Beef, Meet Carp
Diners and waiters: Can’t we all just get along? The age-old answer: No.
While researching Best New Restaurants (coming soon on chicagomag.com) this year, I encountered a lot of good food and, more often than you’d expect, a lot of lousy service. Why is this part of the restaurant equation so hard to get right? Or are my expectations unrealistic? In search of answers, I sat down with my intern, Kristina, a part-time waitress at a restaurant in River North, in hopes of somehow ending the passive-aggressive war between our people—and answering the age-old question: Can’t we all just get along? The age-old answer: No.
ISSUE #1: IMPATIENCE
I had a waitress who looked annoyed every time she stood over our table, like we were keeping her from more important matters elsewhere.
The worst thing you can do to busy servers—apart from stiffing them on the tip or snapping your fingers—is waste their time. “If I ask, ‘Are you ready to order?’ you either say ‘Yes,’ or ‘We need a few more minutes,’” Kristina explains. “Don’t make me stand there while you debate the whole menu.”
Suggestion: Appoint a table dictator to act as a spokesperson.
ISSUE #2: UPSELLING
At one restaurant—OK, it rhymes with Cram Shelliot—I inquired about a $35 wine and my waitress ruthlessly pushed a $70 bottle. I wanted to lock her in the walk-in freezer.
She was just trying to make a living, says Kristina, who has also been taught to upsell: “The $70 bottle is better. I wouldn’t recommend the crappy $10 glass of cabernet; I’d try to give you the $18 glass that’s going to improve your meal.”
Suggestion: If it’s crap, don’t put it on the menu.
ISSUE #3: "HAVE YOU DINED WITH US BEFORE?"
Why do you ask this, and how can we get you to stop?
Kristina says this dreaded phrase basically serves as a conversation starter and a potential shortcut: “It means, ‘Do I have to go through the whole spiel or can I get on with it?’ ”
Suggestion: Get on with it.
ISSUE #4: SUBSTITUTIONS
My guest asked for slight changes to be made to a dish and encountered vigorous eye-rolling. Is it that hard for a line cook to pluck the bacon off the salad?
If it’s just bacon, fine.
“But if you want the turkey chopped salad, dressing on the side, minus the turkey, eggs, bacon, blue cheese, and tomatoes,” Kristina says, “then stay home and make it yourself.”
Suggestion: Stop inviting that guest to dinner. Sorry, Aunt Pat, you’re out.
ISSUE #5: INTRUSION
At one restaurant—rhymes with Spam Swelliot—the waitress kept injecting herself into our conversation, forgetting she was, in fact, there to serve my meal.
There’s an art to feeling out your customer, Kristina says, and this one didn’t do it well. “But when she approaches the table, acknowledge her,” Kristina advises. “A simple nod. Don’t ignore her and don’t stare like you’re confused as to why she’s there.”
Suggestion: I’ve been a jerk. But the waitress at Slam Yelliot still sucked.
ISSUE #: SEATING
I wanted the empty booth by the window and I got the wobbly four-top near the bathroom. When I raised a stink, more eye-rolling.
Though it may seem random, the hostess put me at the four-top for a reason. “She has to go in a certain order to be fair to each server, so things are spread out,” says Kristina. “If you move, the waitress loses the table.”
Suggestion: Unless there’s a rabid gibbon squatting on your table, sit down and shut up.
ISSUE #7: PHYSICAL CONTACT
My waitress at The Bristol kept putting her hand on my shoulder. Unless I am about to burn myself or spill something, I don’t want to be touched.
“I can’t justify this one,” Kristina says. “I don’t touch customers.” (Why? Because it’s creepy?) “Yeah.”
Suggestion: Don’t. It’s creepy.
Check out the full transcript of the conversation between The Closer and his intern—complete with judge’s rulings on each item. Then post your own judgments in the comments below.
Illustration by Matt Vincent/agoodson.com
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Reader Comments:
I, having never been a server at a restaurant, often find myself siding with the waitress while the "judge" says diner and vice versa!
No, of course I am anti-touching (unless you're a very attractive guy), but when it comes to "Are you ready to order?" I can completely understand where the server is coming from. And as for the coats? If you ask me, they're a fire hazard.
Dissimilarly, I like to sit around and chat for a while. If there's a line for tables out the door, then I'll naturally feel a bit more of the need to hustle, but if the restaurant is clearing out, then I'm going to stay, relax, and laugh for as long as I darn well please! Restaurants are HOSPITALITY businesses and I expect the entire staff to live up to that label. Also, would it kill the server to write down my order? You may have a photographic memory, but I don't know that and I'm going to be a lot more confident that my food will arrive as ordered if you put a pen to paper. Humor me?
When it comes to splitting checks, I guess I can see both sides. On the one hand, I can imagine that it can be a big pain in the you-know-what, but on the other, you're most likely going to get a bigger tip out of it: When the bill comes and it's being paid as one check, the diners often take 20% and then round up to the nearest dollar (at least every I know does). But if there are let's say 10 individual tickets all being rounded up? That's a whole lot of extra nickels and dimes which can add up to quite a lot. It's not like you don't have time! The diners are probably going to be obnoxiously sitting there for another hour anyway!
As a former hostess, I'm going to go ahead and say that in nearly all of these situations I find myself on the side of the waitress. Having performed the duties of hostess, retail associate, and receptionist more times than I can count, I possess strong feelings of solidarity with these people when I encounter them now. Nothing peeves me more than an entitled customer who feels that just because they're paying for a service, "the help" should be jumping through fiery hoops to ensure their satisfaction.
Not that anyone should model a business after European customer service standards, but shall we consider them for a moment? There, you're lucky if your food remains on your plate after they've thrown it onto the table and you'd have to be some sort of nobility to be allowed to linger for more than 15 seconds after you've stopped spending money! We should feel lucky that the staff in most of our restaurants are so knowledgeable, well-trained, and friendly!
Often I feel that we Americans have taken our "the customer is always right" to a strange level of excess. Let's admit it--sometimes, we are flat out annoying, and god help those waitresses who have to deal with us!
As a waitress, the NUMBER ONE annoyance would have to be saying you're ready to order when you are CLEARLY not ready. My favorite question to ask, "do you need another minute?" JUST SAY YES!
This article was great, ive been a waitress for 6 years and i agreed with each issue. Except for the fact that i have never rolled my eyes @ a coustomer. Its just so unprofessional. And yea what waitress wouldnt try to sell a more expencive bottle of wine, this is how we pay our bills..And personally i hate the question "have you ever been here before?" i would ask that question @ a place i used to work @ and people would say oh yea we have been here before and be like as long as we dont have to listen to something about the reaturant weve been here before, thats just embarrasing. And my favorite issue, if your gonna ask for a brand new dish to be made for you because of all the modifications you want done to something, stay home and cook for your damn self. And the whole seating thing in a booth instead of a table, most places will let you switch, but from a waitresses point of view DONT it screws with everything and you might not get as good of service if you would have just sat where the host or whoever wanted you to sit, cause you never know how many tables that waitress that has that booth already had. But anyways i loved this article, i will be a subscriber for quite a while.
This article was great, ive been a waitress for 6 years and i agreed with each issue. Except for the fact that i have never rolled my eyes @ a coustomer. Its just so unprofessional. And yea what waitress wouldnt try to sell a more expencive bottle of wine, this is how we pay our bills..And personally i hate the question "have you ever been here before?" i would ask that question @ a place i used to work @ and people would say oh yea we have been here before and be like as long as we dont have to listen to something about the reaturant weve been here before, thats just embarrasing. And my favorite issue, if your gonna ask for a brand new dish to be made for you because of all the modifications you want done to something, stay home and cook for your damn self. And the whole seating thing in a booth instead of a table, most places will let you switch, but from a waitresses point of view DONT it screws with everything and you might not get as good of service if you would have just sat where the host or whoever wanted you to sit, cause you never know how many tables that waitress that has that booth already had. But anyways i loved this article, i will be a subscriber for quite a while.