Why do we go to restaurants?

We each have different reasons. A special occasion is one reason. Many of us eat out one, two or more times per week. I have friends that never make dinner.

I am the cook in our family and a good one. My wife does the cleanup. As a treat and given our busy schedules, once or twice a week we go out.

I enter a new restaurant with high hopes and anticipation. Yet more and more often, I leave disappointed. Sometimes it is the food. It can be poorly prepared, overly ambitious in its presentation or just plain awful. When that happens, I will go back after a while to see if it was just a bad night or something more. Seldom will I give it more than two tries.

I like eating out because I want to be served. Too often that service is poor in quality. You will see poor service in all types of dining establishments. The industry is known as the hospitality industry for a reason, and restaurant staff need to understand that concept.

I grew up in the restaurant business. I worked in restaurant kitchens and dining rooms. I toiled in hotel dining rooms, catering halls, places with French service, casual restaurants, and greasy spoons. Each type of establishment has differences in the food served. How formal or casual the service is will depend on the type of restaurant. However, casual dining does not mean inferior service.

In places that were formal, the Maître D’, captains, servers, and bussers were professionals. They were not ever going to be anything else but restaurant people. Occasionally, there would be someone like me, a student or as a second job. Even the short timers knew what was expected in the dining room.

I have two recent examples of what is unacceptable service and two of very good service. We recently ate with another couple in a restaurant in Hobe Sound. With everything I had heard about it, I planned on having an excellent experience. Was I wrong!

The server, a young lady, announced that she had just started at the place. I don’t know why that should make a difference. She then disappeared for 15 minutes and re-appeared to take our drink orders. Then another 15 minutes passed before coming back with the drinks…a vodka on the rocks and a glass of wine, not exactly complicated cocktails.

Every diner at the table should be finished with their meal before removing any plates. I have a particular peeve about that, and I cannot say how many times I have admonished a server for doing so. She fell right into that trap. She also had half the orders wrong, brought appetizers out for us at different times, and kept announcing that she had just started as if it were her get out of jail free card.

A couple of weeks later, we are eating in another restaurant when almost the same excuse was used by the server, “I have only been working for three days.” My wife and the other couple could not have been more accommodating when she made the same mistakes as the previous server in the other restaurant.

Finally, when she got the order wrong, drinks mixed up, left the water glasses unfilled, and many other mistakes, I had had enough. When my wife and the others continued to reassure her, she was doing just fine.  I said no she wasn’t. This is her profession for right now. She is expecting a tip and she is getting paid. She should spend some time learning her profession. Harsh…maybe?

I have heard many say there isn’t enough people to work. I don’t buy that excuse. During the same period, I went to two comparable places in ambience, price, and type of food. We had professional service.

There were plenty of servers and bussers on the floor. I also saw managers and owners that knew their business and would not have allowed mediocre service or food in their establishments. A new hire should always be assigned to an experienced employee to learn the ropes. The staff in these restaurants were professionals. The owners made sure that the employees knew that there was a team effort to serve customers.

It is about time that we return to the days when working in restaurants was treated as an occupation and profession not a fill-in until something better comes along. And you should never hear, “I have only been doing this for 3 days.”