The last week or so there have been many problems when we have bought things or been in a restaurant. I bought bras at Macy's at a presale. Marty went to pick them up, and they had lost them, and many other customers items. After a week, they mailed me bras.
The next night we went out for my birthday dinner. Reservations made on Open Table with info that it was a birthday celebrations. This restaurant is a favorite, and they blew it. They are known for asking is this a celebrations, nope. Plus did not tell the server it was a celebrations. The server was great, and when he asked if everything was OK, I said no. Told him not his fault, but it would have been nice if someone had said Happy Birthday to me. He was livid because the front people hadn't told him, and he has to share his tips with them. He went straight to his manager and told her. She called corporate, yes I do cause trouble, and they told her how to apologize and to give us a $20 gift card, and promised to retrain the front people.
Little Brother took us out his last night to a lovely restaurant. The appetizers were great, but they brought the cheese tray with no bread or crackers. Ann is ready to order lamb, they are out. It is not 7:00 and they are out. She and Marty then order salmon in a caper and dill sauce. It comes and they are out of capers. It was supposed to be a caper sauce! No flavor at all. They send it back and reorder. They then plunked my meal and Henry's down and left. They should have waited until the other dishes were ready to bring ours. Ok, after we finish they finally bring the other two dishes. The food tasted good, some real good. But the kitchen is making a mess of things.
We order dessert. And guess what they come back and tell Marty they are out of what he ordered. I went all diva drama queen on them. I said I wanted the chef to come out and apologize for the mess of running out of everything so early and making the servers look bad. And he finally came out and did his I am the king of this place and then threw the servers under the bus. (That really ticked off Ann and she explained a few thing to King Chef.) Most people they serve eat earlier. I told him he had our reservation and 6:30 is not a late dinner.
We explained a few facts of life in a kitchen to him. He realized his attitude didn't work with us and tried niceness. That worked a little better. He apologized, told them to comp our meal (including wine) , gave us a gift card for 4 meals and his business phone number to call him anytime we are coming in.
It sounds as if we made out like bandits. But no meal in a very special restaurant should have the servers saying I am sorry for half the evening. And I shouldn't have to tell a server, and I quote, "tell the chef to get his ass out here and apologize for messing up our meal".
This Southern Belle got a little edgy. I was sorry for my brother and Ann. They wanted to do something really nice for me, they loved this place and it was just a mess. But we did have the best table and the best view of Lake Merritt.
PS: Henry gave the servers a very nice tip on our free meal.
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