Dining Out Pet Peeves

Depending on the size of the restaurant, they may not have anyone available to answer the phone at all times.  It annoys me, too, but it wouldn't prevent me from going there.

Even if you were in a wheelchair and you wanted to make sure they were open for lunch on Saturdays?

lately i've eaten at a lot of "order-at-the-counter" places. and there's some sense to the practice in terms of streamlining the process. the peeve part is when you don't get a clue (like a sign saying "order here") that you're in such an establishment. 

RE- The open for lunch for a handicapped customer... If I called and got no answer, I would probably consider that "an answer" and not go to the place, rather than go and find that they didn't answer because they weren't open !!

As was mentioned in the original list which started this thread, it drives me crazy that some restaurants don't post their hours on their website.  That has to be one of the two or three most likely reasons someone would even go to your website.  Why not post it?  Just ridiculous!

Al - it became a peeve when we found out later they WERE open.  We ended up eating at a real ****hole next to the hotel rather than push the party in question 4 blocks away to where they wanted to eat for their birthday.  

buffetbuster


As was mentioned in the original list which started this thread, it drives me crazy that some restaurants don't post their hours on their website.  That has to be one of the two or three most likely reasons someone would even go to your website.  Why not post it?  Just ridiculous!

I wonder how much this omission is due to poor website planning/design? The owners aren't sure what their hours will be or don't have any easy way of changing the hours if they post them on the website, so they just omit the info & hope people wil call?

rainyday6


Even if you were in a wheelchair and you wanted to make sure they were open for lunch on Saturdays?

Well, no...nothing that specific.  I was responding to a general complaint about a general happening.  Being that I am not in a wheelchair (which as near as I can tell is completely irrelevant to the complaint) I have no answer as to how I might respond in that exact situation.  Why does being in a wheelchair come into the equation, anyway?  Is it somehow harder to pull into the restaurant parking lot due to being wheelchair-bound?  I'm afraid I don't quite understand.  Everyone I know in wheelchairs finds it no harder to pull into one parking lot than another, so I think much like the first post a pertinent detail might be missing here....

Edit:
And having read the few posts after, I see that in fact I was correct.  You never mentioned in your original complaint about not answering the phone that you were walking with someone in a wheelchair and wanted to find out if the restaurant was open on a Saturday.  Now that we have all the information (although I hate to assume, since you've required three posts thus far to explain what you were actually complaining about), I can see where it would affect your decision whether to go there or not.

Out of curiosity...did you call just once and decide against going because they didn't answer, or did you try several times in case they were busy rather than closed?

It was annoying w/o the wheelchair involvement.  It became more annoying with the wheelchair involvement, as well as other details.  But I stand by my original complaint, that if they don't post their hours and don't answer the phone, that is annoying.
 
1.  No one had a car; we were all staying at the same hotel.  The municipal bus with a wheelchair lift only came once every 2 hours on Saturday.
2.  Birthday girl very large with broken femur in oversized rental chair and no pre-booked wheelchair van scheduled that day.
3.  Restaurant supposedly fabulous and unique.  Worth a copious amount of elbow grease pushing Birthday girl up a fair grade 4 blocks, if food and libations were waiting.  Not worth it if we immediately had to push her back on empty stomachs with no alcohol.
4.  I was hitting redial right up until we ordered at the crappy place.
 
Anyway I'll peeve my way and you can peeve your way.
  

I think it's annoying when they don't have a website & they don't have their menu online.

stricken_detective


I think it's annoying when they don't have a website & they don't have their menu online.

Why a restaurant goes to the trouble of creating a website & then doesn't have even a sample menu on it always boggles my mind! A lot of them also omit the hours/days they are open.

^^^yes! What is the point of that?

My best friend did sales for Ameritech Small Business for a long time & she would share stories of customers who hadn't even CONSIDERED being listed on the internet, let alone having their own website. Once it was explained to them, the business owners could see the value of it, because "what if?"

What if someone is having company & needs X? How will they find you? A lot of them would say, "Well, I'm listed in the Yellow Pages!" but I can't remember the last time I used an actual phone book.

One website we have for our area, foodspot.com makes a good effort to have most places listed & their menus online. The prices might be different, but at least you can get a ballpark & see what you might like to have.

Especially for The Contingent, it's good for me to see what they have so I can make a plan.

Bringing some nice sort of bread to your table, along with some ice cold,  rock hard butter!

You hand your check card to the cashier to pay your check and she says "Sorry, we are strictly cash only." (happened to me today)

That drives me crazy - do they keep that stuff in the freezer?  That is the quickest way to ruin a nice warm piece of bread or a roll.
 

cavandre


Bringing some nice sort of bread to your table, along with some ice cold,  rock hard butter!

I hate when the waiter/waitress tears the top inch of the straw wrapper off of my straw before bringing it to me.

Uhhhh... you touched my straw!  A fly could have landed on it!

I also don't like when they remove most of the paper and only leave an inch on the top part that isn't in the drink.

Please let me unwrap the entire straw the way that I want with my own sticky fingers.

mar52


I hate when the waiter/waitress tears the top inch of the straw wrapper off of my straw before bringing it to me.

Uhhhh... you touched my straw!  A fly could have landed on it!

I also don't like when they remove most of the paper and only leave an inch on the top part that isn't in the drink.

Please let me unwrap the entire straw the way that I want with my own sticky fingers.

Haha, I agree!

I saw this list by a restaurateur of 100 things that servers should never do - Part 1 & Part 2.  From the list, it is evident that informed people in the restaurant business are well aware of their customers' peeves.  That's another way of saying that his list has most of the peeves that we've listed in this thread.

There's a blog discussion here, with this great line:

This entire list could be summed up in two sentences: "All the folksy crap you did at Applebee's? Drop it."

My peeve is waiting.  The worst was over 20 years ago while at a place in Knoxville.  I was waiting for the check and it did not arrive.  I finally spotted my waitress BS'ing with some friends in the back of the restaurant.  My group got up and slowly prepared to leave - she still didn't come.  So we slowly walked out of the restaurant.  When we got home, I called the restaurant manager and told him what happened and why we left without paying.  I gave my name and address and told him to send me the bill.  He never did.

the straw thing reminds me of a friend who used to turn the straw upside down in the drink so i could have a sip from the clean end!

JRPfeff


I saw this list by a restaurateur of 100 things that servers should never do - Part 1 & Part 2.  From the list, it is evident that informed people in the restaurant business are well aware of their customers' peeves.  That's another way of saying that his list has most of the peeves that we've listed in this thread.

Did you read through the comments? There's over 450 of them...but some are really interesting. It's an interesting perspective of how some feel like he's touching on all the right points but others feel that he's going WAY too far and would never eat at a place with all those rules. I for one agree with most of his list but it is a tad pedantic don't you think?

Some of the funny ones:

"I would love to get a job at your restaurant just to break as many of your rules as I could before I got fired and caused a scene on the way out. This would include telling many customers that they were my favorite to touch inappropriately and giving specials with no prices."— Joe Ricchio

"So very grateful for this useful little list. Yes, at the end of Rome, they argued over points of order and bits of manners. I find the entire list comic, surely it’s Swiftian humor? Please admit it! A joke, right? About distraction, about what we think matters, in a world gone made…? Is he a conceptual artist, dealing with our innate shallowness? No? It’s not a joke? Oh dear. The world is out of joint, we know that. Pardon me, if I rain on the parade, and find this entire business of codes for waiters deeply, deeply sad. And fatally smug." — Rollo Baskin


"Good luck staffing your new restaurant. With humans." — Cate Sullivan

"Mr. Buschel obviously wants to provide gracious, civilized service, something I haven’t run into since I was in France. To all you people who go to restaurants to interact with the staff: Denny’s is open all night." — SleepsWithCats

"Here is my list: Things That Are Very Easy 1. Making a list of of stuff that works in some situations and not others. 2. Running a restaurant into the ground. 3. Hiring teenagers that don’t care about your list. 4. Getting self-important people to agree with you if you tell them that everything in life should go their way." — Spence

"#101 Always know the origin of the pepper in the pepper mill. Is it Malabar? ( Malabar pepper allergies are serious ). Is it Tellicherry? Was it grown on an easterly or westerly sloping hillside? Nothing can devastate a patron’s life more than the humiliation of having to inquire, particularly when they are waiting to enjoy their amuse-bouche accompanied to the lilting sounds of a delightfully muted flugelhorn. And if the patron does find herself in this victimizing and potentially life-threatening position, then for God’s sake do not refer to her as maam. A simple Imperial Royal Highness, Empress of Table 22 will do." — Matt
"If my friends and I were to demand an amuse-bouche for every infraction of a waiter at your restaurant, would there be any room for the main course?"— sam

Here's a waiters take on the list:
http://www.slashfood.com/...imes-takes-on-service/

It really bugs me when the server shows up at my table to take my order and he/she has several facial piercings.....and I'm not talking fast food restos.

Hey we had one the other week with 42 tattoos and this week our waitress only had 11 tattoos.

EatingTheRoad

mar52


I hate when the waiter/waitress tears the top inch of the straw wrapper off of my straw before bringing it to me.

Uhhhh... you touched my straw!  A fly could have landed on it!

I also don't like when they remove most of the paper and only leave an inch on the top part that isn't in the drink.

Please let me unwrap the entire straw the way that I want with my own sticky fingers.

Haha, I agree!

 
I don't like it when the servers pick up the glass or cup by the rim to fill it up. It's not like the servers have cooties, but you just don't know what those fingers were recently touching.

Why did the waitress last night at the Tilton Inn, NJ have to give me a dirty look when I asked for some more ice water?!?

Just say "sure", instead, okay?!???

buffetbuster


As was mentioned in the original list which started this thread, it drives me crazy that some restaurants don't post their hours on their website.  That has to be one of the two or three most likely reasons someone would even go to your website.  Why not post it?  Just ridiculous!

Worse is when the days/hours on the web site are wrong.

MiamiDon

buffetbuster


As was mentioned in the original list which started this thread, it drives me crazy that some restaurants don't post their hours on their website.  That has to be one of the two or three most likely reasons someone would even go to your website.  Why not post it?  Just ridiculous!

Worse is when the days/hours on the web site are wrong.

One of my favorite haunts keeps changing their hours and days of operation - I just know to call before I plan a visit there.