Last fall, my friends and I decided to try a restaurant that we haven’t been to in a while. While the place was fairly busy, we were seated immediately:
We ordered appetizers: 30 minutes later, they arrived.
- 55 minutes after we finished those, the entrees arrived.
- About the time the entrees came, the manager dropped by apologizing, saying the chef had “walked out the night before, and hadn’t come back”. They comped our entire meal, including the drinks. I didn’t write anything about it on the site, because well.. it was free, and, to use an old saying, I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. All in all, they covered over $200 in food and drinks.
Fast forward a few months. We have heard rumors a new chef has taken over, that the food has improved. I’ve heard of this chef before, he has a good reputation, and I thought, let’s give it another try. What we didn’t know, is we were about to embark on one of the single worst service experiences I have ever had.
In the interest of clarity, I’ll put this in list form.
- We arrive at the restaurant. It isn’t crowded, so we are seated immediately.
- We are given menus, and two of the party ordered iced tea. We order two cocktails.
- 15 minutes later, the server comes by and takes our appetizer order.
- 15 minutes later, the ice teas come and we order entrees.
- The vegetarian options are rather limited, two appetizers and one entree. Since I had ordered one of the appetizers, a vegetarian friend ordered the other one.
- 10 minutes later, the waiter comes back because he can’t remember the cocktail I ordered. He has the other cocktail with him.
- 10 minutes later, the waiter comes back and says he is out of the second appetizer. He suggests another one that has meat. We remind him that this person is a vegetarian. He looks a bit nonplussed, and I suggest to my friend that he split my appetizer. The waiter says this is a great idea, and he will put it on two plates. Er… okay.
- We ask for a refill of the ice teas, as they have been sitting empty for far too long.
- After 5 more minutes, my cocktail shows up – a hot toddy. Somehow, honey ran over the side and down the glass. Every time I pick it up, I get an annoying coating of thick honey on my fingers that doesn’t want to wipe off.
- 5 minutes later, the other appetizer comes, on one plate. That is fine, it is finger food anyway. We eat quickly to catch up to our the rest of our part. While I’m not paying attention, our vegetarian friend dips his food into the sauce. It is fish based. The waiter forgot that it was only “sort of a vegetarian dish”.
- We finish our appetizers. A different waiter shows up with another plate of the same appetizers. Everyone is very confused, and we send it back.
- After 20 more minutes, the entrees arrive. My chicken dish has been split into two, the second half is served to the person we told the waiter is a vegetarian. Everyone is confused. We explain that when we said we would split the dish, we were ordering and discussing the appetizer, not the entree. The waiter says he can start the one vegetarian entree, but by this time our vegetarian companion is rather annoyed and says forget it, he’ll just eat something when he gets home. At that point I would have ordered another sticky hot toddy, but the waiter picked up my long-empty glass and strode quickly away before I got a chance to say anything.
- Half way through the entrees, a new waiter brings out a crème brûlée and sets starts to set it on the table. We tell him we didn’t order a crème brûlée, heck, we had just gotten into our entrees. Everyone is confused. The waiter takes the brûlée away.
- Five minutes later, the brûlée is back, placed with a flourish in front of our vegetarian friend. “We didn’t want you to sit there with nothing” he says. Our companion starts eating his dessert, as we work our way through the entrees.
- Our meal is finished. After 10 minutes, the dishes are cleared. 5 minutes later the ice-tea refill shows up.
- We wait 18 minutes. The waiter is no where to be seen. Discussion begins as to whether he might have gone on break. Suddenly he shows up with dessert menus.
- We wait 13 minutes. The waiter returns, but we have decided not to risk the rest of our evening by ordering desserts. There is also the issue of making the one person who’d already had dessert sit longer while we waited god knows how long for ours. We asked for the check.
- 10 minutes later, the check arrives. We begin the wait for… change.
I know you are all going to want to know where this happened, but I’m not going to say until I get back for a few more visits and see if this was just an aberration during the management change. Look for a review in the next month or so. However, feel free to guess.
[Updated 7.09. This was Asia Cafe or something like that… on Fremont where the Lucca is now. Worst service I’ve ever had in a restaurant]
Food Dude says
Angelhair – If the bad service is the servers fault, I don’t tip a thing. If it is the kitchens fault, I tip based on the value of the meal.
Tha-krza – I always keep track of time when I’m reviewing. The first one is easy – I always know what time I arrived. I only comment on it if the kitchen is obviously in the weeds.
Angelhair says
Just curious…what do you tip when you get service like this?
tha-krza says
Just curious…who had the stopwatch?
tha-krza says
I bet there was some mutual eye-rolling going on in regards to your vegetarian friend trying to eat out at a place where the obvious focus is on meat dishes.
Two sides to every story. Two sides. I am sure it sucked as bad as you portrayed, but remember this!
Food Dude says
These days, restaurants that cater to their customers, will survive. If a party of six comes in and there is one vegetarian in the group, would you rather loose the entire table, or come up with something creative and make some money?
It is true that a restaurant should be able to serve whatever they want. Any business should be able to pick and choose everything they offer. Unfortunately, a lot of failed empires have been built on such ideals. There are far too many vegetarians in Portland to alienate that portion of the population. Restaurant competition in Portland is heating up. Those that adapt and come up with creative ways of serving their customers will survive, others won’t.
I have several friends that are vegetarian and will occasionally bring one along just to see how the restaurant responds.
Food Dude says
So you are saying waits of this length, are because there was a vegetarian at our table, so we deserved it? Should the server not have known whether a dish is vegetarian or not? The person I was with is very flexible and realizes every establishment can cater to his needs.
Marshall – With all due respect, that is a terrible analogy. There is a big difference between a diner with a fondness for a particular wine, than someone who is a vegetarian. One can be flexible, the other can not.
Dave J. says
I bet there was some mutual eye-rolling going on in regards to your vegetarian friend trying to eat out at a place where the obvious focus is on meat dishes.
If a restaurant can’t come up with some meatless dishes to cater to a significant portion of the population (this is Portland, after all, not Omaha), then they suck. It’s one thing to go to El Gaucho and expect some fine vegetarian entrees, but it’s another thing when you go out to a local French/Italian/whatever restaurant and find such limited choices.
nancy says
We went for pho yesterday… and waited to order. And waited. I finally collared a waitress, who took the orders, which came in a decent amount of time. We finished, and waited for the check. And waited. And waited. This is in a mostly-empty pho house on SE 82nd. We finally went up to the register, where my husband paid.
“What’d you tip?” I asked him, when we got in the car.
“Not one red cent,” he said, adding that he thinks it’s the first time ever he’s done this.
Tips for crummy service only ensure more crummy service. I agree with Dude: if it’s the kitchen’s fault, okay, but if that’s the case, the server has to ensure the customers are taken care of in other ways. Clearly, ________ did not do this.
tha-krza says
Disagree. Restaurants should be able to design whatever sort of menu they want based on their strengths…see Paradox, Vita etc. That is a weird assumption that every restaurant “should” find a space to cater to every sort of diner, particularly in a place like Portland with so many interesting and varied restaurants and diners.
Marshall Manning says
I agree with Tha-krza here. It’s not every restaurant’s duty to cater to diners who choose to severely limit their food choices, especially if they don’t want/need to have those dishes in order to survive, and don’t feel it’s part of their creative process. It would be like me deciding to only drink Chilean Merlot (egads!) and then complaining because there’s only one Chilean Merlot on the wine list.
tha-krza says
Your opinion. Here is mine: I think there are a number of restaurants in this town who will survive just fine with one/two veg entrees or perhaps even none. There are far more non-vegetarians in Portland who can pick up the slack. If I am eating out with a veg friend, we have plenty of options. Plenty. Ditto for my meat-loving compadres.
BTW, I was a vegetarian from Oakland/Berkeley for eons. Vegetarians are going to be forever frustrated, no matter where they are, even veg paradises like the Bay Area. And Portland.
tha-krza says
No, FD, I said above that I am sure it all sucked as you portrayed. I just made the comment that staff there were likely doing some behind the scenes commenting on the veg friend. Kinda like that article you posted from the NY Times awhile back? Not saying anyone deserved anything.
Dave J. says
It’s one thing to expect a restaurant to cater to your preference for a certain ingredient–it’s another thing to expect that they will have the culinary ability to create a couple dishes that don’t feature meat. Honestly, it’s not that hard. And most vegetarians I know are used to making a meal out of, say, a salad and multiple appetizers. My wife does this frequently–while I get a steak or chicken, she gets a salad and several small plates. So to me, the lack of vegetarian options (and, again, I’m leaving places like El Gaucho, et al out of this, as they are quite obviously MEAT places) just shows that a restaurant is either unaware of local demographis, or unconcerned about alienating a large portion of their potential client base. Either way, it seems like clumsy business sense.
nancy says
But what does waiting an hour for drinks have to do with the vegetarian? Are TK and MM saying this sort of wait, too, is a restaurant’s perogative?
If a place does not want or can’t accomodate a vegetarian (and here, I tend to side with the restaurant: they can serve what they want); okay. But that’s not what they did; instead, the request ran the entire train off the rails, which indicates to me some serious miscommunication/laziness/hissiness, rather than a philosophical aversion to putting a few asparagus on a plate.
tha-krza says
Lawd have mercy.
Again, it was very obvious the service sucked. The times alone (and just so you know FD, I was being nicely sarcastic–gotta admit those precise times are pretty hilarious)prove that. If it was the vegetarian request/lack of availability of the appetizer that threw a wrench in the works…I don’t know. Maybe it did.
Nowhere, and I mean nowhere, in my posts did I say the waits and the terrible service were the restaurant’s perogative. That experience, AGAIN in case it has been overlooked, was really obvious bad bad bad service.
MyNextMeal says
Is it ever appropriate to just throw some cash down on the table (something approx to drinks/food consumed) and just leave?
nancy says
I’ve done this; left forty, sixty bucks, whatever it would be, erring on the high side, and split. (People do this at bars all the time.) It’s a message, sure, but more than that, it’s expedient.
Dave J. says
Is it ever appropriate to just throw some cash down on the table (something approx to drinks/food consumed) and just leave?
I worked at a place in college, and we had a regular who would leave a signed, blank check on the table, with the expectation that we would write in the amount of the food/drink plus whatever we thought was a reasonable tip. It seemed crazy, but he was a regular, and we always treated him right. Truth be told, we probably undertipped ourselves.
Pam says
Jeez tha-krza, after the first 30 minutes or so of utterly inept service I’D be keeping score with my watch too, if only for the pure entertainment value. If I’ve ever read a catalogue of errors this was it! There’s nothing excusable about that kind of service. The ‘dining experience’ that one enjoys (or not) is made up of service and surroundings, as well as food. I can’t imagine not taking it into consideration when writing a review. It would be remiss not to.
di-jester says
what this restaurant named bold sky?
bigfoot says
Joe, it may be funny now, but I doubt that Food Dude found the experience hilarious at the time. I’ve been there and frankly, I’d have walked long before Food Dude and his friends gave up on dessert (thanks for falling on your sword for us food dude!).
I’ll leave the veggie thing alone, that issue has taken us into the weeds and obscured the real issue. Poor service.
We’ve tread this road before, but these threads should be required reading for everyone running a restaurant. Before anyone tells me what I THE CUSTOMER should read, let me remind you to look at the words I’ve capitalized. When you pay me for my business, then you can tell me about how hard your job is (I know it is, but you weren’t drafted).
Apollo says
Veggies piss me off too. If I ever have a party I always have to have special dishes there for the veg heads. the caterer has to make a certain amount, and there is always tons of the stupid veggi stuff left while everything else is gone. veggies always make things way more difficult than they should be. I never dine out with veggies anymore because they always make some sort of negative comment or some dirty looks, or something. I am verry bitter. If a restaurant would purposely be meat only, I would definately pay extra to not have to be around veggies… Sorry for the rant, but I’m just sick of peoplle who are picky eaters. I classify veggies as picky eaters. Like little children that won’t eat their food because one item touched another on their plate. Grrrrrr.
Marshall Manning says
Nancy, the service issue simply is what it is…my comment was only in reference to Tha-krza’s reply.
And Dude, unless someone has an allergy or medical reason they can’t eat meat, their choice to eat vegetarian is no less flexible than my choice to drink only Chilean Merlot, were I to choose that insane option ;-).
mczlaw says
Hey Apollo:
Brazil Grill. Christ, the vegans will probably be out front protesting this summer with little videos inside a dead guy’s arteries. Meat, meat and more meat. Big goddam skewers of meat everywhere.
Compared to vegans, vegetarians are pussycats. In fact, I like vegetarians. They’re rarely peevish at all. They just want to eat their stuff, go home and watch OPB. Vegans, OTOH, want everybody to be vegans. They ought to be fed to hungry lions.
Is this a good place to say something mean about aggressive bicyclists or the ripe people? Just kidding.
What was this thread about again? Where am I?
–mcz
Food Dude says
I think it is interesting that people focused in on the tiny bit of this commentary that had to do with a vegetarian, rather than the really bad service in two visits to this restaurant. I’ll point out this is a restaurant that has always specialized in having vegetarian options on it’s menu, but they were out of two of the entrees that night. This was not a meat restaurant, but leans more towards Asian.
Mczlaw – A friend of mine went to Brazil Grill with his vegetarian girlfriend. I told him they were crazy to go, but they went anyway. Turns out she loved it, thought the salad bar was amazing. Go figure.
tha-krza says
I commented on the vegetarian thing because four or five of your Sections focused on the vegetarian issue in total or in some way. It was a meaningful part of your story on this tale of bad service. In this story, it was not a “tiny” bit of the reason for bad service.
atlas says
The only excuse for poor service is a staff overwhelmed by the number of those they need to give service to. This is of course, provided they have adequate knowledge of the menu and items offered.
It sounds like this place had a clueless staff that didn’t quite understand the nature of what they were there to do.
I find it astounding that many “service” establishments really are not in tune with their objective which is to impress upon the guest a desire to return.
ragrding the veggie thing… any kitchen worth its salt should be able to with available ingredients in the kitchen whip up something nice and special for someone with deitary restrictions…
Jill-O says
[ongoing lament about service]The truly sad thing is that we can’t figure out which restaurant it is because there are many candidates from which to choose. [/ongoing lament about service]
nancy says
An Asian-leaning restaurant, that always has vegetarian options, all of which they were out of that night… and how is the wait the diner’s fault?
Steve says
FD, I have to assume that the food at this place has some virtues? otherwise I don’t understand why you’d plan to go back, after two appalling experiences, to see if this was just an “aberration.” It seems like this is the moment for a sweeping condemnation. If the service had been fine on two separate occasions but the food had made you seriously ill each time, would you still go back? How is that different? Don’t be an enabler–my feeling is that if any guest has such a terrible experience on two different visits, the place deserves to go out of business, regardless of what’s happening in the kitchen.
(Oh, and congratualations on your anniversary, and thanks – I’m a loyal fan.)
tha-krza says
Who who WHO is saying the wait is the diner’s fault????? I have yet to read this, much less think it myself. IT ISN’T.
s says
I know this one is sort of late, but regarding Nancy and the pho house —
I had a similar experience at a pho place here in Salem (write-up here.) Bad service to begin with and the check never came after we finished. We eventually went up to the counter to pay because we needed to leave. In doing research for the write-up, I found that pho places don’t bring checks to the table because it’s thought to be rude and rushing the customer out the door. See here, under cultural practices. No mention of the bad service before the end of the meal being a cultural practice though.
nancy says
Interesting. At other branches of this pho chain, they do bring the check, but perhaps at this one, not. As you say: it does not explain not taking the order, but in any event, the pho was excellent!
Just Me says
Perhaps they go off target more than others and maybe not… I’d have to see the numbers to have an opinion on this. When you can’t start your own thread (which is a VERY good thing about this site) it is easy to stray on the existing threads which happens a lot, here. As for posts 36 and 38, well this thread is calling them out (why? I’m not sure.) so I think they have a right to respond in any way they see fit.
pollo elastico says
at pho places (i just ate at the newer Pho Oregon on 82nd yesterday – it was very good), you typically pay at the counter. leave a dollar on the table per bowl of soup consumed, more if you order goi cuon and coffee, etc.
i usually don’t expect service at pho joints anyhow – as long as thee soup comes at the same time as the garnish plate, i’m happy if i’m never spoken to again.
di-jester says
since we’re on the topic of tipping, i thought i’d share my uncle’s story.
i had an uncle that used to put the tip(in cash)on the table at the beginning of every meal. he would mention it to the server and explain how the size of the stack can and will change as the meal progresses depending on the service. his verbal disclaimer would take into account a short list of plausible explainations that, in his mind, were reasonable excuses for bad service, most of which had to do with 3rd party interference with the server’s role i.e. slow kitchen, busy night, earthquake. while in theory, my uncles idea might of had some promise, alas in execution it was often met with disdain. on more than a few occaisons the manager of the place would come over with a few words. often times, the fact that my uncle was a very fair and generous tipper was completely disregarded. at other locations, tolerant to my uncles method, it was received well by servers as it afforded them a continuously updating rating as to how their night was going.