Absolutely batsh*t interaction with Allie, the general manager recently.
(Long and detailed rant incoming.) We were seated at a table that we had moved to for the umbrella. About 75% through the meal, Allie (Ally, Alley, who cares really) came over and started messing with the umbrella behind us. After a minute, she introduced herself as the general manager, says there's something wrong with it and she needs to close it.
I say (in no way confrontationally) "oh, we moved here for the shade." Which seems like a very reasonable answer to "I need to close this umbrella."
The look on her face immediately switched to an "are you an idiot?" look and she says "this is unsafe, as the manager of this restaurant, if this is unsafe, I need to close it." I'm not sure if she was having a bad day, but it was really out of nowhere.
So we said "well, we're almost done," thinking we'll just get up and head out. Once again, she was completely condescending out of nowhere and acted like we were being confrontational. It was SO ODD.
Then it gets weirder. We say "ok, where would you like us to go?" Her response?? "Well I don't have a table for you yet, honey." All righty...
Amazingly, the umbrella that was SO unsafe, she leaves it in the condition she found it and walks away for 3-4 minutes. If it's so unsafe, why are you walking away and leaving it that way?
She comes back, silently grabs our appetizer and walks toward a different table. So confused, we grab our waters and follow her over, leaving half of a $20 pineapple cocktail sitting on the table, ASSUMING she's going to bring it over. As you can imagine, that didn't happen. And we watched that table get cleared.
Our server, who was LOVELY, came over and we said "hey, we assumed that cocktail was going to be brought over and it disappeared." She apologized profusely and said she would take care of it. Next thing you know, Allie come sauntering over and with an indignation I've personally never seen before says "I was told we threw away your cocktail. I'll be happy to bring you a free one." Those words seem innocuous and accommodating enough, but that's because you weren't witness to the absolutely bonkers condescending look on her face as the words dribbled out of her mouth.
At this point, I say "I don't really want a free cocktail, I just want the one that we were planning on paying for. And to be frank, I really don't understand why this entire interaction has been so confrontational." She decided that the right move at that moment was to explain to me that she's "just trying to run a restaurant, and she's been with the company for 24 years." I say "that's great, but your communication skills are horrible.
At no point in our entire visit were we ever confrontational, argumentative, or anything of the sort. Her attitude was absolutely bananas from the get-go, with zero provocation. This is not a "the customer always lies" situation. This is a "what the everloving hell just happened" situation. Which was what we were asking each other as we left. We were beside ourselves with confusion.
I must have asked her three or four times why the interaction was so confrontational, only to be met (ironically) with anger. Never in my life have I ever had such a deranged interaction like that with someone in the service industry. Just absolutely flabbergasted. read more