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Thursday, July 5, 2007

Restaurants / Food & Life Evil customers and devil spawn

Posted by Besha Rodell @BeshaRodell on Thu, Jul 5, 2007 at 5:48 PM

This week's Food & Drink feature is dedicated to the subject of bad customers. Even though it's been years since I worked in a restaurant, I have never quite shaken the trauma that bad customers inflicted on me and my coworkers. I felt it was time to publicly take a stand against bad customer behavior.

When I started writing, I was amazed at how much bad behavior there was to talk about. I fear I left some important villains out of the story. The most egregious omission was that of the inconsiderate diner, the one who talks on her cell phone throughout a meal, gets so drunk it's a scary job to serve her, or brings her devil spawn in and lets them terrorize the restaurant.

Speaking of devil spawn, that's a touchy one for me. Almost every waiter I spoke to about this article mentioned something about people's kids, and we've all witnessed bad behavior in restaurants by out-of-control children. One waitress I spoke to in town mentioned having to clean up dirty diapers that parents left behind, an obvious flouting of the rules of decency. But as a parent, I also hate walking into a restaurant and being treated as a pariah because I have a child with me. My child isn't perfect, but when he acts less than perfect in a restaurant I remove him immediately. One thing's for sure, by the time my kid is an independent customer in his own right, he won't be committing any of the crimes chronicled in the paper this week. I believe that kids should be brought to restaurants to help teach them what decent restaurant behavior is.

I'm interested in what other people think about this issue, as well as what you perceive to be the worst customer behavior. Next week I'll be writing about the worst habits of restaurants. If you'd like to contribute to that discussion, e-mail me at besha.rodell@creativeloafing.com.

Tags: Restaurants, Food & Life, devil-spawn, Bad-customers

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Everyone should have to wait tables or bartend before being allowed to be a customer. One of the jobs I had in college was in a popular rock club in Birmingham. We hated quarter beer night with a blind fury. How big a tip do you think a college kid leaves after handing you a dollar for four beers? We asked the woner to change the price and generate some tip change. The genius raised it to 50 cent beer. Einstein, I tell you, Einstein! Regarding kids. I don't mind crying babies, that is what infants do. If the place is anything above McDonalds, the parent should take the child away from others until the crying starts. My problem is with ill mannered five to ten year olds and their indulgent/ignorant parents who are old enough to know better than to be disruptive.

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Posted by Dale on July 5, 2007 at 5:55 PM

speaking as a chef i truly hate people with food "allergies"... i believe i have encountered most of the common ones: shellfish, nuts, strawberries. i even worked once with a cook who was allergic to garlic (if he had to chop it his hands would rash up, so of course, you know who chopped all the garlic in that kitchen!) but for god's sake don't tell me you are allergic to pickles or capers or black olives... we KNOW (well... suspect) you are lying and we are tempted to send the order out with extra! and additionally, if you had any kind of SEVERE allergy, why the hell would you NOT mention nuts or tomatoes could potentially kill you, but for massive doses of benadryl!? why would you blithely assume that a chicken salad couldn't possibly include almonds, or that a jr. cook might miss the "no toms" note on a ticket until he was just about to put it in the window, then notice and take them off, leaving just the slightest hint of deadly tomato? both of these actually happened at places where i was at least nominally in charge and at first i felt awful, but ultimately i just decided i hate idiots!

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Posted by wayne berry on July 6, 2007 at 7:50 PM

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