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Last year, my girlfriend and I went out for my birthday in downtown Chicago. We go to a well-known steak place that features wood grills and ovens. We had a reservation for 7 and showed up at 6:50.
I should have known that it would be a problem when there was a bus parked out front. I generally have a pretty high tolerance for waiters/waitresses and hostesses because I know that it can be a really tough job. We checked in at the front desk, and the woman said "it looks bad, but it shouldn't be more than 10 minutes before we can seat you" and hands me one of those light-up pagers. Fine, we can have a drink at the bar. We muscle our way in and actually manage to find a couple of stools. 2 vodka tonics later, I'm checking my watch and seeing that 25 minutes has passed since we hit the bar. The pager is sitting silent in front of us.
5 minutes later, after convincing the girlfriend that it's ok to say something, I hit the hostess stand again. If anything the place is more crowded now, and I'm starting to worry. I put the happy face on, though, and ask how much longer it will be. They look at the pager and say "oh, we already called you". No, the thing never went off, but fine, get me seated. The manager is standing right beside her as she says "I'm really sorry, sir. The batteries must be low. Here's a new one. We'll have a table for you in 5 minutes."
I head back to the bar and settle up with the bartender. The pager is in site at all times. It takes me about 10 minutes to pay the tab, and we head back up the hostess station. Another 15 minutes goes by, making it almost an hour since we walked in the door. As I stand there, the hostess looks me directly in the eye no less than 10 times and looks down at her book. The pager is sitting on a shelf between the girlfriend and I and it still doesn't go off.
After the aforementioned 15 minutes, I head to the podium again. Third trip and I'm not a happy camper. The manager has disapeared by now, but I ask to talk to him. The hostess asks why and I said that we'd been waiting an hour, I'd been promised twice that I would be seated quickly, and that it was now an hour AFTER our reservation. She got huffy and told me that she had paged us TWICE in the last 10 minutes. I handed her the pager and said that it must be broken, but fine, let's eat. She'd already given the table away. Now I'm pissed.
I tell her that's unacceptable and raise my voice about seeing the manager. He trots over and asks what the problem is. I tell him about the reservation and point out the time. He apologizes, grabs a couple of menus and looks at the seating chart. We end up at a very nice booth. He writes something on our check, apologizes again and waives the server over. I'm placated.
We hear the specials and order a nice bottle of wine ($60+). After the waiter leaves, my curiosity gets the better of me, and I sneak a peak at the check, which is still sitting on the edge of the table. It says "comp desert and appetizer". I start feeling pretty good about myself and the manager.
Dinner comes, and my steak is overdone and her salmon is underdone, but not too badly. One of the sides comes out 10 minutes after the rest of the meal and only after we remind the waiter. I start grumbling again but hold my tongue. Desert is very good.
The check comes, and it's all wrong. They've billed us twice for the wine AND THE DESERT. I point it out and say something about the manager telling us the desert was comped. The waiter says that he doesn't know anything about that but fixes the bill. We are waiting for revised bill when the hostess (same one) comes over and asks us if we can wait over by the podium since she really needs the table (it's 10:30 pm and the place is still packed). This was my breaking point.
I very quickly said, "F*ck no. Get us our bill so that we can get the f*ck out of this sh*thole. We're never coming back to this place again." The hostess and my girlfriend turned just about matching shades of red. The hostess stomps off and I get kicked under the table. We finally get the bill, desert and gratuity already included. I take a walk with it up to the manager, who's talking to the hostess. I interrupt them, and tell him how poor my experience has been, that everything was screwed up beyond belief. He starts apologizing about busy nights and tourists. I pull out my wallet, pay the exact amount due after taxes and tell him to shove it.
In the end it actually being a very satisfying experience. It's not real often that I can blow up like that and not have to worry about it coming back to bite me.
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"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo
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