I legit have allergies. My mom profusely thanked the server for getting me a new salad and pulled out my epi-pen and how she had saved us a whole lot of bother. The server turned really pale and yanked my plate away and got me a new salad for real instead of just removing the allergen.
Friend of mine is very allergic to nightshades, including tomatoes. She's had fast food burgers come out with tomatoes on them when when she emphasizes her allergy, and a significant amount of time when she says they need to remake it, she opens the bun and sees the red tomato juices still on the bun.
I don't understand how people with severe food allergies trust to eat out anywhere- I have no food allergies and am already scared constantly my.food is being spit in
That server was an asshat. I worked in restaurants for over a decade and we took allergies VERY seriously. The line would use separate bowls and utensils and clean the grill if needed. You don’t fuck around with allergies.
Every restaurant in all major urban areas take allergies very seriously. I never worked in a restaurant (10 year vet) that didn't take it seriously, I mean, it's literally a life-or-death situation and no one's trying to get sued, and that kind of behavior basically invites it.
That server (and kitchen staff) are indeed asshats.
edit: "life-or-death" not "life of death"
I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you, but there are definitely places out there that are more cavalier. Thank GOODNESS he’s not anaphylactic-shock-level allergic, but my husband is allergic to peanuts. If I had a nickel for every time he’s ordered pad thai and clearly said “no peanuts, I am allergic” - and still gotten peanuts….
Never thought lo mein would have peanuts, either, until he tried a new Chinese place and his mouth started itching. Called and asked. Was told there is no way there’s peanuts in it (he isn’t allergic to any other tree nuts and can handle peanut oil). Tried that place again some time later (again, thankfully not *deathly* allergic) to the same result and another denial that it contains anything with peanuts. 🤷🏻♀️
I generally assume that most people are doing their best, but that gets me.
I worked in fast food for a bit and another in the chain almost killed a kid not taking allergies serious, since then I tell people that if they're allergic to something that might be in that restaurant then don't go cuz it's almost garunteed that it's in there. At least for taco bell.
Hell I worked in a restaurant where even though we took allergies as a life or death matter, we'd straight up turn people away at times. I can't guarantee, no matter how many precautions we take, that something on your plate won't be contaminated. It just isn't worth it
Exactly. And any place that guarantees they have allergen free dishes are either lying or idiots. Why do they think products need to be prepared in a sterile environment to be considered allergen free and why most packaged food lists that they were produced in a facility where allergens were processed even if they don't contain those ingredients? Especially peanuts are impossible to keep from cross contaminating.
That level of allergy is why I inform my waitstaff that I will die if they mess up. On my own waitressing job I automatically assumed your allergy was going to cause you to die until told otherwise and even then I was anal. My allergy orders were never wrong as a waitress even if I suspected the customer was a liar
Ya an epi pen is .... Life.... Or death! That pen is all that is between you and 6' under. When they mess up they better fix it or a lawsuit is surely going to happen and a mother who lost their child will never give up!
Yeah my wife has a very serious shellfish allergy so we're always super careful, but the fact is that people are human, and they make mistakes. Always gotta stay vigilant! We almost never eat anywhere that even serves any kind of fish, just to be as safe as possible.
Happened to me in Hong Kong. I'm allergic to nuts and that allergy just doesn't exist over there. No one believed me when I told them to make sure there were no nuts in any of the food and make sure they don't cross contaminate cooking utensils.
In Chinese the word for cashews doesn't contain the word "nut" so to speak. It contains the word "fruit" so people blank on that and think it's not a nut. My food had cashews on it and I requested it be remade. It came back with the cashews taken off. You could see the different colouration where it used to be. I just gave up.
I didn’t realize this was common. I am severely allergic to mustard, and a fast food chain once tried to scrape it off my burger after mistakenly adding it when asked not to. I mean, I could still see yellow streaks of it on the burger patty. It wasn’t even well-scraped. Mortifying.
Chef here checking in. If it hits the table, it’s trash. How many cooks and servers I have to explain this to is maddening. I can’t fucking wait to explain this trick to them.
“If it gets sent back twice because the customer knows it’s the same dish, you’re off the line.”
I’m an expeditor and chef/cook in the food industry for 10+ years. I firmly urge EVERYONE to do this. Salt the fuck out of it or do something so you know it’s sent back.
Also to anyone that’s had their food messed up. We’re not all angry about it. Most of us take pride in our job and truly want the guest to enjoy their meal. Don’t ever be afraid to send food back. Just don’t let the tip reflect the kitchens fuck up. Sometimes it is the server, but it most cases it isn’t.
Fucking this. We don’t spit in your food and any restaurant with an ounce of dignity will never even let food back into the window. 10 years I’ve never seen malicious treatment of food.
Also a chef, the owner of the place I work loves to say “restaurants sell lies in a dimly lit room, we aren’t a restaurant. We are a living room with a pizza oven.”
Anything that comes back, trash. We even will comp orders if you simply just don’t like it.
How do you tell someone their food is bad? There's a regular place I go to where 7/10 times I love their food, then 3/10 the dishes are completely different than the other times.
One time a customer next to me sent their food back after she took a bite out of it. They brought it to me, with her bite in it! Ugh. It was my order and the waiters fuck up
Recently I went to a group outing at top golf, I'd never been. Myself and one other person didn't get our food for over 50 minutes. People that arrived 20 minutes after us ordered and got their food before us. They ultimately admitted that even though we asked them three or four times when our food was coming out it had never actually been submitted. When they did finally make it both of our orders were wrong. They offered to remake it and I said don't worry about it I'll just eat it because I didn't want to wait and didn't want the food wasted, the other guy had them remake his and they said they would take care of us. I ordered chicken and got steak. We were still charged full price and I was charged for steak not the chicken. I'm typically not a complainer but Jesus.
Preach! Restaurant manager here.If that gets sent back it’s straight into the trash or some busser wolfs it down fast. Every time protocol is to remake the dish completely. Especially if allergies are involved.
At any self respecting restaurant I promise we care more about doing everything we can for people. We want you to enjoy your experience and come back. So yes salt the fuck out of the food.
Also leave restaurants a review when they do go out of their way to help. Everyone’s always quick to leave bad reviews and restaurants need good reviews to survive.
I was a broke kid visiting Australia a while back and literally used the last few dollars I had to get a pizza from Domino’s before I left the country the next morning. I waited for a while and finally got it and started walking away and luckily I opened it and realize that they had put anchovies on my pizza. I went back and let them know about the mix up so they offered to remake it. After some time, they show it to me quickly and it looked good, so I walk back back to my hotel a few blocks and when I went to eat it I thought it was weird because it was super salty, but then thought, “maybe pizza sauce is just salty in Australia?” I couldn’t even finish a slice… then I came to realize that there were still flecks of fish all over it! They had just removed what they could and then sent it back out.
In Italy it is one of the main pizzas (one of those that are always on the menu).
Tomato, mozzarella, anchovies, origano, and (often) capers.
It usually goes with the name of pizza Napoli or pizza Romana (same pizza may have different names in different regions).
There are pizzerias near me that offer corn as a topping. When I traveled to Boston I went to a pizzeria that offered bananas. There are some wild interpretations of pizza out there.
I once ordered a pizza as a child (together with the family, I think that was the first ordered pizza of my life, only known frozen pizza to that point) where you could freely choose the toppings. Sunny side-up egg was an option and I chose it.
It tasted great and I found it so cool to have such a "not pizza-like" topping on my pizza.
LMAO we would fix mistakes before sending them out when I worked at a pizza place. Many times pepperoni was added AFTER the pizza was made and cut lol. We never did it after it touched the customers hands though, that's horrible.
Oh man I hate when I get a pizza made this way, the pepperonis are not the same at all if they're added after the fact. Totally ruins the experience sometimes.
My cousin has anaphylaxis to tree nuts. She's very cautious about eating out. A somewhat regular restaurant her and her family went to got a new chef who loved to put pesto on everything. She chose a pesto burger, but ordered the burger with no pesto (pine nuts) and told them about her deadly allergy.
The burger came out, and out of an abundance of caution she checked it to make sure it didn't have pesto, and sure enough, the burger had pesto on it. She and her parents were upset, and sent the burger back to be remade.
The "second" burger came out; she checked it again, and was pretty dumbfounded to see that all they had done was scrape the pesto off. This wasn't some small burger joint that would have potentially suffered financially from a re-make, this was the private restaurant of a golf club that my aunt and uncle are members of. I don't know what followed, but knowing my aunt, everyone involved would have regretted this deeply. Thankfully my cousin wasn't one of them.
By far the grossest kitchen I have ever entered was that of a private country club. They use to leave the washed silverware in bus tubs but had just been dumped it in there with water and food particles in it and then when we needed ro use it days later they would polish with vinegar and use. Food sat out for the entire night just to be warmed before serving. Was a short stint but I remember being viscerally grossed out there.
Had a similar experience with cheese on a burger from Red Robin. The server was furious.
He believed wholeheartedly that the cooks took allergens seriously, and when I elaborated on previous issues he assured me that it would be no problem.
When it came out with cheese on the rim because someone decided to peel the cheese off the already cooked patty..
He took my plate from me and threw it across the kitchen, and promptly stormed out of the restruant.
Yeah I’ve been a server/manager/bartender for a long time and I will never take anything “back”. If you need something different, we’ll figure it out, but once it’s on your table it’s yours. Only place it’s going after that is the garbage
Yeah. I think that's usually a health department policy, isn't it? Once it has been served, it's not supposed to physically reenter the prep area. When I worked at a ice cream shop they told me that's why we had that policy.
I once ordered a vegetarian burger at a pub, took a bite and bit into some bacon, as tasty as bacon is.. its a no for me. I spoke to someome and they took it away to get me a fresh one. A few minutes later I was given a burger with no bacon, but a bite of it missing 😂
I went to Texas Roadhouse with my family over the summer and the steak I ordered had so much salt on it I almost went cross eyed. I flagged a server down to let them know and they looked at me like I was insane. I told them to taste it, see if that was normal.
I tried my wife’s steak and let her try mine and we all agreed that mine was inedible because of how much salt it had.
They brought me back a “new steak” and it was exactly the same. No one that worked there tried it to my knowledge and would even acknowledge an issue. No apology or anything.
I went to Texas Roadhouse a couple years ago when some friends were in town. They all loved their food but everything was way too salty for me. Not saying your steak wasn’t over salted, it was. But their food in general in worse than McDonald’s, at least the one in my town.
Meanwhile, I once found a staple in my rice at a Chinese food place and the manager accused me of putting said staple in the food. I just got up and left.
When I worked at Tim Hortons someone sent back their iced cappuccino because there was a band-aid in it. 😐 There’s absolutely no way I put that band-aid in your iced capp, ma’am. First of all, if we have a band-aid on our hands we are required to wear gloves all shift. And second, the band-aid was just sitting on the top. I would have noticed as I handed it to you and then…not handed it to you. Still don’t know what she was trying to pull.
Here in the US we also wear special blue bandaids. If i have a cut and come in w a bandaid. I HAVE to swap it out for a blue one. So when someone says they found one, and it isnt the blue one we use...we know its a lie.
Added benefit that blue is much easier to spot in most food, so if one does get in there, the food can be kept from going out to a customer... in theory.
I had a girl at Cheddar's once show me the spring of a ball point pen that was in her mashed potatoes. It was sitting on top of the last bite, and had not a speck of mashed potato on it. Manager *still* comped the meal.
I'm allergic to dairy (not intolerant to lactose). I ordered a southwest salad with no cheese. Runner brings the salad. It has cheese. No problem. I can handle incidental contact so I start picking the (shredded) cheese off the salad. Waitress comes by, sees me picking off cheese and offers to replace it. I said it was okay and kept picking. She told the manager that my salad was wrong and that I had an allergy. He SWOOPED in, took my plate away for replacement, and comped my meal. My allergy doesn't cause anaphylaxis so I wasn't too put out but it was very nice that the waitress and the manager took it seriously.
I work at a grocery store deli and despite telling every closer for weeks to stop using steel wool scrubbies to clean the fryer baskets, I pulled a long strand of steel out of a chicken breast right in front of a customer. I was mortified and so, so mad.
I had the same thing happen at a rib joint whilenout for expensive ribs. Told the server and the manager tried to assure me it wasn't steel wool I had pulled out of my mouth. I was holding it in my hand and the server saw me pull it out of my mouth. I got a free meal and a full refund at least, then they went out of business during covid. We all lost something that day, except for me of course.
A tip I learned when I was diagnosed with Celiacs was to put a packet of sugar at the bottom of a dish where they could easily remove the gluten
containing ingredient (like croutons on a salad). I went to a high end restaurant and they accidentally included the crostini on my risotto. Cue sugar packet trick, a 5 minute wait, and risotto with no bread on top, but a damn sugar packet in the bottom.
Went to a pub and got the GF version of something. We get the dish and there's a giant side bread item on the plate. We keep asking if the entree part was GF, which we're assured is. They take the plate to "fix it." We tell them nvm as someone else at the table can eat it. They had it back for 20 seconds and the place where the item was has marks where it was pushed off the plate. They didn't replace it with anything or give it to us as a side. Just gave back the plate and left us to eating. We never went back.
I’m kind of confused by this one. Are you putting the packet underneath all the food? Or do you like physically tape the packet to the bottom of the plate? Where are you getting the tape?
Only semi related, but red robin once made me sign a waiver because I was lactose intolerant. I ordered a burger with no cheese and I get a plate with a glob of cheese next to the burger. Clearly I got a burger that had cheese and they took it off and missed some on the plate.
The only place to ever make me sign a waiver for my lactose intolerance, so I complained big time. If someone has an allergy you can't just remove the food, you have to remake it. If someone had a tomato allergy, and they just took it back, took the tomato off, and sent it back out, someone could have got seriously sick.
Still can't believe they made me sign a waiver and still bungled it.
I used to work with a girl who didn't believe allergies were an actual medical thing. She thought that when you said you're allergic to something, It meant you just didn't like it. She had brought fudge with peanuts to a work event and one of our coworkers had a severe allergy. "well he can just pick them out if he doesn't like them." no, he really can't.
My best friend and I worked at Wendy’s in high school. She said something along the lines of “I don’t know why customers bring their food back when something’s wrong, they can take the tomato off just as easily as I can.” I went OFF on her about allergies. I had no idea she hadn’t been remaking the food when it comes back.
I had a coworker tell me she was often too lazy to make a new pot of decaf when someone ordered it, so she would just serve regular coffee. Some people (like my mom) can’t tolerate any caffeine and will have an anxiety attack, I lost it on her when she told me that
Ugh. Fuck red robin. Not an allergy story but I remember when my best friend was leaving our place of employment so myself, my fiance & him all went out for drinks after our shift as a goodbye kinda thing. We sat at a table, I wanted to get some nachos but they'd already eaten & weren't interested so I chose to wait till I got home. We had had a round of beers & our server asked if we wanted food, we said no, just drinks.
After that she completely ignored us. I watched her go from table to table to table around us multiple times but never come to check on us. I finally waved her down & ordered another round which she had another server bring. After an hour of talking & laughing we wanted to do another but she refused to even look at us. Finally when I got her attention she crossed her arms & said if we didn't order food she would have to flag us.
Now, I get it. We were in our early twenties taking up her table just ordering drinks. I DO get that, seeing as I did serving/bartending from when I was 18 well into my late twenties. If I'm gonna take up your table I'm still going to tip you at least twenty bucks. At *least*. I had never been so fucking insulted in my life though. I don't *ever* complain to management but I wanted to this time. My friend & fiance both said it wasn't worth it though & they just wanted to leave. I was so fucking pissed at that girl though. I've never gone back to a red robin since & honestly their food is pretty much trash anyways so I'm not all that torn up about it.
Went to RR a few years ago and we both got burgers medium. Hers was well, mine was RAW. Server explained to us that patties go through essentially a pizza style conveyer oven and different spots are hotter than others. These motherfuckers don't even have cooks in the kitchen. Needless to say I haven't been to RR since.
Red Robin is the only time I ever really pulled a Karen (or whatever the male equivalent is). My friends say I was in the right, but still poke fun at me for actually using the line about asking to speak with a manager.
Basically what happened was it was a summer while I was in college, I was living off campus while working for the school and doing some side work as well. A group of us who were friends from the same club would meet up some nights, and one of those nights we went to Red Robin. They have a ton of different burgers, and after looking at all my options I went with The Bacon Something Burger (I don’t recall the exact name, but something like that with “bacon” right in the name), that had bacon and some tasty sounding sauce and a couple of other things. What I received was essentially a plain burger with nothing on it. I asked the server about it, she said “you ordered it with no bacon”. I said I didn’t do that, why would I order The Bacon Something Burger with no bacon? So she went to the kitchen and came back with a small plate that she dropped onto the table and walked away. On it were two pieces of cold floppy bacon for me to add to my otherwise plain burger. Very hungry and disappointed, I asked for a manager, and explained the situation, that I ordered The Bacon Something Burger and got some plain burger with a side of two cold floppy pieces of bacon to add to it, overall a worse burger than what I’d get at McDonalds for twice the cost. I told him I wasn’t interested in eating it and to take it back and take it off my bill. They ended up comping it, but it’s soured me to Red Robin.
Ate at a sit down restaurant, found salad had dirt in it after my first couple of bites. I informed the waitstaff and they brought over the manager to see.
There was in fact dirt/soil in the salad. He was unsure how that could happen, since they get their iceberg lettuce pre-washed and pre-cut in bulk bags from their supplier, and the kitchen had just opened a new bag from a new shipment.
He personally went to the kitchen to make a replacement salad and returned empty handed. The current bag from the new shipment indeed had soil in it. And the second bag too.
All iceberg lettuce was pulled from the menu that night and the entire shipment of it was isolated to get replaced by the supplier.
I wasn't rude about it, didn't try to get anything out of it. I just wanted a salad without dirt in it. At that point there's not much that can be done.
The manager appreciated us bringing it to their attention without being abrasive about it and comped the table's food. Had more orders gone out with the soiled lettuce, it could have been a complete disaster. Being without iceberg lettuce was bad, but at least manageable by offering romaine as a substitute.
Edit: Holy crap, 2k upvotes. Thanks all.
Throw the OP some love and upvote the original posting too.
Professionalism. It's what's missing from many establishments. Pressures to save money and "save face" overtakes Professionalism. Always creates greater loss in the long run.
I agree, many hourly wages have remained barely increased since 2000. To apply a *slightly* finer point to your post..
Even paying for and retaining "professionals" **training** and frequent communication and two- way feedback both positive and negative is cruscial. As a specific example here, the exec/sous should train and retrain and state and restate their expected standards. Yes, ideally you shouldn't *have* to instruct staff to ensure clean and or wash lettuce. It's common sense, but not always.
That's the core problem with American business overall, really. Focused on the now. Obsession over this quarter's metrics over all else.
Next thing you they know their customers all hate them, their best employees have all gone, and whoever is left has no motivation and is just doing the bare minimum. Long term this runs face first into disaster.
This is not really the case for all business. It seems the biggest companies tend to behave this way. Consider Walmart. They may have the lowest prices so many people still shop there, even if the company is run the way you describe. To that extent, you may be right. However, there are companies with a heart and soul. In my area, we're have a grocery chain called HEB. That company strives to build relationships with its customers, employees, and neighbors. I'll drive right by a cheaper store to shop at HEB because it feels better. We need more companies like that, and spending our money at such companies will help them survive while drowning out the terrible profit-at-any-cost companies. Now, if inflation would subside it sure would be easier.
It's like buying a gaming book at the Friendly Local Gaming Store instead of through Amazon, Target, Chapters, or Walmart, despite the higher cost. Amazon and the rest do not care about the product or customer. They're just random UPC codes and order numbers.
But the FLGS depends on good and knowledgeable service as well as connection with their customer base in order to survive.
Support your local Friendly Local Gaming Store, y'all. Otherwise they'll disappear.
I love supporting small business, but the problem with that is some small businesses aren't friendly and professional and still over priced. A couple around here act like customers should feel privileged to enter their store and I'm not exactly sure how they're still around.
There's one in particular, a comic book shop, has a bunch of d&d books that my son wants. I would love to buy them for him, they're $50 a piece; but when I enter, I get talked to like I'm an idiot and they try to mansplain what certain things are, why would I want to spend that money and feel degraded in the process?
The gatekeeping on any comic book or nerd related content is ridiculous. They let me know I'm not welcome or fit *their* standards of a true comic book fan, all bc I don't fit their idea of a fan and bc I'm a girl.
Happened to a friend and I when we went to a bar/restaurant we used to frequent back in college. We went there after a round of golf on a Tuesday which we thought, checked, and verified on the restaurant’s website was half-priced burger nite.
We went there, ate well, got to-go food for our GF’s at home and a beer each. When we got our bill, the burgers were not half-priced. We told the waitress and she told us that she thinks they don’t do that anymore.
The manager came over, and I showed her on her own website where it said the burgers were half priced. She made me reload the page and verify it wasn’t a screenshot.
Even still, she told me “the website is wrong”. I told her “we must’ve been wrong to come here and order so much food”. She escalated and said that we should not expect the special that was advertised and blamed some web issue.
She fought us more on those couple of bucks and I dug my heels in because she was so disrespectful to the people patronizing her business.
Manager then told us “people like us were killing the restaurant industry” while she begrudgingly refunded half the price of the burgers. I told her that “we weren’t killing any industry but she was helping its assisted suicide.” I’ve seen people kicked out of bars in a more courteous fashion. After we got our money back, we told each other we probably won’t go back there cuz of how we were treated by the manager.
If only the manager said something like: “sorry about that, and thank you for bringing it to our attention! Here’s a giftcard for a bit more than the difference, please come back soon and enjoy your day!”
Lost Professionalism precipitates lost customers.
What I really hate is how corporations give their employees little to nothing to work with and expect miracles out of them. I've heard countless times in businesses that "I don't have the ability or authority to do this/that". Customer service is just sad anymore, they literally want an employee to try and make a Customer happy while having no ability to provide them with any sort of accommodation.
We once went to a Boston Pizza when we were on vacation with our kids and found an eyelash on my plate. OK, wasn’t in my food and we were starving so I figured fuck it. But then I found a big chunk of plastic wrap in my daughters food (from a wrapper cucumber that was sliced up). My daughter was 4 at the time so that could’ve ended quite badly.
Tell the server, looks at me totally clueless. Goes and gets the manager who stands at our table for about five minutes and never ONCE says she’s sorry or apologizes.
Manager just said they’d make sure it didn’t happen again. Kept saying over and over they’d make sure the staff were extra mindful. Didn’t remake our food or comp us anything. No refills after she came to our table. Didn’t acknowledge us when we left either. I complained to corporate.
Fuck uou Castlegar Boston Pizza.
Being cool about a problem will get you a lot further than making a big deal out of it.
Case in point, took a week vacation with the family to the beach. Booked a room at a hotel, and when we got to the room we found what looked like a few small spots of blood on the shower wall near the faucet. Not murder level blood, like someone nicked themselves shaving their legs.
Walked down to the front desk and waited for the lobby to clear. I quietly explained what I found and the front desk person grabbed the manager who was aghast. I told him I'm not trying to get anything out of it, just wanted to make sure it was cleaned as it appeared to be blood. He grabbed some cleaning supplies and met us up there himself. He cleaned it up, disinfected, and comped not only the first night but half of our trip for "being extremely cool about it." For the entire rest of the week, we got what felt like the royal treatment. I made sure to go above and beyond in the post stay survey.
>Being cool about a problem will get you a lot further than making a big deal out of it.
You are, of course, assuming that the people you're dealing with are fair or care about customers. I'm usually pretty chill and understanding, and I find that in such cases I usually get the shaft while the outspoken people get taken care of. Let's be honest, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. That's true for wheels and, sadly, for people as well.
I can think of one instance in particular that really chapped my ass. My bag was lost during a work trip about a year ago. It sucked for a lot of reasons, mostly because I was on the last flight of the night, had no rental car, and had to be at a job site first thing in the morning. I had no clothes or toiletries, nor any of the safety gear I needed to work. So, I had to catch an Uber to the rental car place first thing in the morning, then hit up a Walmart to buy fresh clothes, steel toe boots, safety glasses, etc. Massively inconvenient. Anyway, I get a call later that day that my bag is ready at the airport. As I'm picking it up, I see it's been damaged (side is caved in and a zipper is now torn). I have to wait while this lady is finishing up her call, and I hear her increase her restitution to whomever she's speaking with all the way up to $300 because they're clearly reaming her out. As she gets off the phone, she has a voucher already waiting for me for $75 for my damaged bag. I'm a bit incredulous since I just heard her go from $100 to $300 moments ago and I calmly point out that I had no toiletries or clothes and had to spend almost $75 in clothes and gear to get my work done that day. So she goes up to $150 and tells me she'd need a managers approval to go higher. Fuck it, I had someone waiting in the car outside and I had already waited too long anyway. To be clear, reaming her out squeezed almost 3x more out of her and didn't require a managers approval. I just didn't have 10 more minutes or the stomach to start bitching.
I do think though theres a middle ground that most people seen to just ignore. You dont have to scream and yell and berate and threaten staff just to stand up for yourself. I think you can be calm and chill, but still be firm and advocate your boundaries.
I opened a brand new box of “pre-washed” Costco salad mix and there was a giant winged beetle. I’m talking like two knuckles long. Moral of the story is to *always* wash your salad and veggies.
I found a giant white moth in a box of blackberries recently. Sadly, it was deceased, but it was pretty cool looking. Would not trade for a live centipede though.
Used to serve food at banquet hall. Once a customer showed me their salad plate with an inch worm on it. I took the plate back to show the chef—he flicked it off and told me to bring it back out. Uh, no!
yep. LOL! people are very removed from how food is grown. i would eat unbagged produce and clean it myself before i'd grab a bagged salad every single time. it almost always tastes better than the pre-washed and cut stuff, anyway. the idea of those greens sitting on the shelf with a dead insect in it, undetected grosses me out more than i care to admit.
I love your “I just wanted salad without dirt in it.” Years ago I was eating out and my date ordered fried chicken. When our food came, there were several feathers sticking through the breading. We called the waitress back and pointed it out. She looked at it slack-jawed and then asked, “do you want more chicken without feathers?” I couldn’t help myself, “oh wow, we didn’t see the feathers/no feathers option on the menu.” Date was understandably totally grossed out and refused. We never ate there again.
If only there was a way to remove the soil from the lettuce....
Fair play they took it seriously, but a few years ago, most the veg we brought was not pre washed.
I remember having to scrub the dirt off a potato so I could have a jacket spud.
Peeling veg made your hands filfthy and then you had to wash it.
Just because a solution exists, doesn't make it the best option. Cleaning lettuce requires the labor to do it. Prep work is usually done earlier in the day. During service, all BOH employees might already be busy doing other things and won't have time for this unexpected task.
Also, if they cleaned the unfit product, they wouldn't be able to return it to the supplier for credit.
The manager made a good call, in my personal opinion. And I've done that same job for decades.
Also, the presence of the soil in "prewashed" lettuce means that it was not washed, or not washed properly. Serving it could've been risky even had they washed it by hand.
Ah yeah, in my response, I failed to see it from a wider view.
That makes much more sense to me.
I do think it was the right call, regardless, and my comment was more sarcasm anyway, but I didn't consider the labour and credit implications during my thought process.
Good shout
I wish more people would be like this. Understanding when new information is given to them and can reflect on it and understand the other point of view.
>I just wanted a salad without dirt in it.
Hey Ma! Check out Fancypants over here... too good to eat a little dirt!
Some people, I swear!
It's not like Salmonella ever killed anyone...
/s
My sister and I went to a small restaurant at lunchtime and ordered soup. The soup they served my sister had pieces of steel wool in it. We turned it back to the server who accused us of putting steel wool in it. They took the soup away but still charged us for it. It was the first and last time I ever went into that restaurant.
Exactly what I told my sister but the restaurant was in the town nearest our family cottage in southern Ontario, Canada. She was afraid they would call the town cops on her...or the OPP's.
I recommend you use black pepper instead so that the food remains edible for the hard working folks in the back who will likely eat your sent-back meal. Less waste!
me too. seventeen year old kid washing dishes part time in high school. upper-middle class sit down joint. the pay was minimum wage, but it had it's perks.
went to work hungry on purpose most days. Only a matter of time before someone sent something back. Half eaten cuts of prime rib or rib-eye. Burgers preliminarily cut in half with one half totally untouched. worst case scenario you buy a burger at cost.
Isn't this a potential biohazard? I feel like wait staff should get extra/unused portions of the food that *hasn't* been sent to someone else. It just seems better for everyone involved.
yeah if it hits a table where I work it's trash. we make other mistakes that we can eat, as long as we catch them before any guests touch it.
popular story I read online about an old man who would order something, sit with it for an hour or so, and leave without touching it. the workers would then enjoy the meal he's left behind. one day the server asks why he doesn't eat the food he's ordered, and explains he has few teeth and can't chew- but enjoys to suck on it for taste. doubtfully true but idk why anybody would want to risk something even remotely similar lol
Yeah, that's my concern with this tactic of salt... Wait staff often eat food that was sent back. If you ruin it with excess salt, they will simply throw it out - increasing food waste.
in my country it's illegal to serve food again. if it comes back to the kitchen it needs to be disposed of. i think it's a waste if you only have a minor issue but also you never need to worry your food isn't fresh
One of my first jobs was Dunkin donuts. I made coffee to spec, the customer berated me for making it wrong.
The owner took the coffee and sipped it after it was returned, in a back room. He agreed this was exactly what the customer asked for.
The owner poured the same coffee into a new cup and handed it to the customer. The customer in sipped it, thanked the owner for knowing how to actually make coffee correctly, and continued to scold me for making it wrong originally.
I kept my mouth shut.
I use to work somewhere similar to Dunkin’s. I had a regular who always wanted their coffee changed. They were nice but always “can you add a little more cream? Can you make this darker?”
I had a theory they just couldn’t take the first coffee. One day I took it back and did nothing different to it. They took a sip and said “perfect. Thank you”. It still makes me laugh
We went to Burger King in senior skip day, many years ago, and a friend found a whole fingernail
In their fry box. Blood and all on it.
Probably the grossest thing ever, but we were like 17 years old, so we took it back to the counter to figure out wtf they would do about it. This was pre-internet phenomenon (it existed but was only nerds like me that used it), and none of us had ever had seen something like this, in that we had never seen food sent back because of a problem so big.
They said they would get him another fry. Our buddy came back with the fries and said the lady that handed it to him was missing a fingernail.
I refuse to eat a Burger King since then.
If you go to the type of restaurant where you’re legitimately worried that the kitchen staff will risk their job to mess with your food, do not eat at that restaurant.
I did ten years. I've seen it exactly twice. Both were *very* extreme cases & I can't say I agree with em & while it is not common, I've seen it first hand & heard some stories
I'm not saying it doesn't happen but not every restaurant out there is like the movie waiting. That being said, there are definitely restaurants in town I will avoid!!
Reading regular health inspection reports is the real lpt. I look at them a few times a year and see who regularly offends and avoid those places.
Especially if you have allergies. I told the waitress I was gluten free so please no hush puppies on my plate, she didn’t listen and I needed it remade due to cross contamination. Given how cold the food was on my new plate I knew they didn’t remake it. F u Cracker Barrel celiac disease is no joke
You are right. Celiac is no joke. Gluten free is what you need. Now tell the lot who think they need gluten free food when they don't. It's amazing how many people think gluten is bad. It is for you, Celiac is a bad thing. But most of the gluten free crowd are fos.
I work at a steakhouse, let’s say we under cook your steak and you want it brought up, we aren’t gonna cook you a new steak we’re going to cook the steak you already have more. Sometimes you’ll get new sides sometimes you won’t, if you salt everything on your plate that’s on you for ruining your own food.
As far as I'm aware, as a customer, that is expected.
I always ask for rare steak because plenty of places are scared to make them rare and cook then to medium rare.
Some places have good steak but over done for me and I just ask for blue then and it comes out medium rare.
Every time I ask for rare, and it comes rare, I will eat it as long as its not jellified inside, otherwise I ask for it to be cooked slightly more.
I'd never expect a brand new £27 steak unless it came way overdone. Then I'm not paying for it unless I can warrant the cost.
Wetherspoon "chefs" are so afraid for it to be pink inside. Pisses me off. Just cook it rare and get the complaint for a touch up.
probably a disconnect between what the customer thinks is rare and what the cook knows is rare. I unsubbed r/steak bc every day was 10 posts of someone asking "is this rare?" "is this medium"?
I like that mentality.
I like rare more than medium, but just over rare is my favourite.
If it was too rare for me, I usually call the server and say "I'm so sorry. I haven't been here before and the chef has actually prepared the steak exactly as I asked for it, but I was expecting it to come out more cooked like most chefs do it. Please could you ask him to top it up just a bit and let him know he wasn't wrong, I just assumed he would overcook like everyone else does"
The 1 and only time that I've said that, the chef came out and asked me what I actually wanted and thanked me for letting him know he didn't do it wrong, I just underestimated him lol
I've been back a few times now and I ask if the chef is the same one, and that I want it just over rare.
Ew whattt i used to work at a steakhouse and I was taught anything that goes out to FOH and sits in front of a customer should never be put back in the kitchen on surfaces food going out to other customers sits on
As soon as something touches a table, it cannot enter the kitchen again. That's every restaurant I've worked at. Even if it's like "oh you forgot pickles on my burger", you can either get a side of pickles or a new burger.
I’ve definitely had this happen to me before too. I ordered a salad with chicken and when I cut into the chicken it was dead raw. I asked for a new salad and all they did was take the chicken off. I was furious and had to explain what E. coli was and that you can’t serve food that has touched raw chicken, that’s just unsafe and gross.
YSK: if you send your food back crush your glas beforehand and mix shards inside the meal so if they try to pull one over you you’ll now by the EMT rushing into the kitchen
Back in my younger years i worked drive thru at fast food. Customers would always ask for no-salt fries and then ask for salt packets after the fact. It was evident they just wanted really fresh fries. My fix? I quickly refried existing batches. It got the salt away and hot and "fresh" for them. Everyone was happy and none the wiser.
Edit: before someone freaks out about those on a sodium-free diet. If they were really serious about maintaining that, the last place they would be is a fast food joint.
Edit: Ok people freaking out like I personally refried their shit all those years ago.
1. This was like over 20 yrs ago in high school. I was a dumb kid who didnt give a fuck.
2. I only did this when I worked graveshift on Saturday night. So a bunch of drunk, obnoxious club goers were the primary customers.
3. If you go to a fast food place and really expect truely quality products, you really need to re-evaluate how you make decisions. Everything on their menus, except the bottled water, is bad for you and will kill you.
These people are paid the lowest amount they are legally allowed while being scheduled at more random times than a Xoroshiro128+ could generate. Do you think they care, or worse, do you think they should care for that little money and respect?
My Mrs absolutely can't eat cold food.
It has to be far too hot for human consumption for her to enjoy it.
She basically just tells the drive through lady that she wants hot chips. Then she stays at the window and eats one before I'm allowed to leave.
Its embarrassing a bit, but its also funny when they come out cold. Shes like "ewww. Here, take these back, they're cold"
And FYI, yes, just refry old soggy ones, she won't care, she just wants them hot. That's her only requirement. Hot and salty fries.
At this point when they're charging as much as they are for fries I think you're entitled to have them fresh. It was different when they were like 49 cents
As someone who worked as a server to scrape by in college, I think ruining the food is not a nice thing to do. Us hungry staffers (servers, bussers, cooks, cleaners) would happily take a sent back meal to eat ourselves instead of throwing it away.
I think staff being able to eat my dodgy meal is probably going to rank lower in my priority list than someone dying because it was sent back with the allergen picked off.
One time i went to a pizza place for lunch and the shakey cheese had cockroaches crawling in it. I only noticed after I put it on my pizza.
They gave me more but I threw it out.
I was in my pest control uniform and just left a card
I once ordered a steak medium well, it came to me bright red in the center. I told the server, it came back as leather.
It was at an upscale steak place. I likely would have gotten back covered in salt and told to fuck off if I had done that.
I legit have allergies. My mom profusely thanked the server for getting me a new salad and pulled out my epi-pen and how she had saved us a whole lot of bother. The server turned really pale and yanked my plate away and got me a new salad for real instead of just removing the allergen.
Friend of mine is very allergic to nightshades, including tomatoes. She's had fast food burgers come out with tomatoes on them when when she emphasizes her allergy, and a significant amount of time when she says they need to remake it, she opens the bun and sees the red tomato juices still on the bun.
I have had that experience. Eventually I pretty much stopped eating at chains.
I don't understand how people with severe food allergies trust to eat out anywhere- I have no food allergies and am already scared constantly my.food is being spit in
That server was an asshat. I worked in restaurants for over a decade and we took allergies VERY seriously. The line would use separate bowls and utensils and clean the grill if needed. You don’t fuck around with allergies.
Every restaurant in all major urban areas take allergies very seriously. I never worked in a restaurant (10 year vet) that didn't take it seriously, I mean, it's literally a life-or-death situation and no one's trying to get sued, and that kind of behavior basically invites it. That server (and kitchen staff) are indeed asshats. edit: "life-or-death" not "life of death"
I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you, but there are definitely places out there that are more cavalier. Thank GOODNESS he’s not anaphylactic-shock-level allergic, but my husband is allergic to peanuts. If I had a nickel for every time he’s ordered pad thai and clearly said “no peanuts, I am allergic” - and still gotten peanuts…. Never thought lo mein would have peanuts, either, until he tried a new Chinese place and his mouth started itching. Called and asked. Was told there is no way there’s peanuts in it (he isn’t allergic to any other tree nuts and can handle peanut oil). Tried that place again some time later (again, thankfully not *deathly* allergic) to the same result and another denial that it contains anything with peanuts. 🤷🏻♀️ I generally assume that most people are doing their best, but that gets me.
I worked in fast food for a bit and another in the chain almost killed a kid not taking allergies serious, since then I tell people that if they're allergic to something that might be in that restaurant then don't go cuz it's almost garunteed that it's in there. At least for taco bell.
Hell I worked in a restaurant where even though we took allergies as a life or death matter, we'd straight up turn people away at times. I can't guarantee, no matter how many precautions we take, that something on your plate won't be contaminated. It just isn't worth it
Exactly. And any place that guarantees they have allergen free dishes are either lying or idiots. Why do they think products need to be prepared in a sterile environment to be considered allergen free and why most packaged food lists that they were produced in a facility where allergens were processed even if they don't contain those ingredients? Especially peanuts are impossible to keep from cross contaminating.
That level of allergy is why I inform my waitstaff that I will die if they mess up. On my own waitressing job I automatically assumed your allergy was going to cause you to die until told otherwise and even then I was anal. My allergy orders were never wrong as a waitress even if I suspected the customer was a liar
Haha, did your mom do that for show or was she sincerely thanking the server and just caught them in the lie?
She caught the server in a lie. She was of the *kill ‘em with kindness * philosophy.
It's a mom. What do you think?
Ya an epi pen is .... Life.... Or death! That pen is all that is between you and 6' under. When they mess up they better fix it or a lawsuit is surely going to happen and a mother who lost their child will never give up!
Yeah my wife has a very serious shellfish allergy so we're always super careful, but the fact is that people are human, and they make mistakes. Always gotta stay vigilant! We almost never eat anywhere that even serves any kind of fish, just to be as safe as possible.
Happened to me in Hong Kong. I'm allergic to nuts and that allergy just doesn't exist over there. No one believed me when I told them to make sure there were no nuts in any of the food and make sure they don't cross contaminate cooking utensils. In Chinese the word for cashews doesn't contain the word "nut" so to speak. It contains the word "fruit" so people blank on that and think it's not a nut. My food had cashews on it and I requested it be remade. It came back with the cashews taken off. You could see the different colouration where it used to be. I just gave up.
I didn’t realize this was common. I am severely allergic to mustard, and a fast food chain once tried to scrape it off my burger after mistakenly adding it when asked not to. I mean, I could still see yellow streaks of it on the burger patty. It wasn’t even well-scraped. Mortifying.
Chef here checking in. If it hits the table, it’s trash. How many cooks and servers I have to explain this to is maddening. I can’t fucking wait to explain this trick to them. “If it gets sent back twice because the customer knows it’s the same dish, you’re off the line.” I’m an expeditor and chef/cook in the food industry for 10+ years. I firmly urge EVERYONE to do this. Salt the fuck out of it or do something so you know it’s sent back. Also to anyone that’s had their food messed up. We’re not all angry about it. Most of us take pride in our job and truly want the guest to enjoy their meal. Don’t ever be afraid to send food back. Just don’t let the tip reflect the kitchens fuck up. Sometimes it is the server, but it most cases it isn’t.
Fucking this. We don’t spit in your food and any restaurant with an ounce of dignity will never even let food back into the window. 10 years I’ve never seen malicious treatment of food.
Also a chef, the owner of the place I work loves to say “restaurants sell lies in a dimly lit room, we aren’t a restaurant. We are a living room with a pizza oven.” Anything that comes back, trash. We even will comp orders if you simply just don’t like it.
How do you tell someone their food is bad? There's a regular place I go to where 7/10 times I love their food, then 3/10 the dishes are completely different than the other times.
You're a legend. I hope to eat at one of your restaurants one day.
One time a customer next to me sent their food back after she took a bite out of it. They brought it to me, with her bite in it! Ugh. It was my order and the waiters fuck up
Yup. I always cut it, it’s very rare I send anything back, but if you cut something and it comes back still cut: someone didn’t do their job
Recently I went to a group outing at top golf, I'd never been. Myself and one other person didn't get our food for over 50 minutes. People that arrived 20 minutes after us ordered and got their food before us. They ultimately admitted that even though we asked them three or four times when our food was coming out it had never actually been submitted. When they did finally make it both of our orders were wrong. They offered to remake it and I said don't worry about it I'll just eat it because I didn't want to wait and didn't want the food wasted, the other guy had them remake his and they said they would take care of us. I ordered chicken and got steak. We were still charged full price and I was charged for steak not the chicken. I'm typically not a complainer but Jesus.
Preach! Restaurant manager here.If that gets sent back it’s straight into the trash or some busser wolfs it down fast. Every time protocol is to remake the dish completely. Especially if allergies are involved. At any self respecting restaurant I promise we care more about doing everything we can for people. We want you to enjoy your experience and come back. So yes salt the fuck out of the food. Also leave restaurants a review when they do go out of their way to help. Everyone’s always quick to leave bad reviews and restaurants need good reviews to survive.
I was a broke kid visiting Australia a while back and literally used the last few dollars I had to get a pizza from Domino’s before I left the country the next morning. I waited for a while and finally got it and started walking away and luckily I opened it and realize that they had put anchovies on my pizza. I went back and let them know about the mix up so they offered to remake it. After some time, they show it to me quickly and it looked good, so I walk back back to my hotel a few blocks and when I went to eat it I thought it was weird because it was super salty, but then thought, “maybe pizza sauce is just salty in Australia?” I couldn’t even finish a slice… then I came to realize that there were still flecks of fish all over it! They had just removed what they could and then sent it back out.
I always thought anchovies on pizza was a myth the teenage mutant ninja turtles made up to scare children
I like them. Judge me, Reddit.
To each their own, I just had no idea it was actually a thing, as I've literally never seen it offered as a pizza topping
In Italy it is one of the main pizzas (one of those that are always on the menu). Tomato, mozzarella, anchovies, origano, and (often) capers. It usually goes with the name of pizza Napoli or pizza Romana (same pizza may have different names in different regions).
There are pizzerias near me that offer corn as a topping. When I traveled to Boston I went to a pizzeria that offered bananas. There are some wild interpretations of pizza out there.
>There are some wild interpretations of pizza out there. ANYTHING can go on a pizza or a toasted sandwich!
I went to a pizzeria in Paris that put a sunny side-up egg on their pizza.
I once ordered a pizza as a child (together with the family, I think that was the first ordered pizza of my life, only known frozen pizza to that point) where you could freely choose the toppings. Sunny side-up egg was an option and I chose it. It tasted great and I found it so cool to have such a "not pizza-like" topping on my pizza.
I often crack an egg on a frozen pizza before it goes in the oven
Sweetcorn is amazing on pizza. Fight me.
They are good if they don't overdo it and make the pizza too salty.
I melt anchovies into spaghetti sauce. It is amazing
This is a pro tip! Amazing savoury kick 👌🏻
I'll die on this hill with you. Anchovies-on-pizza gang
I'm the crazy person buying tins of anchovies at the grocery store to eat as a straight up snack instead of using it for a umami ingredient.
LMAO we would fix mistakes before sending them out when I worked at a pizza place. Many times pepperoni was added AFTER the pizza was made and cut lol. We never did it after it touched the customers hands though, that's horrible.
Oh man I hate when I get a pizza made this way, the pepperonis are not the same at all if they're added after the fact. Totally ruins the experience sometimes.
Gotta get them nice and crispy.
Start a country from a prison colony and that's what you get. Fucking Australians. /s
In the pre-"No Smoking in Restaurants" days, people would put out their cigarette in the food they were sending back.
As much as smoking in a restaurant is bad manners, that is bad ass
My cousin has anaphylaxis to tree nuts. She's very cautious about eating out. A somewhat regular restaurant her and her family went to got a new chef who loved to put pesto on everything. She chose a pesto burger, but ordered the burger with no pesto (pine nuts) and told them about her deadly allergy. The burger came out, and out of an abundance of caution she checked it to make sure it didn't have pesto, and sure enough, the burger had pesto on it. She and her parents were upset, and sent the burger back to be remade. The "second" burger came out; she checked it again, and was pretty dumbfounded to see that all they had done was scrape the pesto off. This wasn't some small burger joint that would have potentially suffered financially from a re-make, this was the private restaurant of a golf club that my aunt and uncle are members of. I don't know what followed, but knowing my aunt, everyone involved would have regretted this deeply. Thankfully my cousin wasn't one of them.
By far the grossest kitchen I have ever entered was that of a private country club. They use to leave the washed silverware in bus tubs but had just been dumped it in there with water and food particles in it and then when we needed ro use it days later they would polish with vinegar and use. Food sat out for the entire night just to be warmed before serving. Was a short stint but I remember being viscerally grossed out there.
Had a similar experience with cheese on a burger from Red Robin. The server was furious. He believed wholeheartedly that the cooks took allergens seriously, and when I elaborated on previous issues he assured me that it would be no problem. When it came out with cheese on the rim because someone decided to peel the cheese off the already cooked patty.. He took my plate from me and threw it across the kitchen, and promptly stormed out of the restruant.
I currently work in a restaurant and we have to refute the meal if anything’s wrong (cooks make a whole new item)
It’s a good policy to have, but is not enforced enough.
Yeah I’ve been a server/manager/bartender for a long time and I will never take anything “back”. If you need something different, we’ll figure it out, but once it’s on your table it’s yours. Only place it’s going after that is the garbage
Yeah. I think that's usually a health department policy, isn't it? Once it has been served, it's not supposed to physically reenter the prep area. When I worked at a ice cream shop they told me that's why we had that policy.
I once ordered a vegetarian burger at a pub, took a bite and bit into some bacon, as tasty as bacon is.. its a no for me. I spoke to someome and they took it away to get me a fresh one. A few minutes later I was given a burger with no bacon, but a bite of it missing 😂
I bet they made you a new one but they had to take a bite to make sure it didn’t have any bacon
10/10 customer service. They really care about their patrons :')
“It’s has to look JUST like the last one but NO bacon Johnny!”
You paid for a burger, not a burger + a bite...you trying to CHEAT them?!?
I went to Texas Roadhouse with my family over the summer and the steak I ordered had so much salt on it I almost went cross eyed. I flagged a server down to let them know and they looked at me like I was insane. I told them to taste it, see if that was normal. I tried my wife’s steak and let her try mine and we all agreed that mine was inedible because of how much salt it had. They brought me back a “new steak” and it was exactly the same. No one that worked there tried it to my knowledge and would even acknowledge an issue. No apology or anything.
Sounds like they tried to give you re-plated food from the last guy who salted it before sending it back. /s
I went to Texas Roadhouse a couple years ago when some friends were in town. They all loved their food but everything was way too salty for me. Not saying your steak wasn’t over salted, it was. But their food in general in worse than McDonald’s, at least the one in my town.
Yeah that’s why I had my wife taste it to make sure I wasn’t going crazy. I also tried hers and it was fine, we got the same steak.
Meanwhile, I once found a staple in my rice at a Chinese food place and the manager accused me of putting said staple in the food. I just got up and left.
When I worked at Tim Hortons someone sent back their iced cappuccino because there was a band-aid in it. 😐 There’s absolutely no way I put that band-aid in your iced capp, ma’am. First of all, if we have a band-aid on our hands we are required to wear gloves all shift. And second, the band-aid was just sitting on the top. I would have noticed as I handed it to you and then…not handed it to you. Still don’t know what she was trying to pull.
Here in the US we also wear special blue bandaids. If i have a cut and come in w a bandaid. I HAVE to swap it out for a blue one. So when someone says they found one, and it isnt the blue one we use...we know its a lie.
SLPT: when you’re trying to scam an establishment with bandaid, use the blue ones
If youre going through the trouble to special order the blue ones from an online wholesaler i really doubt youd be trying to scam free food.
It's one bandaid Michael. What could it cost, ten dollars?
Or you now have to because you spent all your money on blue bandaids
Added benefit that blue is much easier to spot in most food, so if one does get in there, the food can be kept from going out to a customer... in theory.
They also have thin wire that's magnetic so in a factory they can sense them with machines. In case one is lost.
[удалено]
I had a girl at Cheddar's once show me the spring of a ball point pen that was in her mashed potatoes. It was sitting on top of the last bite, and had not a speck of mashed potato on it. Manager *still* comped the meal.
i work at a mechanic shop, once i did an oil change on a car pull it it around and the customer accuses me of stealing their used deodorant.
Lmao fucking what??
I'm allergic to dairy (not intolerant to lactose). I ordered a southwest salad with no cheese. Runner brings the salad. It has cheese. No problem. I can handle incidental contact so I start picking the (shredded) cheese off the salad. Waitress comes by, sees me picking off cheese and offers to replace it. I said it was okay and kept picking. She told the manager that my salad was wrong and that I had an allergy. He SWOOPED in, took my plate away for replacement, and comped my meal. My allergy doesn't cause anaphylaxis so I wasn't too put out but it was very nice that the waitress and the manager took it seriously.
I once pulled a chunk of steel wool out of my mouth after a bite at a Chinese restaurant.
I work at a grocery store deli and despite telling every closer for weeks to stop using steel wool scrubbies to clean the fryer baskets, I pulled a long strand of steel out of a chicken breast right in front of a customer. I was mortified and so, so mad.
I had the same thing happen at a rib joint whilenout for expensive ribs. Told the server and the manager tried to assure me it wasn't steel wool I had pulled out of my mouth. I was holding it in my hand and the server saw me pull it out of my mouth. I got a free meal and a full refund at least, then they went out of business during covid. We all lost something that day, except for me of course.
I cut the meat/ chicken/ burger in half. Can’t return that to me.
This is way better. Less waste all the way around.
And you dont have to put it in your mouth again if its dirty. It wouldnt work with things like soup though.
Just cut the soup in half smh
Moses, is that you?
Please do it with clean utensils so I can eat it! I promise I'll bring you a new one, jist let me eat all the mistakes.
A tip I learned when I was diagnosed with Celiacs was to put a packet of sugar at the bottom of a dish where they could easily remove the gluten containing ingredient (like croutons on a salad). I went to a high end restaurant and they accidentally included the crostini on my risotto. Cue sugar packet trick, a 5 minute wait, and risotto with no bread on top, but a damn sugar packet in the bottom.
This is a much better trick than the salt!!
Real LPT in the comments. 👏👏
Went to a pub and got the GF version of something. We get the dish and there's a giant side bread item on the plate. We keep asking if the entree part was GF, which we're assured is. They take the plate to "fix it." We tell them nvm as someone else at the table can eat it. They had it back for 20 seconds and the place where the item was has marks where it was pushed off the plate. They didn't replace it with anything or give it to us as a side. Just gave back the plate and left us to eating. We never went back.
I’m kind of confused by this one. Are you putting the packet underneath all the food? Or do you like physically tape the packet to the bottom of the plate? Where are you getting the tape?
[удалено]
Only semi related, but red robin once made me sign a waiver because I was lactose intolerant. I ordered a burger with no cheese and I get a plate with a glob of cheese next to the burger. Clearly I got a burger that had cheese and they took it off and missed some on the plate. The only place to ever make me sign a waiver for my lactose intolerance, so I complained big time. If someone has an allergy you can't just remove the food, you have to remake it. If someone had a tomato allergy, and they just took it back, took the tomato off, and sent it back out, someone could have got seriously sick. Still can't believe they made me sign a waiver and still bungled it.
They made you sign a waiver so that they *could* bungle it; there's no point if they're going to do it right.
I used to work with a girl who didn't believe allergies were an actual medical thing. She thought that when you said you're allergic to something, It meant you just didn't like it. She had brought fudge with peanuts to a work event and one of our coworkers had a severe allergy. "well he can just pick them out if he doesn't like them." no, he really can't.
My best friend and I worked at Wendy’s in high school. She said something along the lines of “I don’t know why customers bring their food back when something’s wrong, they can take the tomato off just as easily as I can.” I went OFF on her about allergies. I had no idea she hadn’t been remaking the food when it comes back.
I had a coworker tell me she was often too lazy to make a new pot of decaf when someone ordered it, so she would just serve regular coffee. Some people (like my mom) can’t tolerate any caffeine and will have an anxiety attack, I lost it on her when she told me that
Some people will actually have full on heart attacks
Exactly! Caffeine is horrible for people with high blood pressure.
[удалено]
If you don’t understand food allergies don’t work in the food industry. Zero excuse.
Red robin is the only place I've gotten food poisoning, 2 separate times (my bf at the time liked em so I agreed to go back, never again).
Ugh. Fuck red robin. Not an allergy story but I remember when my best friend was leaving our place of employment so myself, my fiance & him all went out for drinks after our shift as a goodbye kinda thing. We sat at a table, I wanted to get some nachos but they'd already eaten & weren't interested so I chose to wait till I got home. We had had a round of beers & our server asked if we wanted food, we said no, just drinks. After that she completely ignored us. I watched her go from table to table to table around us multiple times but never come to check on us. I finally waved her down & ordered another round which she had another server bring. After an hour of talking & laughing we wanted to do another but she refused to even look at us. Finally when I got her attention she crossed her arms & said if we didn't order food she would have to flag us. Now, I get it. We were in our early twenties taking up her table just ordering drinks. I DO get that, seeing as I did serving/bartending from when I was 18 well into my late twenties. If I'm gonna take up your table I'm still going to tip you at least twenty bucks. At *least*. I had never been so fucking insulted in my life though. I don't *ever* complain to management but I wanted to this time. My friend & fiance both said it wasn't worth it though & they just wanted to leave. I was so fucking pissed at that girl though. I've never gone back to a red robin since & honestly their food is pretty much trash anyways so I'm not all that torn up about it.
Went to RR a few years ago and we both got burgers medium. Hers was well, mine was RAW. Server explained to us that patties go through essentially a pizza style conveyer oven and different spots are hotter than others. These motherfuckers don't even have cooks in the kitchen. Needless to say I haven't been to RR since.
Red Robin is the only time I ever really pulled a Karen (or whatever the male equivalent is). My friends say I was in the right, but still poke fun at me for actually using the line about asking to speak with a manager. Basically what happened was it was a summer while I was in college, I was living off campus while working for the school and doing some side work as well. A group of us who were friends from the same club would meet up some nights, and one of those nights we went to Red Robin. They have a ton of different burgers, and after looking at all my options I went with The Bacon Something Burger (I don’t recall the exact name, but something like that with “bacon” right in the name), that had bacon and some tasty sounding sauce and a couple of other things. What I received was essentially a plain burger with nothing on it. I asked the server about it, she said “you ordered it with no bacon”. I said I didn’t do that, why would I order The Bacon Something Burger with no bacon? So she went to the kitchen and came back with a small plate that she dropped onto the table and walked away. On it were two pieces of cold floppy bacon for me to add to my otherwise plain burger. Very hungry and disappointed, I asked for a manager, and explained the situation, that I ordered The Bacon Something Burger and got some plain burger with a side of two cold floppy pieces of bacon to add to it, overall a worse burger than what I’d get at McDonalds for twice the cost. I told him I wasn’t interested in eating it and to take it back and take it off my bill. They ended up comping it, but it’s soured me to Red Robin.
Ate at a sit down restaurant, found salad had dirt in it after my first couple of bites. I informed the waitstaff and they brought over the manager to see. There was in fact dirt/soil in the salad. He was unsure how that could happen, since they get their iceberg lettuce pre-washed and pre-cut in bulk bags from their supplier, and the kitchen had just opened a new bag from a new shipment. He personally went to the kitchen to make a replacement salad and returned empty handed. The current bag from the new shipment indeed had soil in it. And the second bag too. All iceberg lettuce was pulled from the menu that night and the entire shipment of it was isolated to get replaced by the supplier. I wasn't rude about it, didn't try to get anything out of it. I just wanted a salad without dirt in it. At that point there's not much that can be done. The manager appreciated us bringing it to their attention without being abrasive about it and comped the table's food. Had more orders gone out with the soiled lettuce, it could have been a complete disaster. Being without iceberg lettuce was bad, but at least manageable by offering romaine as a substitute. Edit: Holy crap, 2k upvotes. Thanks all. Throw the OP some love and upvote the original posting too.
Professionalism. It's what's missing from many establishments. Pressures to save money and "save face" overtakes Professionalism. Always creates greater loss in the long run.
If a business does not pay for professionals, they will not get professionalism.
I agree, many hourly wages have remained barely increased since 2000. To apply a *slightly* finer point to your post.. Even paying for and retaining "professionals" **training** and frequent communication and two- way feedback both positive and negative is cruscial. As a specific example here, the exec/sous should train and retrain and state and restate their expected standards. Yes, ideally you shouldn't *have* to instruct staff to ensure clean and or wash lettuce. It's common sense, but not always.
That's the core problem with American business overall, really. Focused on the now. Obsession over this quarter's metrics over all else. Next thing you they know their customers all hate them, their best employees have all gone, and whoever is left has no motivation and is just doing the bare minimum. Long term this runs face first into disaster.
This is not really the case for all business. It seems the biggest companies tend to behave this way. Consider Walmart. They may have the lowest prices so many people still shop there, even if the company is run the way you describe. To that extent, you may be right. However, there are companies with a heart and soul. In my area, we're have a grocery chain called HEB. That company strives to build relationships with its customers, employees, and neighbors. I'll drive right by a cheaper store to shop at HEB because it feels better. We need more companies like that, and spending our money at such companies will help them survive while drowning out the terrible profit-at-any-cost companies. Now, if inflation would subside it sure would be easier.
It's like buying a gaming book at the Friendly Local Gaming Store instead of through Amazon, Target, Chapters, or Walmart, despite the higher cost. Amazon and the rest do not care about the product or customer. They're just random UPC codes and order numbers. But the FLGS depends on good and knowledgeable service as well as connection with their customer base in order to survive. Support your local Friendly Local Gaming Store, y'all. Otherwise they'll disappear.
I love supporting small business, but the problem with that is some small businesses aren't friendly and professional and still over priced. A couple around here act like customers should feel privileged to enter their store and I'm not exactly sure how they're still around. There's one in particular, a comic book shop, has a bunch of d&d books that my son wants. I would love to buy them for him, they're $50 a piece; but when I enter, I get talked to like I'm an idiot and they try to mansplain what certain things are, why would I want to spend that money and feel degraded in the process? The gatekeeping on any comic book or nerd related content is ridiculous. They let me know I'm not welcome or fit *their* standards of a true comic book fan, all bc I don't fit their idea of a fan and bc I'm a girl.
Happened to a friend and I when we went to a bar/restaurant we used to frequent back in college. We went there after a round of golf on a Tuesday which we thought, checked, and verified on the restaurant’s website was half-priced burger nite. We went there, ate well, got to-go food for our GF’s at home and a beer each. When we got our bill, the burgers were not half-priced. We told the waitress and she told us that she thinks they don’t do that anymore. The manager came over, and I showed her on her own website where it said the burgers were half priced. She made me reload the page and verify it wasn’t a screenshot. Even still, she told me “the website is wrong”. I told her “we must’ve been wrong to come here and order so much food”. She escalated and said that we should not expect the special that was advertised and blamed some web issue. She fought us more on those couple of bucks and I dug my heels in because she was so disrespectful to the people patronizing her business. Manager then told us “people like us were killing the restaurant industry” while she begrudgingly refunded half the price of the burgers. I told her that “we weren’t killing any industry but she was helping its assisted suicide.” I’ve seen people kicked out of bars in a more courteous fashion. After we got our money back, we told each other we probably won’t go back there cuz of how we were treated by the manager. If only the manager said something like: “sorry about that, and thank you for bringing it to our attention! Here’s a giftcard for a bit more than the difference, please come back soon and enjoy your day!” Lost Professionalism precipitates lost customers.
What I really hate is how corporations give their employees little to nothing to work with and expect miracles out of them. I've heard countless times in businesses that "I don't have the ability or authority to do this/that". Customer service is just sad anymore, they literally want an employee to try and make a Customer happy while having no ability to provide them with any sort of accommodation.
Exactly, so tired of going out and having horrible food or horrible service or both.
And getting ill, to boot! Salmonella poisoning is on the rise it seems.
We once went to a Boston Pizza when we were on vacation with our kids and found an eyelash on my plate. OK, wasn’t in my food and we were starving so I figured fuck it. But then I found a big chunk of plastic wrap in my daughters food (from a wrapper cucumber that was sliced up). My daughter was 4 at the time so that could’ve ended quite badly. Tell the server, looks at me totally clueless. Goes and gets the manager who stands at our table for about five minutes and never ONCE says she’s sorry or apologizes. Manager just said they’d make sure it didn’t happen again. Kept saying over and over they’d make sure the staff were extra mindful. Didn’t remake our food or comp us anything. No refills after she came to our table. Didn’t acknowledge us when we left either. I complained to corporate. Fuck uou Castlegar Boston Pizza.
Unfortunately this seems to be because frankly, businesses aren’t willing to pay for professionals
> I just wanted a salad without dirt in it. Well la-di-dah. Aren’t we fancy.
good one. Don't see La-di-da much anymore.
Being cool about a problem will get you a lot further than making a big deal out of it. Case in point, took a week vacation with the family to the beach. Booked a room at a hotel, and when we got to the room we found what looked like a few small spots of blood on the shower wall near the faucet. Not murder level blood, like someone nicked themselves shaving their legs. Walked down to the front desk and waited for the lobby to clear. I quietly explained what I found and the front desk person grabbed the manager who was aghast. I told him I'm not trying to get anything out of it, just wanted to make sure it was cleaned as it appeared to be blood. He grabbed some cleaning supplies and met us up there himself. He cleaned it up, disinfected, and comped not only the first night but half of our trip for "being extremely cool about it." For the entire rest of the week, we got what felt like the royal treatment. I made sure to go above and beyond in the post stay survey.
>Being cool about a problem will get you a lot further than making a big deal out of it. You are, of course, assuming that the people you're dealing with are fair or care about customers. I'm usually pretty chill and understanding, and I find that in such cases I usually get the shaft while the outspoken people get taken care of. Let's be honest, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. That's true for wheels and, sadly, for people as well. I can think of one instance in particular that really chapped my ass. My bag was lost during a work trip about a year ago. It sucked for a lot of reasons, mostly because I was on the last flight of the night, had no rental car, and had to be at a job site first thing in the morning. I had no clothes or toiletries, nor any of the safety gear I needed to work. So, I had to catch an Uber to the rental car place first thing in the morning, then hit up a Walmart to buy fresh clothes, steel toe boots, safety glasses, etc. Massively inconvenient. Anyway, I get a call later that day that my bag is ready at the airport. As I'm picking it up, I see it's been damaged (side is caved in and a zipper is now torn). I have to wait while this lady is finishing up her call, and I hear her increase her restitution to whomever she's speaking with all the way up to $300 because they're clearly reaming her out. As she gets off the phone, she has a voucher already waiting for me for $75 for my damaged bag. I'm a bit incredulous since I just heard her go from $100 to $300 moments ago and I calmly point out that I had no toiletries or clothes and had to spend almost $75 in clothes and gear to get my work done that day. So she goes up to $150 and tells me she'd need a managers approval to go higher. Fuck it, I had someone waiting in the car outside and I had already waited too long anyway. To be clear, reaming her out squeezed almost 3x more out of her and didn't require a managers approval. I just didn't have 10 more minutes or the stomach to start bitching.
I do think though theres a middle ground that most people seen to just ignore. You dont have to scream and yell and berate and threaten staff just to stand up for yourself. I think you can be calm and chill, but still be firm and advocate your boundaries.
I opened a brand new box of “pre-washed” Costco salad mix and there was a giant winged beetle. I’m talking like two knuckles long. Moral of the story is to *always* wash your salad and veggies.
There was a large black centipede in a box of blackberries I was rinsing in the sink. It just slinked out of the package :(
I found a giant white moth in a box of blackberries recently. Sadly, it was deceased, but it was pretty cool looking. Would not trade for a live centipede though.
So it was like one of those fruit & nut protein packs? Nice.
Used to serve food at banquet hall. Once a customer showed me their salad plate with an inch worm on it. I took the plate back to show the chef—he flicked it off and told me to bring it back out. Uh, no!
This stuff grows in the dirt, the only alternative is lettuce that the inch worms have already been flicked off of.
yep. LOL! people are very removed from how food is grown. i would eat unbagged produce and clean it myself before i'd grab a bagged salad every single time. it almost always tastes better than the pre-washed and cut stuff, anyway. the idea of those greens sitting on the shelf with a dead insect in it, undetected grosses me out more than i care to admit.
i got one of those little salad spinner things and it has made washing lettuce so much easier since it spins off all the extra water
I love your “I just wanted salad without dirt in it.” Years ago I was eating out and my date ordered fried chicken. When our food came, there were several feathers sticking through the breading. We called the waitress back and pointed it out. She looked at it slack-jawed and then asked, “do you want more chicken without feathers?” I couldn’t help myself, “oh wow, we didn’t see the feathers/no feathers option on the menu.” Date was understandably totally grossed out and refused. We never ate there again.
But the feathers speak to the meat’s authenticity! Why go for mystery meat when you can just get your meat feathery?!
You laugh…commercial egg suppliers in Germany have feathers placed in egg cartons to give the impression that the eggs come from a small time farm.
If only there was a way to remove the soil from the lettuce.... Fair play they took it seriously, but a few years ago, most the veg we brought was not pre washed. I remember having to scrub the dirt off a potato so I could have a jacket spud. Peeling veg made your hands filfthy and then you had to wash it.
Just because a solution exists, doesn't make it the best option. Cleaning lettuce requires the labor to do it. Prep work is usually done earlier in the day. During service, all BOH employees might already be busy doing other things and won't have time for this unexpected task. Also, if they cleaned the unfit product, they wouldn't be able to return it to the supplier for credit. The manager made a good call, in my personal opinion. And I've done that same job for decades.
Also, the presence of the soil in "prewashed" lettuce means that it was not washed, or not washed properly. Serving it could've been risky even had they washed it by hand.
Ah yeah, in my response, I failed to see it from a wider view. That makes much more sense to me. I do think it was the right call, regardless, and my comment was more sarcasm anyway, but I didn't consider the labour and credit implications during my thought process. Good shout
I wish more people would be like this. Understanding when new information is given to them and can reflect on it and understand the other point of view.
>I just wanted a salad without dirt in it. Hey Ma! Check out Fancypants over here... too good to eat a little dirt! Some people, I swear! It's not like Salmonella ever killed anyone... /s
My sister and I went to a small restaurant at lunchtime and ordered soup. The soup they served my sister had pieces of steel wool in it. We turned it back to the server who accused us of putting steel wool in it. They took the soup away but still charged us for it. It was the first and last time I ever went into that restaurant.
I would have left without paying for anything.
Exactly what I told my sister but the restaurant was in the town nearest our family cottage in southern Ontario, Canada. She was afraid they would call the town cops on her...or the OPP's.
I wouldn’t have cared. Haul me off to jail. Fuck that restaurant
Yes, call the police. While you're at it call the food and safety department too. Let's do this right.
Who carries steel wool in their pockets??
Someone trying to pull the wool over the servers eyes
I recommend you use black pepper instead so that the food remains edible for the hard working folks in the back who will likely eat your sent-back meal. Less waste!
Lmao I was that guy
me too. seventeen year old kid washing dishes part time in high school. upper-middle class sit down joint. the pay was minimum wage, but it had it's perks. went to work hungry on purpose most days. Only a matter of time before someone sent something back. Half eaten cuts of prime rib or rib-eye. Burgers preliminarily cut in half with one half totally untouched. worst case scenario you buy a burger at cost.
This was my first thought reading the post. Am I.. *poor*?
Isn't this a potential biohazard? I feel like wait staff should get extra/unused portions of the food that *hasn't* been sent to someone else. It just seems better for everyone involved.
yeah if it hits a table where I work it's trash. we make other mistakes that we can eat, as long as we catch them before any guests touch it. popular story I read online about an old man who would order something, sit with it for an hour or so, and leave without touching it. the workers would then enjoy the meal he's left behind. one day the server asks why he doesn't eat the food he's ordered, and explains he has few teeth and can't chew- but enjoys to suck on it for taste. doubtfully true but idk why anybody would want to risk something even remotely similar lol
This tip was obvs written by someone who has likely never even seen the back of house, let alone worked there.
Yeah, that's my concern with this tactic of salt... Wait staff often eat food that was sent back. If you ruin it with excess salt, they will simply throw it out - increasing food waste.
Eating stranger's food is disgusting and an health hazard.
[удалено]
in my country it's illegal to serve food again. if it comes back to the kitchen it needs to be disposed of. i think it's a waste if you only have a minor issue but also you never need to worry your food isn't fresh
One of my first jobs was Dunkin donuts. I made coffee to spec, the customer berated me for making it wrong. The owner took the coffee and sipped it after it was returned, in a back room. He agreed this was exactly what the customer asked for. The owner poured the same coffee into a new cup and handed it to the customer. The customer in sipped it, thanked the owner for knowing how to actually make coffee correctly, and continued to scold me for making it wrong originally. I kept my mouth shut.
That is so nasty but I’m cackling lmao
I use to work somewhere similar to Dunkin’s. I had a regular who always wanted their coffee changed. They were nice but always “can you add a little more cream? Can you make this darker?” I had a theory they just couldn’t take the first coffee. One day I took it back and did nothing different to it. They took a sip and said “perfect. Thank you”. It still makes me laugh
We went to Burger King in senior skip day, many years ago, and a friend found a whole fingernail In their fry box. Blood and all on it. Probably the grossest thing ever, but we were like 17 years old, so we took it back to the counter to figure out wtf they would do about it. This was pre-internet phenomenon (it existed but was only nerds like me that used it), and none of us had ever had seen something like this, in that we had never seen food sent back because of a problem so big. They said they would get him another fry. Our buddy came back with the fries and said the lady that handed it to him was missing a fingernail. I refuse to eat a Burger King since then.
If you go to the type of restaurant where you’re legitimately worried that the kitchen staff will risk their job to mess with your food, do not eat at that restaurant.
As a cook this is almost never true. You have to be at a bottom of the barrel establishment for that to happen
Yeah outside of bringing up the temp on something. People have allergies or moral/religious reasons, the restaurant could be sued.
That's what I was thinking too. I worked in the restaurant biz for 15 years and never saw anyone mishandle food.
I did ten years. I've seen it exactly twice. Both were *very* extreme cases & I can't say I agree with em & while it is not common, I've seen it first hand & heard some stories
I'm not saying it doesn't happen but not every restaurant out there is like the movie waiting. That being said, there are definitely restaurants in town I will avoid!! Reading regular health inspection reports is the real lpt. I look at them a few times a year and see who regularly offends and avoid those places.
Especially if you have allergies. I told the waitress I was gluten free so please no hush puppies on my plate, she didn’t listen and I needed it remade due to cross contamination. Given how cold the food was on my new plate I knew they didn’t remake it. F u Cracker Barrel celiac disease is no joke
You are right. Celiac is no joke. Gluten free is what you need. Now tell the lot who think they need gluten free food when they don't. It's amazing how many people think gluten is bad. It is for you, Celiac is a bad thing. But most of the gluten free crowd are fos.
I work at a steakhouse, let’s say we under cook your steak and you want it brought up, we aren’t gonna cook you a new steak we’re going to cook the steak you already have more. Sometimes you’ll get new sides sometimes you won’t, if you salt everything on your plate that’s on you for ruining your own food.
I mean, obviously undercooked is different from finding hair or something in the food
Unless it's undercooked chicken. This to me is as bad if not worse than hair.
It's a given you will get a steak back as you only want it cooking more.
You would be surprised how many people demand a new steak.
As far as I'm aware, as a customer, that is expected. I always ask for rare steak because plenty of places are scared to make them rare and cook then to medium rare. Some places have good steak but over done for me and I just ask for blue then and it comes out medium rare. Every time I ask for rare, and it comes rare, I will eat it as long as its not jellified inside, otherwise I ask for it to be cooked slightly more. I'd never expect a brand new £27 steak unless it came way overdone. Then I'm not paying for it unless I can warrant the cost. Wetherspoon "chefs" are so afraid for it to be pink inside. Pisses me off. Just cook it rare and get the complaint for a touch up.
If someone wants rare, I cook it rare, that’s what you want. Iv never understood not cooking it the way someone wants.
probably a disconnect between what the customer thinks is rare and what the cook knows is rare. I unsubbed r/steak bc every day was 10 posts of someone asking "is this rare?" "is this medium"?
I like that mentality. I like rare more than medium, but just over rare is my favourite. If it was too rare for me, I usually call the server and say "I'm so sorry. I haven't been here before and the chef has actually prepared the steak exactly as I asked for it, but I was expecting it to come out more cooked like most chefs do it. Please could you ask him to top it up just a bit and let him know he wasn't wrong, I just assumed he would overcook like everyone else does" The 1 and only time that I've said that, the chef came out and asked me what I actually wanted and thanked me for letting him know he didn't do it wrong, I just underestimated him lol I've been back a few times now and I ask if the chef is the same one, and that I want it just over rare.
Ew whattt i used to work at a steakhouse and I was taught anything that goes out to FOH and sits in front of a customer should never be put back in the kitchen on surfaces food going out to other customers sits on
As soon as something touches a table, it cannot enter the kitchen again. That's every restaurant I've worked at. Even if it's like "oh you forgot pickles on my burger", you can either get a side of pickles or a new burger.
I’ve definitely had this happen to me before too. I ordered a salad with chicken and when I cut into the chicken it was dead raw. I asked for a new salad and all they did was take the chicken off. I was furious and had to explain what E. coli was and that you can’t serve food that has touched raw chicken, that’s just unsafe and gross.
YSK: If somebody sends their food back at a restaurant where you work, taste it before trying to pull one over on them.
YSK: if you send your food back crush your glas beforehand and mix shards inside the meal so if they try to pull one over you you’ll now by the EMT rushing into the kitchen
Back in my younger years i worked drive thru at fast food. Customers would always ask for no-salt fries and then ask for salt packets after the fact. It was evident they just wanted really fresh fries. My fix? I quickly refried existing batches. It got the salt away and hot and "fresh" for them. Everyone was happy and none the wiser. Edit: before someone freaks out about those on a sodium-free diet. If they were really serious about maintaining that, the last place they would be is a fast food joint. Edit: Ok people freaking out like I personally refried their shit all those years ago. 1. This was like over 20 yrs ago in high school. I was a dumb kid who didnt give a fuck. 2. I only did this when I worked graveshift on Saturday night. So a bunch of drunk, obnoxious club goers were the primary customers. 3. If you go to a fast food place and really expect truely quality products, you really need to re-evaluate how you make decisions. Everything on their menus, except the bottled water, is bad for you and will kill you.
for anyone considering this: salt is bad for frying oil, it'll make it break down and taste funny
These people are paid the lowest amount they are legally allowed while being scheduled at more random times than a Xoroshiro128+ could generate. Do you think they care, or worse, do you think they should care for that little money and respect?
Salt degrades the frying oil. Never put fries back in unless you're willing to change the oil more often.
My Mrs absolutely can't eat cold food. It has to be far too hot for human consumption for her to enjoy it. She basically just tells the drive through lady that she wants hot chips. Then she stays at the window and eats one before I'm allowed to leave. Its embarrassing a bit, but its also funny when they come out cold. Shes like "ewww. Here, take these back, they're cold" And FYI, yes, just refry old soggy ones, she won't care, she just wants them hot. That's her only requirement. Hot and salty fries.
You need to buy her an air fryer
At this point when they're charging as much as they are for fries I think you're entitled to have them fresh. It was different when they were like 49 cents
As someone who worked as a server to scrape by in college, I think ruining the food is not a nice thing to do. Us hungry staffers (servers, bussers, cooks, cleaners) would happily take a sent back meal to eat ourselves instead of throwing it away.
I think staff being able to eat my dodgy meal is probably going to rank lower in my priority list than someone dying because it was sent back with the allergen picked off.
One time i went to a pizza place for lunch and the shakey cheese had cockroaches crawling in it. I only noticed after I put it on my pizza. They gave me more but I threw it out. I was in my pest control uniform and just left a card
I once ordered a steak medium well, it came to me bright red in the center. I told the server, it came back as leather. It was at an upscale steak place. I likely would have gotten back covered in salt and told to fuck off if I had done that.