What do you consider a good or acceptable level of service?

By service I guess I mean to be in a restaurant or similar. Your context for this post is that I was in a very long meeting today and missed a whole argument about this in one of my group chats and I was annoyed to miss it in real time!

So anyway. Cultural attitudes on this certainly differ. Let’s not get into tipping; as a general rule I think you should certainly tip for places where it’s customary to do so and, like my dad, I tip pretty well.

To me, the mark of customer service in a restaurant is brisk but friendly. I do not care for the kind of fawning level of service that some people (I am referring to people in the gc) think constitutes “good,” to me that is excessive. I will also go on the record and say, especially in this day and age of Pret and similar forcing their staff to smile etc, that I don’t even care if you’re surly. People have bad days, tiredness, painful periods. I’ve been there! Just do your thing, unless you’re actually rude I promise I do not care. I would rather someone be authentically tired or whatever rather than faking a smile on whatever wage to appease their Pret bosses. Yuck.

But then the view from others is; I’m getting a SERVICE from you, you need to smile/do whatever I ask and like…I don’t get that at all. I get very uncomfortable if there are staff hovering around in a restaurant or similar. People always talk about Japanese customer service being a gold standard in this department and maybe it is, but I don’t speak Japanese so I can’t personally know. If I’m spending my money in a shop, I want to be able to find what I’m there for, buy it and that’s that. If it’s a specialty place, of course having extra knowledge adds to the experience, but that’s not most of our experiences by a long shot. And for restaurants or cafes as above, I’m almost never there by myself so unless I have to wait for the bill a very long time when I’m in a hurry, I …can’t care that much?

Clearly I’m a bad person to start this thread, but I’ve typed the post already, so tell me!

The main thing that bothers me, and which I think gets more common as I get further into middle age, is being completely ignored for long stretches of time as I'm trying to ask for something. If I'm at a restaurant and I spend twenty minutes trying to catch my server's eye so I can ask for the check and never get through, or if I walk up to the front desk at my gym with a question, but all the staff just keep chatting with each other and never even look in my direction, that gets frustrating really fast. It's not even the inconvenience that bothers me so much as the feeling of being invisible.

Yes that is annoying. I remember going into a comics shop to see if they had the new Wicked and Divine at the time (lol). There were no less than five men crouched around a laptop at the counter. I went and had a look myself for like ten minutes, then got bored and went up to the counter, and one of them eventually deigned to look up after I’d stood there for a few minutes - silly, thinking a person approaching your counter would draw attention - and look it up for me.
“We can order it in though.”
I passed.

I think my preference is for service to be a little more relaxed, that is to say more natural or casual in demeanor than starchy and formalized. That’s the main thing. I enjoy it when the server and customer are sensitive and responsive to each other’s cues, and emphasize that this is a two way street. I think it takes real skill for a server to initiate the interaction in a lighter way without overstepping , or without sounding like they’re reading off a cue card when they’re probably done this a million times in the last 45 minutes. I don’t think anyone likes fawning overattention, and as a general rule I like to be left alone. But I’ve had fun experiences getting drawn into conversation when it’s not just politeness. One time, memorably, I went to a restaurant alone and insisted on sitting outside during a downpour. The server… inquired as to my mental health lol but I was already soaking wet anyway when i got there, by the time i left we were practically bff’s.

You know what’s really great? If someone is comfortable making recommendations. I feel like this is putting you on the spot a little bit, if you’re a server. Nobody wants to be blamed if it goes badly. Also nobody should feel burdened with deciding for me. But just in a 'you know the food here, I don’t' kind of way. idk i hardly ever eat out tbh

In restaurants, for me, basically not bad service = good service (no hyphen there; by not bad, I don't mean mediocre). It's like umpiring; if I haven't noticed anything, that's good service.

One thing I'm not crazy about--not wildly so; just wish it weren't standard practice where I am--is when the server asks me if I have any plans for evening as I'm paying the bill. If I led a more interesting life--"Meeting Beyonce and Jay-Z for drinks at 8:00" instead of "The library, then home to scroll through endless movie choices until I settle on something I've seen five times already"--I probably wouldn't mind.

I've heard about servers trying to upsell.. like if you order the cheap cut of beef, they'll say things like "I hope you like chewing!"

i'm pretty firmly on the side of gyac's original post when it comes to this. my partner expects a little more from service. i basically make it a point to order extremely simple things in order to not make it hard for the server / food service staff. menu options only, mostly--i rarely ask for substitutes. my partner on the other hand has a nose for sniffing out the things on the menu that they are probably out of or that probably involves some kind of complication, or for modifying it in a way that almost invites some miscommunication between the service and food server staff to happen. then he gets miffed when it's done incorrectly. he kind of relishes the opportunity to do special snowflake orders lol. this irritates me slightly. not enough to be an imcompatibility, just one of those things that i have to brush off.

i have been ignored by staff occasionally in a way that feels unfriendly, not in a "we're slammed right now" kind of way. those places i won't go back to if i don't have to.

xp i feel like i finally found a good stock answer for "have any plans today?" from the grocery checker at trader joe's: "just living".

ideally the people serving in whatever context are interested in helping me get what im after- im a reasonable customer. after that im easy.

friendly is excellent, on the ball is best.

inattention, getting it badly wrong without setting it right are pretty much all that id every actually consider problems and i dont reckon either is a high bar

Certainly not all customers are easy going. Have certainly never, for example, witnessed you harangue a bewildered Frenchman with “The Fernet is over there, garçon!” for example.

literally all I want is to be treated like the server would presumably prefer to be treated on their own nice night out, or crappy morning if it’s my first coffee of the day. Grinning isn’t even necessary, just do the job right, move quick as you can, politely apologize if something gets fucked up.

I’ve worked customer facing food service as well as back of house, I know more than enough how things can go wrong, so all I really feel like one can demand is (as above) respect and a good effort - now when you don’t show me any of that, if you make me feel like a chump for having trusted you with my requests, I will tip the same %age nonetheless because people deserve to earn a living, but I reserve the right to talk mad amounts of dire shit about your place of employment and never patronize it again

hello Washington DC’s own ZAYTINYA, fuck the fuck off forever

But everywhere else is mostly good and I am happy to support any and all ballot propositions that support living wages for all hospitality workers wherever they work because most of them are really trying their best and probably suffering at least some degree of wage theft by their employer

Shops are different, for me, I almost never need or want any help in a shop of any kind, and in the USA, if I do, I’m probably fucked anyway because there’s nobody walking the aisles who actually works for store or knows anything about the place

yeah i'm with gyac and map on this, maybe even more militantly so. lets just move along and keep everybody's day as smooth as possible please

I recently saw an article about how Target is instituting some kind of corporate policy where if an employee is within 10 feet of a customer they are required to smile at that customer, and if they're within five feet they're supposed to ask you how it's going, and if they can help you find anything. Fortunately for me, the employees at the Target I go to in rural Montana are either unaware of this policy or couldn't give a fuck. I just want to walk into the store, grab a cart or basket, get everything I came in for, and leave. If self-checkout is an option I will absolutely use it. That's good customer service, to me - don't get in my way. If I ask a question, have an answer for me, but I probably won't.

Food service is a slightly different issue. I don't eat in restaurants very often, but the thing about living in a small town and going to a few places regularly is that several local servers now know me by name and actually greet me when I come in. "Hey, [unperson]! How's it going?" Then I'm forced to smile and respond, instead of just saying, "Hi, I'd like the steak burrito and three carne asada tacos to go, please."

When I do eat in a restaurant, all I want is for you to get the orders right (my wife will probably request substitutions, I will not), bring them reasonably quickly, and be in the building and responsive to summoning when we're done and ready to leave. No need to check in mid-meal, just feed us and take our money.

don't treat me special or don't kiss my ass
treat me like the way you treat 'em up in first class

I used to not care that much about service - it was all about the food for me. As I get older poor service kind of ruins things for me. I don't care about friendliness, but inattentiveness just ruins a meal. A friend of ours has a wine bar near us and I don't go there as often as I should because the service is so casual as to be lackluster, like a 10 minute wait with empty wine glasses or missing silverware with no one checking in.

On the other end, I have come to really appreciate a certain kind of service you only get at certain classic old restaurants (at least in the US) where the waitstaff have been there forever, know the often large menu, and guide you through the experience. I have a group of guy friends, all 8-20 years older than me and we go out every two months or so to an old school Italian restaurant in Queens and I love the mild theater as they suggest certain appetizers ("maybe you want a little of this") and recite the long, long, long list of specials. Nothing pushy just a steady hand on the evening.

I want friendly but not fawning, overbearing or hovering.

Do not want: Chinese restaurants where the waiters HOVER and refill your teacup as soon as you drain it. Waiters who come past when you're mid-chew and ask you is everything ok/as expected (and similar desperate feedback requests). And worst of all - when they're altogether TOO ready to plonk down the bill and sweep plates away when you're barely done, which just gives that "please fuck off already" vibe.

But yeah otoh I dont want to be waiting 15-20 mins just to catch someone's attention especially if it is clearly not busy. Just gimme casual, friendly, promt but not inyerface.

friendly is excellent, on the ball is best

yeah the shit about target (see unperson's post) is both incredible and incredibly blind to why that chain is struggling. i worked retail for years and knew my shit but being forced to smile at ppl within a certain radius is absurd

food is different. for as many assholes i encountered working in book/record stores, it's an entirely different and heightened level of asshole in restaurants. presumably because they think their ability to tip or not tip entitles them to an extra level of subservience

also if your food sucks (which has almost never happened to me, although i *did* once encounter a bad bottle of wine during that performative thing where you take a sip and say 'very nice') it's probably not your server's fault

I've had a few experiences of forced small talk in London - felt v strange, like waitstaff were working off a script. You can instantly tell the difference I think between someone who does small talk because they enjoy it, or think of it as part of the job but not in a soul crushing way, and ppl who have been drilled to portray the role of Friendly Waiter Asking What You're Doing Next. These weren't chain places so it didn't even ocurr to me that they might be getting pressured into it.

Obviously not something I'd ever complain about, how much of an asshole would you have to be to do that. Just wish I could somehow telegraph "it's fine, you don't have to do that".

yeah the corollary is: how unreasonably irritated do you get because you have to interact with people as a customer?

balance in all things except with the staff in lush, a message has to be sent

Awkward or poor service leaves a memory and/or gives me something to talk about with whoever I am there with at the time, and thus it's unironically kinda my favourite service. Gimme punk (unfeigned, unsought) over commercial

I come from a non-tipping culture and I find average service to be a point of cultural pride. I like the idea that people don't have to fake that they love their particular job in the midst of it.

parisian service is part of the service

my favourite ever meal out memory was three hours of wet, sloppy and frankly indeterminate servings randomly placed in front of us by the least fragrant person i have ever encountered

it was a doomed restaurant concept and we had a voucher and by the time the dessert of vanilla icecream direct from the two euro tub landed out to us melted on a dinner plate with no further adornment we were already in paroxysms and delighted by the whole venture, it was like being in one of those immersive theatre experiences

A+ would go hungry again

There is actually an immersive bad dining experience in London, Karen's I believe it is called (clearly they did not understand the slang).

Looking it up the concept appears to hail from Australia.

Yeah, it fucking sucks! Most embarrasing Australian export.

A couple of months ago some absolute horror of a food influencer wore bodycam into the bakery where I get coffee at least twice a week, and tried to instigate a pile-on towards the young woman who served her. Very demanding, no please or thank you, seemed ready to yell. You could see the server kind of set her jaw and become terse as the influencer became more demanding and downright rude, accusing the server of smushing her turnover or whatever, and then sharing this ‘rude treatment’ with 100k followers.

Luckily, the influencer got absolutely monstered online for the best part of the following week and their career (as such) appears greatly diminished. The service at that bakery is fantastic and they keep it moving in a really pleasant way, which is all I can ask of being served in London.

think my idea of acceptable level of service is v much coloured by the fact that aside from caddying when I was a kid all my paid employment since has been retail. I don't eat out so my experience as a customer is all shop based. don't need/want staff to approach me but to be able to help me find the specific item I want if asked. as far as recommending stuff goes I am v reluctant to do this where I work cos I have no idea if liking book 'x' means you'll like book 'y' . if it's a vague what have you heard good things about I'll point out which books are most popular which isn't the same thing but keeps me from having to give an opinion. a customer did accuse me of giving bad service after I had thrown their half eaten sandwich in the bin after I had found it laying on a shelf where they had forgotten it until their return 15 mins later. apparently I should have put it aside. so people have different expectations.

the training literature where I work is v focused on friendliness to customers and approaching them within 2 minutes of entering store etc but practically no one at shop level expects or monitors this mostly because the staffing levels are kept as low as possible which makes some forms of what I would deem good service impossible ie if a customer asks for a book that I know is in the stockroom but not on s/floor I have to pretend we are out of stock if the shop is solo staffed at that time cos I can't go and get it.

Waiters who come past when you're mid-chew and ask you is everything ok/as expected (and similar desperate feedback requests).

I've experienced a more extreme version of this lately where the waiter comes by right after all the food has been delivered by another staff member, but almost before anyone can take a bite and asks, "how is everything tasting?" I would never do it, but I'm tempted to respond, "too soon to tell."

One pet peeve: menus that are clearly broken up into courses, or at least snacks, small plates, and large plates, but the waiter mercilessly informs you that the food comes out from the kitchen in whatever order they deem fit no matter how the menu is planned or when your order implies. I have never experienced this anywhere in Europe. I assume this is to head off potential complaints in case the kitchen is slammed as usually everything is sequenced just fine, but that little warning at the outset of the meal does not feel very warm.

I would love it if UK restaurants would do this:
1. bring a jug of tap water and keep it topped up, or even just have a jug amd glasses available at casual places (US lunch spots seemed to do this a lot - a few UK casual chains do).
2. if anything's not available on the menu, tell us before we start choosing! The number of times I've waited ages to give my order to be told "oh yeah we're out of that". I have a mental backup list now when I pick something.
3. Act as though we might want to order fairly soon after arriving and pay the bill fairly soon after finishing.
4. Have a vague idea of what the food on the menu is like/contains/comes with so you don't "just have to go and check" for literally every question (obviously if you're new that's ok!)

also if you have babies or toddlers on the table don't put a sizzling plate of molten pizza literally right in front of them saying "that plate might be a bit hot" because that won't stop them slamming their hand into it and getting burnt. I in turn promise to wipe up all the debris off the floor and tip nicely.

3. mist be acknowleged as fraught with the likelihood of not meeting cultural expectations either way tbh

the waiter mercilessly informs you that the food comes out from the kitchen in whatever order they deem fit no matter how the menu is planned or when your order implies. I have never experienced this anywhere in Europe

This is a thing in some restaurants in London, and I assume other cities in Europe, but I think to an extent the tide is turning away from the "let me tell how it works" BS and we are getting more bistro type menus again.

I associate it with the New Brooklyn Cuisine thing of the early/mid-00s. Sorry to hear it has reached other shores. The worst is hearing it described as "tapas-style" at a restaurant without any Spanish connection and no actual knowledge of tapas culture.

Other small plate places sometimes try to co-opt it, "Chinese tapas" and the like. It's cringe but otoh it's made me think about how many cuisines prefer having a bunch of stuff on the table vs the European starter/main/dessert model.

yeah it's p shit. vapid natural wine bars with bad wine and a few boring small plates of stuff that comes from a tin or packet, with giant, unpleasant sourdough. obv some places did/do this well but not the volume of them that there are now.

i do feel it's become a thing people complain about even as i think it's been moved away from, like a lot of the more popular restaurants in london the last few years are bistro/comfort food, as an opposite to that. but it can be v shit indeed.

especially compared to the fun of an actual tapas bar.

xpost

Waiters who come past when you're mid-chew and ask you is everything ok/as expected

this is really the only thing that truly annoys me, when my dinner conversation is thrown off by the third of fourth query about how everything is "tasting"

Has anyone ever had a server talk them out of a substitution? This happened to me once and it resulted in me enjoying the best burger of my life. I asked, "can I get that without X, Y, and Z?" and the server said, "you can, but I don't recommend it. Here's why: the X complements the Y and really brings out the [whatever]." (sorry I don't have specifics, this was probably 20 years ago, but the fact that I remember this experience at all is telling). Mad respect for this server, who was definitely taking a big risk, for getting me outside my comfort zone. I also get why other people (especially those with allergies) would be annoyed by this.

My basic strategy as a customer is to subtly signal, from the moment I sit down, that I'm on the server's side. Ideally I do this by telegraphing through my behavior that I have been on the other side of this exchange, and while they may be serving me tonight, I could very well be serving them tomorrow. I pile dirty dishes to make them easier to carry, engage in small talk if initiated, and just in general try not to be a pain in the ass.

Is this a class thing, this mild embarrassment / guilt about being waited on? I've dined with people who acted like Mrs Dalloway or something, never so much as acknowledging the people bussing the table or refilling the drinks, and it made me uncomfortable.

Mrs Dalloway says she would chide the servers herself.

Idk, maybe? I admit my view on the subject is somewhat coloured by an event some years back where REDACTED FAMILY MEMBER embarrassed themself at a restaurant they were at with me by getting narky over the fact my drink hadn’t come out yet. My drink, not even theirs, and I hadn’t said anything. I was waiting for them to come back around and assumed they’d either forgotten it or were handling several other tables, and like, shit happens. Anyway RFM was what I considered unnecessarily rude to them about it, I was mortified and said “Sorry, there’s no rush,” and RFM luckily then turned to me and said, quite pissed off, “Don’t undermine me!” So I was like, what the fuck is going on, how can we be so different on this subject? I would say that experience working that kind of job, which I do have and they don’t, might matter more?

I think I've had an acceptable service most times. Sometimes the food has been forgotten but its been remediated quickly enough.

Good for me, and I've found this in Vienna and Florence, especially, is how attentive and experienced the waiters are in the restaurants I've been. They say what's not available, knowledgeable about what there is and so on. They are all generally older than the youngish waiters in London.

Caveat is ofc I have eaten out far more in London, but I felt a difference in Europe between 'good' and 'acceptable' xps

I had an episode like that where a friend at my birthday dinner was very rude and bossy at a waitresss for what was perhaps slightly slow and awkward service but def nothing to raise a fuss about. I gave a big tip to make up for my friend's rudeness and when the waitress remarked on it my friend was like "see, it's the people with the highest standards who are the biggest tippers!".

He did apologise afterwards but fuck a little power sure goes to some people's heads.

xpost

my attitude to "service" was very much set during my time in the Czech Republic, where the deal was/is "this is my workplace, you'd better behave yourself or else" - this worked for me but American friends who were used to service culture sometimes found it jarring. I remember one time a (Canadian) friend found a small shop which sold rice krispies (this was 2003 and if you can believe it there were no shops in Prague selling western breakfast cereals) - the shop was in a distant suburb and she actually drew a map for me to find it, so I set off on an hour-long metro/tram journey. found the shop, but the rice krispies were nowhere to be found, so tentatively approached the shopkeeper who rolled her eyes at me and said "we don't sell them now, it was too busy." frustrating to leave without krispies but I had to admire her contempt for the idea of making money, guess it wasn't her shop and she didn't get paid any more if it was busy in there.

3. mist be acknowleged as fraught with the likelihood of not meeting cultural expectations either way tbh

I don't think I have many expectations for service on many fronts - just at minimum, competently provide the thing I'm paying for, please, whether it is a meal or a plane taking off and landing - but obviously I'd prefer it be pleasant and not stressful. So, as far as expectations go, friendly, attentive and reasonably punctual? Anything above and beyond that level is of course welcome. When something goes wrong I always assume it's out of the server's/service's control, like delays, backed up kitchen, short staff, etc., so I'm usually pretty patient. It's rare that I ever have outright bad service, so much so that when it happens I'm kind of left in shock.

bring a jug of tap water and keep it topped up, or even just have a jug and glasses available at casual places

No idea why but Europe seems to be anti-water, or at least restaurants never provide enough tap water. Like, especially when it's hot, just keep it coming! I was talking with my Croatian friend a couple of weeks ago, and he insisted his grandmother, who lived into her '90s, never drank any water. Which ... fine, if you insist, but keep the rest of us hydrated, please.

I pile dirty dishes to make them easier to carry

oh no

if I'm looking for a good Chinese restaurant I will find one with ~3.5 stars, and all the one star reviews will be like "the food was good but too oily and the meat had tiny bones, it was really noisy, the staff were rude and we had to share a table with strangers, we won't be going again"

No idea why but Europe seems to be anti-water, or at least restaurants never provide enough tap water. 

Dunno which parts of Europe you're talking about but in Portugal there was still a strong assumption until v recently that if a client wants water they should purchase bottled water (which the restaurant gets money from).

free water / refills is one of those odd American things where they are somehow less nakedly capitalist than Europe (see also the NFL draft)

This tangent is reminding me of the server in Oxford who kept saying "what?" when I tried to order water, forcing me pronounce it with a fake English accent. tbf "water" is the kind of word where my usually more rootless American accent is more noticeably midwestern, but I'm pretty sure she was deliberately messing with me.

That said I actually loved the surly service you would get there — grocery clerks were outright hostile — and am on the side of being basically uncomfortable with the idea of "service" in the first place. Suffering acute embarrassment from my Dad's theatrically highhanded affect with servers and working in a Subway during high school combined to make me tolerate virtually any kind of service. I also deeply detest chummy salesperson persuasion techniques; that's not really service, but I think the specific bad way that kind of interaction makes me feel makes me highly tolerant of muted/indifferent food service.

I do get antsy if I have to wait to pay though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MY4AUnZdpo

I went to England in 1990 and 1998 and found a big improvement in the customer service (read: more American) in the intervening years.

someone has never been to reading

I was in a small shop on a small swedish island in july, and the cashier also said "Have a wonderful day!" in english, really leaning in on the adjective

This is very unusual in sweden

I work in a library and I've noticed younger British people say "Have a good day/evening" a lot these days and I find being told to have a good evening by someone I don't know annoying - a simple thanks will suffice. Possibly worse is when people even say "How are you?" and variants as a greeting, good morning will do nicely. Tbf, despite the occasional irritatingly bumptious characters, people are sometimes just nervous and unsure how to act tbf, especially young people.

― Massage Attack (Tom D.), Thursday, November 13, 2025 3:06 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think this might be a you thing? I almost always tell people I hope they have a nice day/night/evening etc when I say goodbye to them whether they're colleagues or service industry people because I genuinely do wish that for them. Never once occurred to me that this could considered be annoying. :/ I was also raised by restaurateurs and grew up in the industry so idk maybe it's ingrained in me from that. I would feel like I was being rude if I didn't.

Could be. Just don't say it to me if you meet me then!

I mean, I grew up in a place which is famously friendly - though I'm not (lol) - people will talk to you unbidden and they'll chat away in shops but "have a good day" is not part of that, banter is more the order of the day. In fact, now I come to think of it, I have noticed that being quite jokey with people (in London) seems to either fly right over their heads or confuse them.

If I ever need Tom D in a professiobql capacity I will make sure to say goodbye with a hearty "best of British luck to you!".

“Smell ya later!”

xp you should really wrap that up with a hearty "God save The King!" before he's out of the door

actually with tom d on this, but i probably think it is my problem rather than the customers, i even posted about it on the irrationally embarrassed thread, 'hello' is all that is required when you approach the till with your goods. i'm not bothered by 'have a nice/good day' when they depart as it requires no response from me.

Get irrationally embarrassed when customers ask 'how are you doing today?' when I serve them at the till. Rationally I know that all that is required is for me to say 'good, how are you?' but I can never bring myself to do it. I don't really know why. I just carry on like they haven't said anything and scan their books and tell them the total.

― oscar bravo, Saturday, 21 December 2024 21:47 (ten months ago) bookmarkflaglink

it is just etiquette but i really cant make myself do it. it's 95% this feels so fake can i just pretend i havent heard you and 5% what business is it of yours what my days been like.

I just say "fine" in a quizzical "why are you asking" way.

My favorite rude server was at this really good Chinese restaurant in Seattle, she would say things like “I mean you could order it like that but I don’t know why you’d want to”

the old bartender Bruno at San Francisco's Zam Zam Club (on Haight) would routinely eject customers who ordered the wrong thing, or told him how they wanted their martini

lol i went there once by myself, as a 20 year old, and i was terrified of him. i ordered a martini straight up with an olive and prayed that it was correct. dumb and terrible experience in retrospect. he was an annoying guy.

I have a couple of recent stories on this question.

Last month I went to Mexico City with my oldest friend. Our week had been planned out by a guy he knows who lives there, grew up there, and is a shit-hot architect there - this guy's name opens a lot of doors. We got to eat in a couple of places he designed. One of those places was Pujol, often referred to as the best restaurant in Mexico City, at least in terms of 'fine dining' shizzola. Impossible to get a table etc. Not for us! Anyway we go and man, let me tell you. It had been a long time since I'd experienced the vibe of a large, humming restaurant at the top of its game. Javier (the guy who was hosting us) referred to it as an "orchestra" and it's true. Everyone is in motion all the time yet somehow it's calm, assured, totally in sync, discreet. It's a dance, and it's absolutely a performance yet a performance that doesn't call attention to itself. It works in sync with the lighting and the architecture and the traffic flows of the space. At one point I neede the bathroom and I found myself navigating there, and stopped short a couple of times to let a waiter past, or someone carrying a dish, and of course every time they stopped for me instead, and I realised I was messing up the flow, that I was expected to just carry on with my purpose and the waves of this sea would simply part for me. So I adjusted my mentality and that' of course exactly what happened. That's what I was supposed to do. We stayed very late, Javier showed us all around and explained why he'd done things certain ways, how different the windows look in the daytime etc, and we were invited into the kitchen which at that point was almost clean. The floor guy or whoever was like "hello kitchen!" (In Spanish) and they all, I swear to god, like 15 people in the midst of tidying up, joking with each other, gossiping, turned to him and shouted as one "hello boss!" and went back to what they were doing. It was absolutely incredible. The teamwork and the singleness of purpose but also the pride in the part they were playing in this incredible institution.

My second story involves a random seafood place we went to one day for lunch when we were at a loose end. It was over-priced and dead inside. I didn't want to go there but we were with a couple of guys who were really hungry so we stayed. There were like 15 dudes wearing skin-tight suits, half of them with earpieces in, who hovered around us like nervous moths, they seated us, asked us what we wanted, and kept suggesting more expensive versions. When the food came they were monitoring us, whisking away plates the INSTANT we had put the last empty shell down on it, replacing glasses, refilling things, bringing more tortillas, taking things away. On a surface level it was similar to Pujol - a big, attentive staff. But the experience of it was absolutely nerve-wracking - you felt their eyes on you constantly, you felt hustled towards a conclusion, the whole thing was exhausting.

The number of staff in general in Mexico is huge. There are a LOT more cleaners, drivers, fixers etc in general than we're used to in Europe and the US. It's a

whoops hit submit too soon. Anyway.

I was at an old pub in Galway seven years ago and my wife was tired of drinking Guinness so she sent me up to the bar to order a martini along with my whiskey. The bartender was chatting up a friend and the place was mostly empty. The bartender looked at me and says, "We don't have martinis," then turns to his friend without missing a beat and says, "or at least I don't make them." My wife got a whiskey and we still laugh about this years later.

there are cocktail bars and there are non cocktail bars

you can probably get a gin and tonic at the latter, maybe

Great post Tracer, even with the cliffhanger ending.

probably not as high-end, and has a good value set menu, but i always feel like brasserie zedel has that feeling of the orchestra.

weirdly, and even more informal, i had a slight sense of that at din tai fung too.

The bartender looked at me and says, "We don't have martinis," then turns to his friend without missing a beat and says, "or at least I don't make them."

hahaha, every now and then when I'm feeling feisty I do this about frozen blender drinks. I curse the day I suggested to the boss that we could use a blender behind the bar. But people m/l know not to ask for that crap on Thursdays, when I'm solo behind the bar. Every other night, I can push those drinks off on the other bartender, who loves to do them. And who doesn't care that it slows down service.

I am generally chill about service and don’t expect people to wait on me hand and foot, but I have also had multiple incidents that were absolutely racially-motivated, either intentionally or subconsciously, that have ruined evenings, from the relatively benign (being led through an empty restaurant to to be sat by the lavatories) to the outright offensive (being chased by a server after leaving a healthy tip on an extremely expensive meal and being accused on a busy sidewalk of not tipping, despite it being obvious on the slips that we had, or being excluded from group service by a waitress because she assumed we as the only Black people weren’t part of the large group she was paying attention to). In most of those cases, I’ve just never gone back to the restaurant and have tried to spread word of mouth about the hostile treatment (fuck you forever, Mistral and Joe’s)

So yeah, my level is “reasonably attentive and not racist”

Le Mistral in Brooklyn?

Years ago I was alone in an Irish pub once in SF and the bartender teased me relentlessly for:

A) ordering Smithwicks, which is what old dads drink
B) pronouncing Smithwicks phonetically
C) looking like a member of Oasis, apparently

My dad doesn't have pints so often these days, more wine or vodka and tonic, but when he did he was always a Smithwicks man. I'm sure it's due a revival as British hauntology Marxists continue to burn through Irish heritage pint brands in an effort to claim a shred of identity.

b) Did they then teach you the correct pronunciation

I thought DJP was referring to some place called “Mistral and Joe’s” and looked it up on google maps and then facepalmed because lol nobody is calling their business “Mistral and Joe’s”

Two separate Boston restaurants

Mistral is super fancy and was where we got chased for a tip we’d already left (it was a large group and we’d left something like 30-35% across everyone’s credit cards, but the way the server rang it up he included the tip amount in what he ran and overcharged us on the bill, so we didn’t write in any additional tip and he didn’t add up the receipts before running us down and trying to embarrass us), Joe’s is not (that’s where it was assumed we weren’t parti if the 20 person party all sitting together at tables pushed together even though we’d all come from the same wedding, were all dressed for a wedding, and were interacting with each other; the server took everyone else’s drink orders, brought them, and took their food orders before we even got water and the (white) groom loudly embarrassed her and made her cry, leaving the Black people who had been ignored to try to smooth things over with the manager)

xxp yes, loudly

That is shitty af, DJP

In fairness, the last restaurant I received bad service in was a Black-owned soul food place in Houston so bad service isn’t solely the province of prejudice in my experience

I had never been to a Denny’s until college, and only then because the family diner across the street served my Black friend raw meat, then when he sent it back (he had asked for medium hamburger), it returned the same way, but dripping in what was obviously saliva. So for the next four years of college, whenever we wanted late night food, we went to Denny’s. The diner closed a few years after I graduated.

Ha meanwhile my Denny’s experience involves my dad not being able to use the oil and vinegar carafes they brought for his salad because the vinegar was covered with a film of dead gnats

I also file that under bad service, if there are dead pests in my food at least hide them

Ha meanwhile my Denny’s experience involves my dad not being able to use the oil and vinegar carafes they brought for his salad because the vinegar was covered with a film of dead gnats

I also file that under bad service, if there are dead pests in my food at least hide them

Apparently I feel very strongly about not eating gnats

But it's extra protein!

I looked up Mistral on Google reviews and sorted reviews lowest to highest and one of the one star reviews is about the restaurant adding $10 to a bill cos they thought the tip wasn’t sufficient? lol?

Update - about 3/4 hours after I left this review, I received a notification that a new 1-star Google review had been left for my law firm (at 3am). The review was from an unrecognized name, and read "Terrible, don't waste your time." It appears someone from Mistral (maybe a manager) saw my review at the end of the night, looked me up, and left a similar review for my law firm. Imagine that.

I 100% believe that someone who works at Mistral did that, the place sucks a lot

I just tried to search for the stories about that place actively turning away Black people in the 90s and I can’t find any of them, although I know for a fact that they used to be searchable. They went through an entire image overhaul and public apology cycle, which was the only reason why we decided to give it a try in the first place

I saw the thread title and immediately thought of Clarence Boddicker in Robocop saying "just gimme my fuckin' phone call". E.g. I just want the food.

"(being led through an empty restaurant to to be sat by the lavatories)"

I've had this myself. I can never tell if it's because the staff have a computer algorithm that selects a table, even if it doesn't make any sense, or if it's one of those yew ain't from 'round these parts things. It's either the toilets, or alternatively it's right next to a table with screaming children in a restaurant that otherwise has lots of free tables.

Are the staff instructed to sit people in clumps, so that the restaurant doesn't feel empty? Do they think I'm going to have a sing-along with the other guests? Does anybody in this world or any other world enjoy eating food while children scream loudly at each other? Am I being punished, and if so, what for? I've followed your instructions, God. I've done my time. What more do you want?

I remember reading an article a while back, possibly in the NYT, that used FourSquare to track where actual genuine rich people eat in New York. The result was that they went to mundane restaurants. They didn't really care about the food as long as it was okay. Not tourist traps or anywhere famous, but places they were expensive, but not ludicrously so. It could well have been this article:
https://www.grubstreet.com/2012/01/one-percent-eating-habits-analysis.html

"Reinforcing that theory is the fact that for the rich, the combination of high prices and unadventurous food acts as a sort of invisible velvet rope. Besides being handily located on the Upper East Side, a restaurant like Nello can charge $26 for mediocre beet salad, or $40 for a plate of uninspired mushroom risotto, because to its customers, the money matters as little as the actual food does. But the 99 percent won’t go there, because when they do splurge on food, they want an adventure to remember."

If I was rich I would want to eat somewhere that doesn't have people I dislike, but in such a way that it's not explicit. Presumably a restaurant with a "no children" sign would be protested against and shut down. But what if the same restaurant used a more subtle tactic to dissuade children? By for example banning anybody shorter than 4'11"? That wouldn't attract criticism at all, and it would work.

What kind of people do I dislike? People who talk. At all. And also people who are funnier than me. People who talk, and are funnier than me. "Better-looking people with better ideas and more talent, and they're actually really, really nice".

The one time we ate at Texas Roadhouse the food was completely terrible (obviously) and a manager stopped by our table to ask how our food was. We were honest that it was terrible but made sure to effusively praise our server, who was obviously just starting out but completely kicking ass and obviously feeling nervous.

“being chased by a server after leaving a healthy tip on an extremely expensive meal and being accused on a busy sidewalk of not tipping, despite it being obvious on the slips that we had”

I would’ve been LIVID

I have been hardcore cussed out by a Noah’s employee when i reported that they didn’t put cream cheese on my bagel. I stupidly returned verbal fire and he followed me out of the restaurant and started doing some instagram live thing trying to rally all his friends to come beat me up or something.

“restaurant”

sorry i keep posting boring food and drunk service stories. super slow work day.

I would’ve been LIVID

Oh believe me, I was.

re: rich people eating boring food. that’s pretty much how country clubs are in the US. moneyed, mostly-white people eating likely well-prepared (not counting Trump’s clubs here, lol) but completely boring foods. spending thousands of dollars a year to join a club where you likely are required to spend a certain amount of money every year at their dining establishment, and it’s just whatever

the service is usually pretty good, though

I went to a new (today was 4th day open) Mediterranean restaurant in Tupelo today and the food and waitstaff service was great but the manager was astonishingly abusive to my server, who'd made a minor error on the ticket she turned in to the kitchen. He loudly flipped out on her while I was the only customer; I can't imagine what he'd be like during a busy service. When she brought me my salad and asked how the lentil soup and bread were, I said "really really good; I'm sorry your manager is such a dick." She didn't drop her professional demeanor at all, in fact smiled wider and said "Thanks!" She knew he was watching from the open kitchen.

I paid with a card but tipped in cash, $20 on a $35 tab, and said "thanks for everything, and this is for having to work with that guy." She thanked me for tipping in cash; "when it's on the card they take half."
"HALF?! There's no way he's going to retain staff like that."
"Yeah, I won't be here long." This while never dropping her smile and helping me put takeout containers in bags.

oooof. so many people who decide to have a restaurant shouldn’t be allowed to directly run one