Those of you who know me, know that terrible customer service gets my blood boiling.
I'm not completely unreasonable and I am aware that everyone has a bad day, but there are times that I can't let it go. The quitting the gym experience was one that bothered me mostly because it was a process set up to be intentionally difficult
J and I pulled together a cross selection of family to dine with the Friday after the Thanksgiving holiday. We were a party of ten and when I made the reservation (many days in advance) I called the restaurant to ensure it wouldn't be an issue.
Having dined at Maggiano's Little Italy in
The Friday after Thanksgiving might be the craziest time to try and dine out especially at a place connected to a major shopping center, but we all made it to the restaurant and found parking.
Having checked in we were taken back to our table, which was not placed in the main dining room. The restaurant opened up its banquet rooms and converted them to seating for parties of 10 or more. We were perfectly happy to be out of the loud dining room and seated ourselves around a large table that was preset with plates, glasses and silverware.
The waiter arrived with 5 menus (there were 10 of us) and proceeded to hand them across the table (rather than walking around to hand them out.) He told us we had to share.
In looking at the menu we quickly figured out that instead of being given the normal menu we were looking at a family style meal that was a fixed price and that we were supposed to order two of every course for the table. Honestly, this was a fine way to go and I think we spent less per couple than had we ordered individual items. My issue is that the server should have explained it. He handed out the menus and then walked away.
When he returned he asked if we wanted drinks and at that point we asked for the wine list. The waiter, let's call him Doofus, seemed put out and spun and went to retrieve the wine menu. J's dad ordered a 3 liter bottle of wine and while we were waiting for it to arrive he and J's mom noticed that their plates were dirty.
I mean dirty, like smeared chocolate on the bottom of the plate and chunky potato gunk on the top of one of the plates. During the wine arrival a quiet complaint was made about the plates. Doofus responded with the confused question "oh, do you want new plates?" Uh, YES.
The main meal service was basically fine, although when a second bottle of wine was ordered, J's dad surprised Doofus by requesting a new glass to taste the wine. I know, it is unreasonable that you can't just pour the old wine into the half full glass already on the table, but you can't.
The family meal we were enjoying allows for unlimited refills and I would like to take the opportunity to say that we did not ask for seconds of any item. The reason this is relevant is to show that while we were a large party we weren't running the server back and forth for more pasta, more bread, more, more, more….
We ordered our dessert and the dinner plates were removed and new plates brought out. They weren't brought to each place setting, but a pile of 10 plates were handed to my future mother in law. She immediately noticed that they weren't clean. In fact, they looked like they had only been rinsed.
At this point, I started to loose it. None of these individual issues was enough to be upset about, but they just keep adding up and Doofus seemed unequipped to deal with it. I got up to quietly ask for the manager. I gave him the run down and said he needed to do something for the table, because the service we were getting was terrible.
While I was in the hall explaining the situation, my fFIL (future Father in Law) grabbed Doofus and rejected the desert plates. Upon my return Doofus was standing behind a sturdy woman in a white coat (the executive chef) and she was explaining that she was sorry about the plates. She adjusted the wine off our tab and then she walked away.
This would have been a nice resolution, but….
The damned deserts were brought out and when Doofus set them on the table he said "will there be anything else?" I couldn't stop myself from sounding a bit snotty when I said "Oh I guess we'd like some serving spoons or utensils." This clearly pissed him off because he huffed away and came back with about 80 big spoons that he just set in the middle of the table.
We resumed our meal, enjoying the food (which throughout the meal was great.) At one point cousin D. excused himself to use the restroom (he could have gotten up to quietly cover the bill, but he's just a jerk like that….) and when he was returning to our banquet room he stepped into the hall behind Doofus. Doofus was complaining to a colleague that he "had the table from hell," and that we were a "bunch of f*cking losers."
Thankfully this wasn't relayed to me until the next day.
When the bill arrived we noticed that a note was printed on the bottom "For Parties of 10 or more, we add 18% gratuity for your convenience." I really hate this practice because I think it limits the tips the servers get, but in spite of the terrible service we didn't balk at the addition. We divided the tab by the number of couples and paid our tab and left.
The next morning, J was doing some math and figured out that there was no way the tip was added. A seriously not planned waiter stiffing.
I wrote a letter to the manager of Maggiano's to explain my disappointment at our experience and J believes we will get a reply. Having emailed the letter Saturday and finding myself here Wednesday with nary a peep, I think we have a case of "eh, who cares?"
I'll let you know if we do, but in the meantime I strongly suggest you find another location for you big post-holiday family get togethers.
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3 comments:
Always a safe bet to avoid restaurants with "Little Italy", "Buca" or "Factory" in the name.
So, for example, "Buca's Little Italy Mama Mia Factory" would be off limits.
TP you’re a lot nicer than I am. Doofus's name was Andrew and he was a bit of a loser.
The Caesar salad was the best I have ever had though. It could had been the little bit extra Doofus added maybe?
Maggiano's Fake Italy is two blocks from my condo, and if they hadn't pissed me off on several occasions I'd probably eat there all the time, because the food has been unfailingly good -- but the service runs the gamut from very good to unbelievably awful. And I am NOT a demanding diner; I just expect competent service.
The problem, I think, is that Bellevue diners are inexplicably un-discerning customers. This does not square with my experience when I worked in a paint store in Bellevue, where the customers were incredibly picky. I suspect it is simply that they don't know any better, since there is such a dearth of real (i.e. not part of a national chain) restaurants here, so they believe mediocrity is the norm. BELLEVUE PEOPLE! GO ACROSS THE LAKE AND EXPERIENCE REAL RESTAURANTS!
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