ALL ABOUT FOOD: The tipping point

A friend told us a funny story the other day when we found ourselves in a conversation about bad restaurant service. She was eating at a local restaurant that shall remain nameless and had taken a few bites of a really gross appetizer. She complained to the waitress who replied, “Well, now you’ll know for next time!”

There have been a lot of articles in the newspapers recently about restaurant service. There was a “diners’ bill of rights” and an article about how high-end servers are trained, and it got us thinking about poor restaurant behavior on both sides of the table.

In the not-too-distant past, we wrote about an experience we had in town where we waited for 25 minutes before our order was taken. After 15 minutes, the waitress flew by and said, “I’ll be right with you,” and then we didn’t see her again for another 10 minutes. When she finally arrived, she took our order and then disappeared for the rest of the meal.

We had to pour our own wine, ask a busboy for bread and water, and send an overcooked entrée back with another waiter whom we had to flag down. The only upside of the experience was that we got to gripe about it in print. Neither of us has been back.

On another notable occasion, a very pleasant server made a terrible faux pas one Wednesday evening when he responded to the question, “Is the fish fresh?” by saying, “ Oh yes, we get it in fresh every Friday.” We haven’t been back there, either.

All of this raises the interesting question of how important service is to your dining experience. How awful does it have to be to keep you from returning? If the food is really great will you tolerate bad service? Does the restaurant have problems with organization or training, or is the problem a single server? There is no question that inadequate service can ruin a pleasant night out and that really good service can make an ordinary meal into something special.

Of course, from the servers’ point of view, there are also bad customers. Finger-snapping, for instance, may result in the addition of something you don’t want to know about being put into your food. Waiters hate to be summoned with that gesture.

One server we know told us of a client who had not been ready to order on either of the two occasions he had approached him, so he went to take an order from another table, at which time the ungentlemanly gentleman began snapping his fingers insistently at the waiter, who was still occupied. The entire restaurant heard the waiter’s reply, “Sir, I’m not a dog.” The man was quite meek when the waiter returned to him to take his order.

Wait staff put up with a lot. At times, serving the general public can make you misanthropic. People can be fussy, demanding and particular, especially when it comes to their food. Perhaps, this happens because food is equated with nurturing from the very beginning of life and we all have our issues.

From our days running A La Carte, we know from personal experience how frustrating it can be to maintain your equanimity while trying to please all of the people all of the time. How many times a day can a person politely answer the question, “What’s in the tomato, basil goat cheese salad?” or, from a complete stranger, “What do you have that my husband would like?”

However, at the end of a meal, the customer has the last word since the final reckoning is the tip.

According to Nation’s Restaurant News, one in five diners refuses to tip for sub-par service. Four out of five say they cut back on tips for bad service. Women are better tippers than men, and older people are the least likely to punish someone for inadequate service.

We do know of one story where the waiter had his revenge.

When Scott Cheesman, a friend and trainer at Laguna Health Club, was subsidizing his career as a bicycle racer by working in a restaurant, he approached the job, as he does everything, professionally.

Restaurant service is a profession in spite of the few who regard it as something to do in the meantime. As such, the waiter deserves as much respect from the customer as the reverse.

Scott waited on a young couple who were unusually friendly and quite chatty with him during their meal. They enjoyed their dinner and everything went smoothly.

After they left, he was very surprised to discover that on a $36.80 bill, the man left $37.

Four months later, the same man returned with a different young lady on his arm.

Scott recognized him and asked to switch tables with another server to wait on them.

He went over to the table and politely greeted the man and in a friendly manner said, “Oh, last time you forgot your change,” and reached into his pocket and dropped two dimes noisily onto the glass table.

He then proceeded to wait on the couple graciously, wondering whether the girl had asked her date what that was all about.

In any case, this time at the end of a $22 meal, the guy left $40 on the table.

In the old days, an expensive meal entailed dealing with a formidable waiter in a tux who often made you feel inadequate for fear of using the wrong fork or mispronouncing a foreign term on the menu.

He never told you his name or asked how you were doin’. In these days, when restaurant dining in California has become more casual and foodies abound, the reverse may be true.

The bottom line is that when we go out to eat, the one thing we expect is to feel that we have been taken care of. By the same token, if the service has achieved that goal, the waiter has the right to be taken care of as well.

ELLE HARROW and TERRY MARKOWITZ owned A La Carte for 20 years. They can be reached for comments or questions at themarkos755@yahoo.com