So my parents are in town from Florida.  After a trip to some cousins’ house here in Brooklyn, we went to a nearby restaurant with my uncle too. A staple restaurant in the area that I’ve been to many times over the years.  Great Italian food and dessert that’s just incredible.

But…

The service was so frickin bad. Dreadful. No water when we sat down,  the food came ridiculously late, over a half hour after we ordered it. I’m not sure how long it was but trust me it was way longer than usual.

The waiter came by sporadically, just saying that it would be out soon. We ordered it to come out all at once, so that might have made a difference.

BUT THE WAITER NEVER SAID ANYTHING.

My parents pasta dishes finally came out. My uncle and I had ordered pizza and that took another five minutes to come out. And the place has pizza always ready to go. It really should be easy.

AND OUR CALAMARI STILL HADN’T COME OUT

A few minutes later, that came out too.

My stepfather’s pasta was cold, the calamari was tough. And the waiter took forever to come back to get our dessert order.

The three elders were upset but calm.  Me? My temperature was rising. I was going to talk to someone and demand we get a discount off the bill.

Then some chooch came over to confirm the dessert order.

“Are you the manager?” I inquired.

“I’m the owner.”

I let him know that the food took forever to come. He was aware and then proceeded to tell me that I “need to be understanding” because they “had walk ins on top of reservations, and a few big parties.”

Ok look.  I’ve worked in restaurants,  plus I’ve eaten in plenty. I get it. Things don’t always go smoothly.

I replied with something eloquent like “Yeah, but we waited 40 minutes.”

And then this SOB tells me that my “generation needs to be patient” that we “always want things now.”

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME WITH THIS DEFLECTION OF RESPONSIBILITY!

A simple “I apologize. The kitchen’s been backed up.  (Item) will be on the house” would have sufficed.

At that point, adrenaline was pumping. I was seeing red at that point and I could barely put coherent sentences together.

I then said “Are you kidding me? You just INSULTED ME? I can’t believe you just said that!”

“No, I insulted your generation.”

Then my stepfather, calmly, said that my claims were right and the guy responded better to him in a respectful tone. Ok, I may have started it a little too amped up for a restaurant and he matched attitude. But come on, it’s a customer service/hospitality field he’s in. Food late almost an hour has no response other than an apology.

I didn’t even want dessert anymore, but then realized that their dessert was the whole reason why I came. It’s pretty exquisite and since I’m never going there again,  I might as well enjoy it.

My parents were startled at my getting riled up. All I needed was him to get how upset we were and admit bad service without justifying. And without insults : )

Dessert came. Yes,  it was amazing as always.

My stepfather picked up the bill.  I suggested no tip whatsoever.  I know I know servers depend on tips, but our guy was awful on top of the kitchen being slow,  if that’s what it was. He didn’t check on us, didn’t explain what was happening better. My steppops didn’t agree with my opinion though I think he got a small tip.

PS In this day and age of social media, one might go online and start ripping the business/owner a new one on Twitter, Yelp and Facebook, tagging the establishment. Truth be told, I’m not that guy. At least not with a still-relatively small local business, with God knows what connections, ifyouknowhi’msayin. Maybe that attitude is a remnant of my growing up in a neighborhood rife with mafioso. This isn’t a huge faceless corporation and I’m not going to go on a Tweet spree to cause a PR fiasco and get my point across, like Kevin Smith did when kicked off a flight for being too fat.

This restauranteur clearly didn’t give a rat’s ass.

Ok ok, i wrote a bad review on Yelp after all.

Take THAT, chooch!

Posted from WordPress for Android