Recently, we had the worst customer service experience of our lives at one of our, well at least my, favorite restaurants. So bad that I will never eat there again...ever!! What I thought would be a nice lunch out at Cedar Falls Carlos O'Kelly's with my family, turned into a nightmare! We ordered our drinks and when they arrived, the server was holding them on a tray with one hand while handing them out....typical, right. There were 6 drinks in this order all in cups: water, kid's apple juice, water, water, mountain dew and blue raspberry lemonade. The waitress handed out the water, juice, and second water leaving 3 heavy cups on one side of the tray. I looked up and all of the sudden I could see the drinks beginning to tip and at the verge of dumping on my mom and myself...the blue lemonade was heading straight for my mom so, I immediately put my hand up to try and prevent at least one of the drinks from dumping on us. It was one of those moments where you couldn't really talk but, needed to act fast like putting your arm out in front of the passenger when you brake fast. I just knew something bad was about to happened. I could see the blue lemonade waving in the cup like waves of an ocean. At that moment, I don't remember how it all fell, but the lemonade was either grabbed by the waitress or myself, I don't think I ever touched anything though. Although the lemonade was saved from the fall, the water and mountain dew showered both my mom and myself. There was pop, water, and ice everywhere.
Here's the kicker, there was never an apology...never. Only attitude. The waitress made the comment, "Well, that was bound to happen." We asked, yes asked, for towels to clean up and my mom went to the bathroom to clean up. When she came out the waitress gave her a sarcastic thumbs up...like, no, everything is not ok here. The table was never wiped for us by the waitress, but some help from another server. Luckily, we had some baby wipe to clean up the sticky table. The ice was left on the floor and the ice was left in the crack of the booth conjoined to the booth I was sitting in. I pointed out the ice and she said that it would melt and she'd clean it up then because it'd be easier then.
At this point, we should have left. We gave the server grace and didn't say anything mean about the situation. Another server came by and said let me see what kind of discount I can get for you. He ended up taking our order. We got our food, ate, talked, and then our tickets came. Joking, I said the whole table is free, right. He said, we were only able to discount the one meal, which was my mom's. Then he offered to have the store manager come over. She came over with the most awful attitude and blamed me for the whole situation. She said I should have never grabbed drinks from her servers tray and she would only discount mom for the drink being dumped on her since I did it.
At the moment, I was HOT!!!
I explained how the server's perspective could have been seen as me grabbing drinks, but that wasn't the case. Who grabs drinks from server's trays?? Let's be real here. That's common sense.
Still, no apology. Just blame. The manager then discounted my meal and walked away with the stickiest, funky attitude. We didn't come for free food, but time with my family...we can afford to eat here. What we didn't come for was a soda shower and poor customer service....She then was loud with another customer talking about me.
I did get upset myself about the whole situation and said some things, but wow....
I cannot believe this actually happened. I tried to get in contact with someone above her, but haven't got ahold of anyone yet. read more
