Hello Brian,
This is your customer from earlier today. I need to let you know a few things about the service I received from you while sitting in the bar of Sanderlings. Now, I must stress to you that this opinion I will give to you does not come from a mere bar patron who's come for lunch with his mother many times, but comes to you from a veteran of the food service industry of more than 5 years experience.
You, sir, are in the wrong business. You were a technically excellent server, in that you brought us what we asked for, and it was all correct. But come ON man! How many times did we have to yell at you from across the room to get your attention?
Let's start from the beginning. We walked into your bar and sat at a table for a light lunch service. You did not acknowledge us for a good 4 minutes. Not until my mother caught your eye and said "Hello" to which you replied, with a sideways head as you walked the other way, with a "Hey".
Hey?
Hey...
Is that how you greet your customers? Really? A 66 year old woman and her thirty year old son... Hey...
You walked all around the restaurant for a while, doing all sorts of little jobs, and it seemed like, maybe, you weren't the one who would be serving us. Maybe there was another server hiding somewhere who was going to pop out and surprise us with an awesome experience. Nope. We were stuck with you.
Drink orders... Today is my day off... I was thinking about maybe having a beer with lunch, make it a fun day. You talk to my mother for 20 seconds (after waiting over 10 minutes for service) and get her a taste of a wine she might want. Then you're gone again for 5 minutes. You never bothered to ask if I wanted anything. Knew almost NOTHING about the wines available from your bar, and didn't go out of your way at all to see if the wine my mother KNEW you had was available. (It is by the way, it's held for large banquets, and is available upon request, which you would have known if you had bothered to ask ANYONE)
We finally see you for food ordering, after I order my meal you finally ask if I want something to drink. I'm totally over you at this point and don't even care if I'm there honestly. I order a coke, whatever, I'm so bored by this whole ordeal by now...
Time passes, while waiting for our meal we see server after server bringing your food out to other tables for you. Each time they come out I notice they have to ask you where it's going. You have no system worked out for proper food delivery. Poor poor sign of a server.
We get our food. While you are delivering it we are conversing with a manager who is a pseudo friend of my mother's. You drop our plates, I had ordered salad which you abruptly asked me "Want pepper on that?" I usually do, but frankly I was expecting a tossed salad with the dressing on the lettuce, but the dressing was on the side... No sir, I do not want pepper lettuce, that sounds dumb, what's the pepper supposed to stick to?
At this point I am now actually fuming... You are oblivious to how bad of a job you are doing, and probably don't care to boot!
We eat our meals,my soda is empty, sitting next to me, empty, you walk by my table 8 times, I count, 8 times... I move the soda glass to the edge of the table, as to signal "hey dude, this is your job, don't you dare make me get up and walk to your bar to get this filled". Without a word you grab the glass take it back fill it and bring it to me nice and full. Without a single word... Super creepy... You can talk to your customers you know? You can engage them and ask them how they're food is... Which by the way, the mash potatoes my mother got were full of pepper, she couldn't eat them and the vegetables on the plate were cold. But you wouldn't know that because you just... don't... care...
We didn't clean our plates. There was food left over when we were done eating. We sat with our dirty plates in front of us for 20 minutes talking. One thing we discussed during that time was how rude it is to not clear plates from in front of customers. You can come over, you can ask if it needs to be cleared, if we'd like anything else, come ON man! This is your job!! To SERVE, not to just fill glasses.
The check was $31.45, I left $33, I would have left 15% if I felt like you had done your job even adequately, I usually leave 20% because I'm in the business, and if you had been really busy I could have understood the service issue. But it was dead in the bar. You had two tables and one person at the bar.
You need to be attentive as a server, and you need to have a personality. You were neglectful and a pretty boring person to boot. I didn't see you engaging anyone in conversation or anything, you walked around like a damned robot the whole time, it was really creepy to watch.
So yeah, Creepy, inattentive, un-engaging, unconscious, these are the words I use to describe you as a waiter. Get out of this job asap. You're no good at it. read more