Make Restaurants Great Again
What Will It Take To End The Mediocrity Of Restaurants
Sitting in what is supposed to be one of the best restaurants in the area and we’re both trying to not let the experience bother us.
We don’t go out for many meals anymore these days and this place is checking all the boxes.
Friendly greeting when we arrive for our reservation, and sat promptly, both of which are great starts. The table we are seated at is wobbly, I slide a few sugar packets under the leg to level it off, crisis averted. As we sit for 5 minutes with no greeting, no acknowledgement, no water, nothing at all, the clock begins to run in my head, “how long before we get up and leave?” We’ve done it many times, and we’ll surely do it again, but we’re just trying to relax and are both grinning and bearing it.
Finally our server approaches, dirty ass apron front and center. She supplies the required inaudible greeting and gets our drink order. The drinks come out, the cocktail is a disgusting sweet bouquet of potpourri and my beer is fine.
Now it’s time for the four off the menu specials she recites with enthusiasm of someone describing their upcoming colonoscopy. If you’re going to try to convince someone how special this stuff is then fucking do it, at least act like you give a fuck.
The service, per usual is bare minimum. A rushed check in of quality before we have had a chance to even try the appetizers, which neither are good, but the clam chowder is offensively bad. Should we tell them we don’t like it? What’s the point.
The entree’s are unsurprisingly mediocre with the temperature request of the steak on the salad being completely ignored, as always.
A final check in from the server, while carrying a full tray of dirty dishes which is a huge pet peeve, is extra rushed and doesn’t allow for me to complete my request for a box. Apparently I insist on taking home leftovers from every meal so I can discard them in my home trash can for some odd reason.
Next it’s my favorite part of every meal, where we are held hostage while we wait for our check to arrive, or for our server to linger over us with a tablet in hand that has been jammed in said dirty ass apron. Now we are given the ultimate responsibility of paying for the service of this employee who has not been properly trained, can’t wear a clean uniform to work, and generally doesn’t give a fuck about our experience. We pay the check, tip our server for her shit service and crappy food, and go on our way.
We are on vacation so it takes us a little longer to start the usual dialogue. One of us starts it, not sure who, “that was trash.”
And so it begins. An hour long discussion of exactly why we don’t go out to eat. We can recall only a few times in the last five years where we really enjoyed our experience. That’s a problem.
Disappointed. That is the adjective that most frequently is thrown around as we discuss. Mediocrity has become the new normal.
Quit blaming Covid. Quit blaming rising labor costs, rising food costs, rising utility costs. Start giving a fuck about the experience you are providing, about the quality of food you are serving, about the cleanliness and ambiance of your restaurant.
Is my restaurant perfect, nope, far from it, but we care. If you have a bad experience it kills us, everyone from the service staff to the dishwasher because we are all striving for excellence. I know how hard it is to make it in this business, which is why it pisses me off so much to spend my hard earned money with a restaurant that doesn’t give shit about they are doing.
As a consumer I am looking for the same thing as everyone else, good food, good service, and genuine hospitality. Unfortunately I can’t seem to find these things while I’m looking at a dirty apron, sitting at a wobbly table, and staring at a burned out lightbulb.
Some Upcoming Topics:
There are too many restaurants.
We focus too much on new restaurant openings.
Local food publications are trash.
We need real restaurant reviews again.
Restaurants are not for everyone, and have no obligation to be affordable to all.
Tipping is bullshit.