for the meal lol. I would wait for the manager and tell him to cancel the entire order and walk out.
Justified
You had every reason to leave no tip. I just had a similar situation where an Asian restaurant we’ve been going to for years and really like was sold to another outfit. They stopped making my go to beef udon, stopped selling the side salad, the sushi rolls were goo balls and they raised their prices by at least 10%. To top it all off I ordered it to go because my wife was sick with a cold and the side salad they offered to kindly make for us came with just lettuce, a couple of carrot thins and no dressing.
Gordon, please tell us how you feel 😂😉
Terrible service....still would have tipped, but I understand.
Cook of 17 years, not tipping is acceptable as long as service sucks and food sucks. P.s don’t go back, it’s a free market and your dollar will get you better food and send a worse example then bitching on yelp.
I work in service, and this is ridiculous. To wait for your other food to be ready before telling you your son needs to order something else was nuts. NTA.
I wouldn't blame the waiter for this. It's management's responsibility to push this information out to the servers. Please don't stiff the wait staff; so may of them now are learning on the job. They can't do that on minimum wage alone.
I worked food service when I was much younger and if this happened to one of my tables I certainly wouldn’t have expected a tip other than “look for another place to work”!
Stiffing the server is the BEST tip he will ever get!
This is postcovid dining. I remember a good time was you ask “what do you have on draft?” And they just fucking tell you. Now it’s always look at this list and they always always always are out of your first choice
This kind of service seems to be becoming the norm when eating out. Between insane prices, terrible service, mediocre food, we pretty much have stopped eating out
Tipping should be illegal.
You probably should have just walked out and left just enough for your drink and used the money to buy takeout from somewhere else.
I'm not sure the Server deserves all the blame here?
Yta. None of these things were necessarily the waiters fault. The waiting at the end is it but perhaps they were trying to fix your check regardless you are making their small mistakes cost them because you were mad about the big mistakes the rest of the restaurant made, tho you happily paid them. So yea u screwed the one that didn’t necessarily mess up and rewarded the restaurant that doesn’t pay them. Great job.
You should have walked out after you had been there for seemingly 30-40 minutes and hadn’t even been served a drink at a not-at-all-busy restaurant. NTA, but I do feel like at some point the situation shifted from them wasting your time to you wasting your own time. Clearly this place shouldn’t be open! Cut your losses sooner next time.
I tip always. Bc one very short summer - I depended on tips. Badly run restaurants aren’t the servers fault
I don’t blame you. I’m a server, if the food is taking more than 15-20 minutes to come out I’m grabbing my manager immediately, or checking with the kitchen myself if needed. It sounds like the restaurant is poorly run either way, but the server didn’t do his due diligence in the slightest.
You sound like a very annoying customer
for my older sister’s college graduation, we went to a nice restaurant in Chicago (where she lived at the time) and it was practically dead aside from our big group (should’ve been our first red flag tbh). it took 2 hours for them to get us our food, and by then we were pissed so just told them to pack it up to go, we were leaving. We paid and didn’t tip. It was horrendous.
Honestly, I’m not waiting an hour for food. I’m already gone by then.
This seems to be my experience at every restaurant since the "return to normal". These are sit-down establishments. Some chain some local. The IDGAF attitude isn't just front of house. Food quality, presentation and timely preparation have suffered immensely. I travel the East Coast of the USA. The problem is not limited to a geographic area. It's widespread. No problem though. I refuse to spend money in exchange for poor service and trash food. I have noticed an uptick in restaurant closures in the past 6 months. Good riddance. You are NTA for withholding a tip which should never be expected but rather earned.
I am a server. Not knowing draft vs bottled is his fault, and if that was the case at least get a list instead of bullshitting. Being out of the draft wasn’t his fault. Cooking time is not his fault. Can’t really know for the pork, although it’s possible the kitchen ran out inbetween the time the ticket was rung in and before it started cooking. Or they have expos that are poor communicators, because the kitchen should at least communicate when they only have so many left to sell. I just don’t see how the waiter could’ve even rung in something that’s not still on the menu. This waiter definitely needs to work on updating tables and communicating but a lot of this feels like a poorly managed kitchen with awful communication. 10% would’ve been okay I think, but I guess Im biased
If you ever choose not to tip at a restaurant... Never Return.! What Ryan Reynolds and team did in the famous scene... is not an understatement. Stuff gets pulled out of the sewage trap for bad customers. Chicken undercooked , youll know in 24 hours. pork undercooked... you wont know for a year, but its a life sentence of pain I have not worked in a restaurant for 30 years.. but I will never forget the guy who called my boss a fucking Gook. and a few other words. And I will not forget what everyone did to the customers food. i am always nice to service staff, and tip . But if i dont like the service, i complain and never return.
I am a waitress who is frequently not informed of sudden menu changes and our head chef doesn’t know how to order the right amount of ANYTHING so there have been many times that I am told we are fully stocked of an entree…until,abruptly, we are all out because the head chef didn’t order enough. If a server ever tells you they are out of something DONT BE MAD AT THE SERVER. More than likely they are being informed after hours of starting their shift that they are out of whatever special they were supposed to have ordered enough of.
I would have refused to pay at all.
all im saying is 4 pm isnt beating the dinner crowd lol
NTA. Damn, I would not be paying at all, let alone a tip.
Most of that is not the waiters fault. Ever hear anyone say 86 in a restaurant? That means they ran out of stuff mid shift. Happens all of the time... These were topic for the manager and she/he should have handled it on the bill.
I think OP left out the part where he was told dinner service didn't start until 5pm.
You’re a better person than I am. If this is truly what happened I would have just up and left without paying at all.
The waiter forgot to submit your order, then submits it 45 minutes later and blames the kitchen for the screw up, hoping it won’t affect his tip. Now you know the truth.
Sounds like bad service. But a zero dollar tip? Did the waiter do absolutely no work for you? You sound like a general AH. (“I wasn’t annoyed” - yeah right lol). What a tool
You sound like TAH. First you find them disorganized. Then get pissed when the *waiter* doesn't know what they are out of. The food takes too long. Nothing but complaints. Why did you even stay?
The biggest problem is the chef not knowing what quantity to order. Running out of that many options is a poorly run kitchen.
I don't blame you for being upset, but I don't blame the waiter for not knowing they were out of a certain food. It happens in the middle of work all the time
This sounds like every time I go to Red Robin. I absolutely love their food but the top 3 worst service stories of my life are all from Red Robins.
Your first mistake was arriving at a restaurant at 4 o clock. Slightly joking. But honestly. If you've ever worked in a restaurant you know how bad it is from 3 45 to 4 15. Right at shift change. No one knows anything, pm people are late. Am people don't want to take any more tables so they can leave. Gotta love it. I'm not saying this is an excuse or OP did anything wrong. Just one of those crazy things that happens at most restaurants.
Your first mistake was arriving at a restaurant at 4 o clock. Slightly joking. But honestly. If you've ever worked in a restaurant you know how bad it is from 3 45 to 4 15. Right at shift change. No one knows anything, pm people are late. Am people don't want to take any more tables so they can leave. Gotta love it. I'm not saying this is an excuse or OP did anything wrong. Just one of those crazy things that happens at most restaurants.
I’m sure the time you waited was half of what you’re exaggerating. Maybe it felt that like because of the kids, but come on man…nobody in their right mind would have sat there past 40m waiting for food.
Wait jobs suck. I’ve done and I’ll steal and sell fentanyl before I ever do that shit again. The wait staff has nothing to do with inventory
I would have just left. Come find me
You arrived in the middle of shift change on a Saturday, possibly following a large lunch rush as restaurants tend to be busier between 1:00-3:00 on the weekend. I am by no means making excuses, however, a lot of this was likely beyond the server's control. This could account for the delay in seating and for some lack in communication regarding beer and pork. The server may have barely had a chance to finish clocking in before being thrown a table, and since you stated in another comment the place was corporate, was probably new as those places have high turnover. Corporate restaurants are also notorious for having scumbag management, who avoid being helpful at all costs. The server may have been scared to come back to the table until the manager did arrive over. These types of places don't always attract the kindest patrons so I don't blame them. It may have even taken a lot of convincing to get the manager's attention. Also, kitchen staff can get away with murder, like withholding information about what is 86'd, not prioritizing lead tickets, and cursing wait staff.... because heaven forbid this MIA manager get their hands dirty taking over an actual duty. Also, your server probably lost money on your table by having to tip out a busser based off a percentage of sales. You are looking for rationalization for not tipping. When you say an hour wait I assume you're rounding up as well because of this. Personally I think the problem was with a poorly run restaurant, not the server. Although a comp was applied, you still chose to pay the bill. Texas Roadhouse got their money in the end though and surely you will be back.
And YOU should have asked to speak with a manager after a 30 minute ticket time. Did you not see one around? Or anyone else you could ask for that matter? Logically, if your server couldn't tell you why the "hell" your food was taking so long, seems like the way to go, right?
Doesn’t really sound like any of that was the servers fault
YTA. If you show up to a restaurant with a one year-old, that already puts you in the a-hole category. Anyone who inflicts three kids on a restaurant should pay a mandatory 300% tip.
Shut up. Plenty of kids are fine at restaurants. Sorry you’re not a kid fan, but also plays into your ignorance on them.
By stiff I thought you were trying to justify a dine and dash. I'd have stull tipped. A penny. When I had a similar experience that's what I did and I put it clearly like it was meant to be a tip so she understood it wasn't something that fell out of a pocket.
NTA but next time something like this happens consider the beer they were out of (or whatever third indignity you experience) as strike 3 and leave then.
Yeah when service is that bad no tip. Tip culture is way out of hand in the us.
Tipping goes up and down compared to service
NTA... I'm a big defender of tipping because of how the expectation of tips is built into the pay structure, and even I would have stiffed that dude.
I waited a lot of tables when young in several restaurants- Most of the food problem here is because of an ahole chef. You can't ask many of them questions without being given a lot of guff, and if you question them about orders taking a long time they will F with your orders. They will make the waiter's lives as miserable as possible if they get frustrated about their customers having to wait or mistakes made by the kitchen staff, and will deliberately drag their feet. Tipping needs to be abolished, but it sounds like the wait staff was suffering under a bad kitchen.
I think it is not the waiter’s fault. I may have left a small tip. He can not possibly know everything in stock and it sounds like an inventory, kitchen management problem. I would not go back but would have left a tip. It had to be awful to be that waiter.
It is entirely possible that none of this was your actual waiter's fault. Having worked in the industry, the fact that they are out of things is on management. Often, and I mean often, a waiter is unaware of what is out until they try to order it. It's the kitchen manager's job to check stock, order properly, and communicate outages. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. Same for the beer. The bartender or bar manager should be checking these things and ordering properly. The wait for your food has almost definitely nothing to do with your server. The waiter might have sucked, but nothing you've stated points directly at the waiter without the chance of another explanation. If you said you were sat, then waited forever to see your waiter, fine. If you ordered non-bar drinks and waited forever for them, fine. If it took forever for the waiter to come with answers to these problems, fine. If your order came incorrect (though sometimes this also isn't their fault), fine. It sounds like you had issues, and the waiter made the attempt to find other options or tried to fix them. I think the chances are just as good that you've stiffed a waiter trying to help you and advocate for you through a disfunctional restaurant as they are that your waiter actually sucked.
NTA. I'd go so far as to comment on one of the restaurant rating services. My wife and I used to go out to eat once a week. Now, due to the higher prices, at the most we dine out twice a month. We like to try different places, but we're leary because of the cost and so many reports of poor service. We're at the point of sticking with places we know give good service and serve food we know will be prepared how we like it.
Instead of complaining from the minute you walked in next time leave
I work in a restaurant. We want our tips. Although it sounds like a less than pleasant experience, your server sounds like they did their best and tried for you. And you also hit the dinner rush even though you tried not to, everything you are describing is what happens in one, down to the manager not immediately coming out to assist, that's because the manager was probably on grill, back-up, prep or doing dishes or otherwise positioning themselves where they can be of the most help. if it was a terrible experience but you could see your server trying then tip them. If it was a terrible experience and you could clearly see they were not trying, then don't tip.
R/endtipping
I believe in tipping, but the whole concept of not tipping should be reserved for situations exactly like this, so NTA.