13 May 2002

We had, this past weekend, what was certainly the worst restaurant experience of the year - and maybe in our lives. At least, I can't think of a worse restaurant experience.

This was me and Matt and K.T. and Kevin. Saturday night, we decided to go back to Bennigan's for dinner. We'd gone there a couple of weeks ago for K.T.'s birthday, and K.T. had gotten this really fantastic salad that I wanted to try. So we went.

Kevin got home from work a little after seven, and we almost immediately piled into the car and went down there. We might have had to wait fifteen or twenty minutes for a table - not bad for a Saturday, really - but we were certainly seated no later than eight.

A quick examination of the menu discovered that the salad I'd wanted was no longer being served - the menus were brand new for May. We must have caught them on the last day or so of the old menu, before. Well, that's the way things go. K.T. and I started looking for other options.

The waitress came by and took our orders: Appetizer sampler and burgers for the boys, broccoli appetizer for K.T. and I to split and a pasta dish for K.T., pork chops for me. K.T. and I each also ordered a salad, with the dressing that had graced the dinner salad that was no longer on the menu. The waitress brought our drinks, and disappeared.

She reappeared shortly thereafter to tell K.T. that they were out of her pasta dish. K.T. grumbled and mumbled and settled on fajitas. The appetizers appeared shortly after that, and disappeared quickly.

As we were finishing up with our appetizers, the waitress came to apologize for our food taking so long. We didn't think too much of it - as a group, we hate being given our meals while we're still eating appetizers. We gave her the empty appetizer plates, and sat back to chat while we waited for our meals.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

She came by again, and I asked for a refill on my tea.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

We asked a random passing waitress if we could talk to a manager.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Our waitress stopped making eye-contact with us when she walked by the table. In fact, she went so far as to lift her hand to shade her eyes from us a couple of times.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

I grabbed her anyway and asked her to please refill my tea. She snapped, "Just a minute!" and stalked off. When she came back with the tea, we asked her if we could talk to a manager. She agreed to fetch one for us and left.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

At nine o'clock - more than an hour after we were first seated - Matt finally stood up and accosted the guy bussing the table behind us - which had received its food about the time we got our appetizers. "Take me to a manager," he said. The busboy tried to tell him he'd bring one, but Matt was having none of it. "Take me," he said, looming over the kid, "to a manager, now." The busboy led him off, and K.T. and Kevin and I exchanged looks.

Shortly after Matt was led away, a different waiter came around with our food. (Lacking the salads K.T. and I had ordered, and with the pepper on my porkchops that I'd asked to be left off.) "Can you bring us some boxes?" I asked him. "We've been waiting so long we're not hungry any more."

This waiter knew enough to at least pretend to be sympathetic. He apologized profusely, put our food on the table, and went off in search of boxes. Matt came back to tell us the reason we hadn't seen a manager was because all the managers in the restaurant were either working the kitchen, or working the kitchen and waiting tables.

The good waiter returned with boxes for us, and another apology. As we were loading our food into the boxes, our waitress came back with some boxes as well, and...

No, really, you're going to love this.

... our check.

We were just about to work ourselves up into a collective froth when a manager finally appeared and asked what was going on. "Um," said our waitress. "We're just giving them some boxes and the check..."

The manager snatched the check from the waitress' hand and crumpled it. Which was just about the only decent move they'd made all evening.

I can understand the kitchen being slow when they're short-handed. Shit happens. But I'd have appreciated being told when we sat down that the kitchen was running slow. Kevin had just gotten off a twelve-hour shift, and was going to have to be up at four in the morning for another twelve-hour shift. If we'd known our food was going to take an hour just to get to us, we'd have gone somewhere else.

Failing that, the waitress needed to keep our drinks refilled and not get surly with us. The restaurant needed to apologize every five or ten minutes for the late food, and possibly supply tables with bread and butter, or some other easily-prepared food to keep us fed.

And we should never even have seen that check.

Shit happens. We understand this. But the way to keep a customer is to make sure as little shit as possible happens to them. It will be a long damn time before the four of us go back to Bennigan's.

--Liz