BLASPHEMY!!!!
There are some phrases that I absolutely LOVE to hear my customers say. Of course, I’m being very sarcastic. In fact, these couple phrases sink my heart to the very bottom when I hear them. So, here are a few:
“We’re going to be here for a while/We’re just visiting” – this usually means that my customers are knowingly going to be taking a long time at the table. So, a lunch that normally would be 30-45 minutes, they’re now going to be taking 2-3 hours, occupying my table and limiting my ability to turn the table for more customers.
“This steak is overcooked” – Of course, either the kitchen messed up or I accidentally entered the wrong temperature for the steak. The result of this is a complete do-over on the steak. This is much harder to hear than someone saying that the steak is undercooked. At least we can cook the same steak a bit more.
“What does gratuity mean?” – People who regularly eat out understand the meaning of this word as being a more proper name for “tip”. Only two reasons a customer would say this and neither of them are good: either they don’t understand the concept of tipping, or they’re illiterate.
“Which of these wines is your best White Zinfandel?” – I’ve already spoken of my abhorring of White Zinfandel, being that it’s basically alcoholic Kool-Aid. I generally laugh on the inside when I hear this question.
“I’ll have the Pasta Alfredo” - This one may not seem so bad…if you worked in an Italian restaurant. I do not. When someone orders this dish, it tells me two things: they aren’t interested in trying new things and they don’t eat out much. Restaurants put this dish on their menu because it’s “safe”. People know what this tastes like, so if they see big words on their menu that they don’t understand like “Bernaise”, they see “alfredo” and go “ooh! I know what that is!”
“Let me see your manager” – Pretty self-explainatory. 99% of the time, this is not a good thing to hear your customer say.
“I didn’t like it.” - Most often than not, this is actually followed by a self-pleasing chuckle by someone who thinks they’re being original and funny by handing me an empty plate and being blatantly sarcastic. This joke is old. Please stop using it.
Please, feel free to add your own favorite phrases.
How about the one, “Are you the manager”? No, I’m the only schmuck in the building wearing a suit. I must be a suit salesman.
I tell ya what, everywhere I go in my uniform white shirt and black pants, people ask me if I work wherever I am or if I’m the manager. I’ll be walking around in Wal-Mart and people will stop and ask me “excuse me, do you work here?” or “Excuse me, where are the _______?” If I’m in a bad mood, I’ll point them in the exact opposite direction they need to go.
how about merlot pronounced as Mer LOT
Do you have any bread? Most commonly asked by 200 Lbs guests or larger who ordered a single course that takes longer than anything BUT a well done 2 ” thick steak naturally.
Anytime I run food for someone else to the other end of the restaurant and then they ask me to get them something like ketchup and I cannot find their server anywhere so I have to make two trips. One with the food and the other the return trip with the ketchup or side sauce or whatever it is they want. This is an exercise in frustration. Meanwhile there are things to do in my section. By the way really like your blog. First time coming across it.
Thanks! Tell all your friends.
“Is the grilled Salmon, grilled?”
“Is the Clam Chowder, creamy?”
Stupid questions like these (the ones which make me think, where in the hell is common sense) make me want to take my pen and do things.
“I’m in a hurry”
Ugggh…. we’re not a fast food. Foods gonna take awhile, if you only have 15 minutes go somewhere else. I mean seriously!!?? Who do you think you are?
“Is___(Insert boss’ name)__ here today?”
Another way of saying “I’m a friend of your boss, so I expect loads my drinks to be free and apetizers signed off.
many more…
I worked at a fine dinning seafood restaurant on the gulf coast and i was amazed how many people would actually ask if the salmon or lobster was locall, especially since our menue stated we serve cold water australian lobster tails!!!! and who ever heard of Gulf of mexico salmon!!!!
They should ask whether the clam chowder is Manhattan or New England style. Manhattan Clam Chowder isn’t creamy. I think. If I’m wrong, please be gentle.
“What are those little numbers next to the food? Oh, those are the prices?”
Never a good sign.
” We need seperate checks.”
Autumatically makes me mad, and the bigger the table, the more irritated I am. What’s worse? For some ungodly reason my restaurant allows any number of people to have seperate checks. It really backs you up when your 25 top at lunch wants seperate individual checks. Then, you have 25 people shoving their cash or credit cards in your face because they have to be back to work.
This reminded me of something that happened a few years ago…lol!
My favorite was one time I had a party of 15 but they had seperate checks. We auto-grat parties of 8 or more. He threw such a hissy in the restaurant because his seperate check didn’t justify the auto-grat because he was only paying for 3 people, therefore he only had a party of 3. I explained nicely that even though he was only paying for 3 people, he was at the same table with 12 other people for a total of 15 which was well over the “parties of 8 or more”. He stood up in the chair and screamed across the whole dining room that I insulted him and he refused to pay for anything, My payback was when he walked out the door without paying a thing. Thank god for the law of “defrauding an innkeeper” in NC. His cheapbutt went to jail!
how about when you drop the check and someone at the table says “jokingly” : “oh we didn’t order that” ha! ha! ha! sooo funny. Like I don’t here that every shift!!! uhgggg
I just tell them “Not to worry, we give those out free with every meal now!” with a big smile on my face then walk away. The thing that really ticks me though are the people who want water no ice then complain when the glass is not filled to the rim with it. Um, the ice keeps the water from sloshing onto my tray, that is why I don’t fill it all the way. Of course then comes the ‘joke’: since I didn’t need the ice you can take a dollar off my bill, and no straw, take off another nickle”. Oh. Your mr. funny man. Let me just laugh myself till I pee. And btw, your one dollar tip for running my ass off for just ‘one more’ of whatever, yes, that will pay my electric bill and cover my rent for the month. Thank you oh benevolent one.
My response… “It’s complimentary with every meal”
How about “is that extra?”
What they want to hear: “Oh no, sir, we just add aaaaall that stuff onto the top of your steak for free.”
What I say: “Uh, yeah. It costs $.99 extra.”
And their response: “Oh, well, then no thanks.”
This tells me 1.) You can’t read and 2.) You’re a cheap SOB.
If you can’t spend $.99 to make your meal a little tastier, my tip probably won’t make it over the $5 range and my mood has just dropped for the rest of the time you’re here. THIS IS A STEAKHOUSE. If you are that cheap, you shouldn’t have been allowed through the front door.
Ok, agree with everything I’ve read. I’m not in the restaurant biz. I’m a nurse and therefore need to be at people’s beck and call all day long as well. I also was married to someone who was a chef, so got to know the business a bit…and learned very quickly how to be a good customer and treat the staff well. I always try to group any requests…i.e. water, bread, etc….rather than thinking of something new for the waitperson to bring me each and every time I catch their eye. I don’t linger forever after my meal, and unless you are outright rude to me, I usually tip 20%…and THAT’S usually on the total…not pre-tax. So, honestly, I think I’m a good customer. I will have to say, though, your comment about customers’ little joke about the food being bad…when their plate is clean and they’ve obviously liked it, strikes me as a little mean spirited. Yes, you may have heard it all before. Just like their are certain little things that I hear over and over in my line of work…but, geez, you’re criticizing someone for tring to have a little fun and be upbeat. THEY don’t know that you hear this every day…20 times a day! (Obviously I’ve said something similar so, am feeling a bit sensitive…tee hee).
I guess my point is…kvetch to us about the things people do that are rude, thoughtless, mean, or degrading. Don’t take the piss out of us for trying to be friendly and jokey!
I like to do the ‘can I see your manager’ thing when I’ve gotten great service.
#1 unfunny and overused “joke”.
Me: “May I start you out with Ice water or bottled sparkling or still?”
Guest: “Oh, we’ll just have Chicago’s Finest”.
oh. tap water. ha ha ha.
We call our Cops “Chicago’s finest”, not our water.
its even funnier when our restaurant is located next to one of the rivers and you tell us to fetch it from there.
That’s funny, I haven’t heard that one.
The most common joke I find people overuse is something to the effect of “You’re going to have to get a wheelbarrow to get me out of here. I’m so stuffed!”
Har har har….
One of my absolute favorites…
When asking a customer how they want their steak/burger/fish cooked…they either look at you like you just asked them to compute an impossible equation…or they say “Well on the grill of course”–usually followed by an uproar of laughter from all of the other ignorant people surrounding the table. Wow, that’s a new one! I’ve never it heard before! It’s a real knee slapper! Now, you unamusing schmuck, can you please tell me the temperature you would like your steak cooked or should I have them steam it in the dishwasher for you?!?
At this point, if I would like to salvage any kind of server-customer relationship, I will have to laugh out loud along with the rest of you (even though I would rather eat said steak off of the floor of the kitchen). Having to pretend to laugh at a completely idiotic remark made by my lovely, ignorant, red-neck customers physically causes me pain…just for future reference.
In addition, if you find this remark amusing…when I do finally calm down the rest of your loyal laughers and get you to tell me the temperature you would like your steak cooked, it will most likely inlcude something along the lines of “Well miss I want it done, but not burnt, you know–like no pink, but still juicy” Just so you know Funny Guy it is almost impossible to cook your steak well done and have it still contain “juices” as you so brilliantly put it. So…judging from this statement, your steak will more than likely be sent back to the kitchen for being cooked incorrectly, resulting in a nonexistent tip for yours truly (because I have everything to do with the way your steak was cooked! Right?).
So, in conclusion: please when I ask how you want your steak cooked…give me a straight answer because otherwise…you are a complete and total waste of my time, and having a conversation with you has just made me lose a few of my highly valued brain cells.
I know this is late but I have never understood the autograt bit and the anger over splitting a check. You don’t get pissed when you work in a clothing store and six girls come in and all buy something but pay seperately do you? You don’t get mad when eight friends go to the movies and they each buy their own ticket.
Get over it.
And I don’t tip unless the service is incredible. I mean, far and beyond, your job is to take my order and bring me my food. If you do that you are doing your job, if you do more than that you deserve a tip. Unfortunately I hardly get incredible service. I work very hard at my job, I deal with the public and I provide advice on what to purchase, I deal with idiots and people that complain about prices and I never get tipped…because I’m not a food server. I don’t understand where this “you MUST tip me” mentality comes from.
You obviously haven’t been raised to appreciate the effort that other people put into your personal experience. Buying a meal at a restaurant is nothing like going to a retail establishment, or a movie theater, and if you can’t see that, then I’m sorry. Whatever your job is, you probably get paid more than minimum wage to do it, and it sounds like you have to deal with a lot of problems your employer has, but that does in no way make your profession similar to waiting tables. It’s the way of the world, Ashlee, that waiters make a lot less in hourly wages and yet we still do our job to make your experience as pleasant as possible. Why? Because we rely on the tips of our customers. If it was customary in your profession for a customer to tip “purchase advice givers”, you’d probably be getting paid a lot less by your employer, I’d imagine. It’s a risk people take every day to walk into a restaurant and rely on the gratitude of others to pay your bills. Yes, maybe that gratitude has become standard operating procedure in this society, but it’s still gratitude.
The fact that people like this, who think its “OK” not to tip, are walking around having kids is a shock to me. I understand where your coming from Ashlee, but the best way I can put it is this. Imagine you have a shitty day at work…Now imagine you didn’t get paid.
Welcome to the Server’s world.
In response, ashlee, servers get paid around $2.00 an hour. how much do you get? plus on top of that, we have to run around 10+ tables, to the kitchen and back again without you noticing that we are loaded with heavy, hot plates, for your sh***y 10% tip. restaurants are not in the business of marketing a product. they are there to market a special experience and service. its an intangible thing combined with a tangible product (food). you are there for the ambience, the decor, to be noticed by other diners and be in the company of others. eating is secondary. so ashlee, until you get paid $2 an hour and must depend on others to pay your bills, and running around the whole restaurant dont give me your “i dont understand” mentality. i bet you work at a desk answering phone calls, not running around your office and not making $2 an hour.
Ashlee, the average servers makes less than half of what a fast food cashier does, but has far more responsability. If tipping was not customary most restaurant meals would easily cost between 50 and 100 percent more. These people go out of thier way to serve you as you would like to be served and you repay this by leaving no tip at all. This is completely ignorant. I am sure you make make much more money at your job than servers do.
I do agree with you about autograt and splitting a check. Autograt usually leads to very poor service without much recourse. Splitting a check takes only a couple of minutes longer to accomplish so just do it and get it over with.
Autograts are there to ensure the server gets a decent tip; usually a larger group will take a lot more time and effort, often leaving the server in the lurch when it comes to gratuity. I’ve worked places where there was no autograt and once waited on a large party that took up nearly an entire shift. The bill came to nearly $300.00 for seven people (for a luncheon at a casual place, quite a bit in those days) and I was left with NO TIP. Nothing for the entire shift. Splitting a check for a couple is usually no big deal, but splitting a check many ways takes a lot of time that could be given to other customers. I’ve worked in retail as well, and there is a big difference in ringing separate sales for people who happen to be together and splitting a check for a group of diners. The diners sat down together, ordered together, were served together, but pay separately; now all of a sudden, they are not a group, but individuals? The organization for taking orders and serving a large group is very tricky, not at all like ringing up sales in a department store.
You’re obviously retarded and oblivious to the restaurant business. Some people will just never learn/understand. I’m sure if you got paid $2.83 an hour instead of your minimum wage, you would understand completely where we’re coming from. You can ring up your teenage girls 8 different purchases on a busy friday night at the mall with a miserable face and with no customer service skills (as i assume you probably dont have since you obviously dont know how to treat your waitstaff) and still get paid your pathetic minimum wage regardless. Unfortunately we have to deal with your ignorant asses and laugh at your stupid jokes, refill your unsweetened iced teas 7 times, and bring you 3 baskets of bread just for you to completely stiff us and have to pay for YOU to sit in our already small section for the past hour. Thanks lady, you realllllly made my day! =)
servernotslave I just *heart* you. I think Ashlee is a Celebrity, what do you think? lol
Aw, JoJo. I *heart* all my readers. It makes my blog stats graph light up.
Lol yeah Mer-LOT, SALLLL-min (Salmon), Sur-lawn (Sirloin). I used to love to see those people come into Applebee’s dressed to the T and order these off the menu. Thank goodness I’m out of there.
And oh yeah Ashlee, the reason that splitting a check 15 different ways irritates us is not necessarily only because the party came at one of the busiest times of the day, showed up 20mins after their reservation and still expected to be accommodated so that they could all sit together, complained that their 15 steaks took too long to cook “well done” and sent three back because they were “overcooked”, occupied two (maybe three) different tables long after their plates were cleared, and then acted as if they were in a hurry to cash out. It is usually because the people like you at the other table in our section that do not understand this process and think that, even though they see us on the floor busting our asses, somehow we are back in the kitchen screwing around so much that we intentionally forgot the 3 lemons and 6 packs of sugar that you requested for your water and use THIS as the reason for you to feel good about yourself when you lay your head down at night after not tipping on your “ordinary” experience.
I went to a restaurant where they added on automatic gratuity, and the server took it as being OK to slack off a little bit. The majority of our table didn’t add anything extra due to the shitty service, and as we were walking out, she said, out loud,” Not a single tip!?” No, bitch, no tip for you.
This is absolutely hysterical, and I can’t wait for my co-workers to read up on this!! =] I absolutely love the people that are dyyyying for your attention while your at another table… Shaking that glass, pointing to their half-full salad bowl while gnawing on their bread( my oh-so-corporate restaurant offers FREE refill salads… ),… I just get all giddy inside when a game of sharades presents itself. At this time I go back into the cooler, and prepare myself for the task at hand. *&$@%!! you mother $^&%$#!!!!! Game on. =] Really? Manners anyone? And one more… If you are super busy, and then your sat again, so you walk by and politely say ” Hey I’m so and so, and I’ll be with you in just a minute!” and then … the SIIIIIIIGGGGGHHHHH… I would love to say ” Ok then, 10 minutes”
Love it, I’m still a fan of the following:
“Guiltless Chicken” said as “Gutless Chicken” and
“Fajitas” said as “FaGitas”
Classic…
Re: “Is the Clam Chowder, creamy?” I ask this question whenever a menu doesn’t clarify what kind of clam chowder they carry as, while New England clam chowder is delicious and creamy, Manhattan clam chowder is usually made with a clear tomato broth and gross (at least to my tomato-hating sensibilities).
Re: Post. My mother is a repeat offender of the “I didn’t like it,” etc jokes and my sister gets alfredo practically everywhere we eat because she is the least adventurous person out there (whereas I’ll eat anything – sans tomatoes).
I myself am horrible at mispronouncing dishes. I don’t even know how you’d properly say choucroute garnie or bouillabaisse or colomba pasquale, but I crack people up whenever I try.
haha, love the “alfredo” we throw people all the time with our chicken alfredo because they don’t read the menu, it says sun dried tomato alfredo with chicken breast, when they get it then they say; this isn’t like olive garden: DUH!!!!
i didn’t like it is usually followed by; we’re not staying for the drawing: when you present the check……. hahaha…… not funny anymore people!
“What is a ‘Scallop’ ?” I’ve actually had this question from foreign guests more than once at different places I’ve worked, and have yet been able to sufficiently describe a scallop to someone who barely speaks English. I tried bringing an uncooked scallop out from the kitchen once, but they look so oddly disgusting when raw, it usually makes them order the shrimp.
When I ask a table, “Could I brink anyone something to drink?”, of course it’s, “I’ll just have water”, or “No. I’ll have coffee”, or the like. What do you plan on doing with the coffee, sir, wear it as a hat? I’ve tried re-phrasing the question, but other than continually listing ALL the liquid possibilities, why can’t anyone understand that I’m offering to bring them ANYTHING THEY WANT TO DRINK, not only alcohol? I’ve finally settled on either, “Could I bring you something while you look at the menu?’ or “Would you care for anything while you’re waiting (for another guest to arrive)?” The only trouble here is, they often order food, and I’m just stopping by to say hi while on my way to the bar!
Another one, having worked in a seafood restaurant for many years where we served Clam Chowder daily: Make sure there are a lot of CLAMS in the chowder, and not too many POTATOES.”
Anything classified as Chowder must have for its two main ingredients Potatoes and Celery. That’s what makes it a Chowder. Whatever else comes with it as a variable makes it either Clam Chowder, Corn Chowder or or whatever, but it is still going to loaded with potatoes, because that’s what it is. You don’t order a Caesar Salad and ask for not too much lettuce – that being pretty much the only ingredient! If Clam Chowder did not have mostly potatoes, it wouldn’t be Clam Chowder. It would be Clam Soup.
Of course I couldn’t say that snidely to a customer, but I’d just say I’d do my best. Of course, the kitchen is not going to pick potatoes out of a bowl of chowder, so they get what they get.
When I ask if they’d like another Diet Coke, “Do you give free refills?’ “No, sorry.” “Well then, I guess I don’t need another.”
Do you want a soda or not? You want one, but don’t want to pay for another full pint of a beverage, you want it free.
One minor irritation for me is when I’m twisting the cracked pepper over someones salad or whatnot and they chime in with “You’re going to break your arm because I LOVE pepper!” Har har!
But the one that really chaps my hide is, “I know the owner.” I worked at one restaurant who had a fabulous owner. He always had our back, yet was extremely personable with the customers. We worked together often and I was often asked by customers if I was his wife. (Nope) There were numerous times where people would tell me that they knew “John” like that was going to change my whole way of waiting on them. I finally started replying with a bubbly (fake) laugh, “I know “John” too! Isn’t he great!?!
I work in a brewpub and one of my favorites is “You got any beer here?” Haven’t heard that one before! I always tell them we’re fresh out….
I wrote a similar article on this subject but you nailed it here.
I waitress, but i remember a time when my faily went out to eat to a different place. i ordered a stake and when the waitress ask how i wanted that, my mind went blank. of course the first thing that cam out was that i wanted it over easy. that was embaressing.
My favorite saying (not) is “I the server: is there anything else I can get you?) Customer: (Yeah a million bucks)
If I had a million bucks do you really think I would be talking with your dumbass?