Ever been ignored at a restaurant?

[OhMari]

Many restaurants in our area, have closed down for breakfast and lunch and only open for dinner. They cannot get the help. Supper Clubs are huge in Wisconsin and many are closing because they cannot find the help. Supper Clubs usd to be open from 4:00p.m. till midnight. Now they are only open from 5:00 - 9:00 p.m. People just do not want to work in the food industry.

 

[Dumbo7]

Yes, at Artist Point in the Wilderness Lodge. We were staying at the Wilderness Lodge and it was our splurge signature dinner of the trip. We were seated in the middle of the restaurant and then ignored. No water, or menus, and the worst was that the manager was standing and chatting with the people at the table next to us for twenty minutes! He MUST have seen us. We finally flagged someone down and they then realized that no one had been assigned to our table. I thought they might comp us a glass of wine or dessert, but NO! I fumed for awhile and then got over it. I suppose we should have spoken up sooner, but we just decided not to return to that restaurant.

We to were ignored at artist point and the manager was chatting at a table near us. We were a party of 5.

 

[aprilchem]

Not restaurants, but twice when we were newly married DH and I went into businesses and they refused to help us. We were not particularly young when we got married (DH was 30, I was 25) but we looked really, really young (I could have passed for 15, he looked like he was 18 or so). One time we went into a Volkswagen dealership to buy a car (which we would have paid cash for, in full) and the salesmen refused to help us because he thought we were kids. And one time we went into a high-end clothing store to purchase a tuxedo for DH and the salesmen kept telling us "we don't have what you need here" even though we knew they sold them.

In the second case I actually worked with the son of the owner of that store, and I ended up telling him the name of the salesman and that guy got in trouble. But I still won't go into a Volkswagen dealership!

 

[CarolAnn856]

Eh, it happens. Waitstaff, hosts, managers, they're all human. I've certainly made mistakes at my job, so I don't expect perfection out of others. But I wouldn't just sit around for 20 min. I just flag someone down and that usually takes care of the issue. Not a big deal. If it doesn't take care of it, of course, then it's time to leave.

 

[spacemountainmom]

Yes!

First time was about 20 years ago. DH and I walked into a Chili’s about an hour before they close. It was fairly empty. We waited a few minutes and were ignored by every staff person who walked by. At that point I checked my watch. We continued to wait for 15 minutes without any acknowledgement. We got up to leave. As we were walking out the door, the manager asked if there was a problem. We told him that his staff had been ignoring us for over 15 minutes and we were leaving. He asked us to come back into the bar area and we would be taken care of. We agreed and ordered our usual app and meals. We asked for the check and the assistant manager refused to give it to us. She said the manager was buying. I knew how much we spent since it was a usual order. I left her the cash to cover the food and tip. She didn’t want to take it. DH told her to take it and let the waitresses know that they missed out. She cracked a smile and said she would.

The second time was a few months ago. We walked into our favorite weekend breakfast place. You seat yourself. Our usual table was occupied so we took another one near the kitchen. Servers walked by multiple times. No one ever approached us. Two or three groups walked in after us and were offered coffee immediately. At that point, I’d had enough and walked out the door. Later that day I posted my disappointment on one of their social media pages. A manager did respond and asked for another chance and she would buy us breakfast. We eventually did go back, but I never did claim my free breakfast. I just wanted someone to acknowledge that it was poor treatment. Since that day we’ve never had an issue. I guess it was just a bad day for them, but I wasn’t in the mood to be ignored either.

 

[indimom]

Once about 20 years ago. A friend and I went out to a chain restaurant with my daughter who was about 9 months old. We sat down, and waited, and waited. Saw two tables seated after us, who were then waited on in a timely fashion. We started getting annoyed and talking about it. When a waitress went to take an order from yet another table seated after us, the customer actually said "I think they were here first and have been waiting a while." The waitress said "That's not my table" and went on to take their order.

Now, I don't expect the waitress to leave her area, but she could have apologized (for the restaurant) and located our server. But she just went on with her own area. So, I gave up and decided to leave, took the baby and headed out. My friend is much more outspoken, went to the front and asked for a manager, told them everything that happened. He told her that if she could get me to come back, he would serve us himself. So, I went back, we were served very quickly and he also took 50% off our order.

 

[Summer2018]

No, but I am big on eye contact, and I have a big mouth. I make it difficult for people to ignore me...they probably figure that I would make a scene.

 

[NHdisneylover]

Thinking more, there were also two times over the years that our own server, who KNEW we were there, ignored us:

The first was when DH and I were at university. There was a nice Italian place near campus. Dinner pricing was well out of student budgets, but they had a less expensive lunch menu and ran coupons in the student paper for a lunch for to that DH and I used about once a month as a treat. One time, the waiter made a snarky comment about the coupon when we ordered then disappeared. The restaurant was in an old house with multiple small rooms with tables and we were in a room by ourselves. Our waiter id not come back into the room for a very long time and when he did he dropped cold food that had obviously been finished a while ago and ran off without stopping even as we asked for drink refills.
In the end we left a greatly reduced tip but I though it would only reinforce his (wrong) idea that students did not tip well---so I also wrote a letter to describing what happened and why we left a small tip and moved on.
Three days later the owner was on our doorstep (he got the address from the envelop---I had not included it and never even thought of getting something from them)with a large pizza and a personalized certificate inviting us back for DINNER for two, apps, entrees and dessert. OMG were we impressed. We ended up continuing our monthly lunches, having several dinner there with parents over the years and then our rehearsal dinner was there before our wedding.

The second was at Disney (but not Artist Point, as many in the thread, we have had great luck there). We were on the dining plan and at Citricos. We were not interested in bottled water or wine that night and the waiter made it clear we were not worth his time. He served tables all around us but totally ignored our party of six. It took speaking to the manager who came around to get our very first drink refills and finally get our dessert well after our entrees were finished. We complained up front about the forced 20% tip under the circumstances----they looked up our account to see that we paid the full tip, and charged more to the room, several times, all week and then told us no charge for tip at all. by then Dh and DFiL were annoyed enough to be fine with completeley removing it, so that is what we did.

 

[lynxstch]

Happened to us 2 years ago at Denny's. It wasn't that busy, we were seated in the area they call the 'patio' even though it's inside the bldg. Noone was in there except for us, and the main 2 dining rooms weren't that busy either. Guy seated us, said waitress will be right over. Waited about 10 min, no one in sight. I got up and found someone. They said I will tell her and she will be right over. 10 min later, still no one. Went and found the same person I talked to earlier. He said I told her, she should be right over, but yep, 10 min later, still no one. We got up to leave, but I stopped and asked for a manager and told her we wouldn't be visiting their restaurant again. He said wait a minutes, and handed me $40 in gift cards. I gave them to my Sister in Law as we refuse to ever go in there again.

 

[Dancind]

Happens quite a bit, anytime the server messes up putting in an order to the extent that you wait an hour or more for food. Then you become invisible.

 

[jdb in AZ]

As a middle-aged foursome, we were ignored by the young hostess, who seated some young friends tho we had been waiting longer. We expressed our displeasure. This was several miles from home, so we haven't had any reason (or motivation) to ever go there again.

 

[Dznypal]

yes last Christmas day--my mom took all of us for dinner--she used to do the cooking but at 86 she just cant anymore yet doesn't want any of us kids to bring anything or have it at our houses

anyways there were 20 of us--I had called 2 weeks before Christmas to add my nephews girlfriend which there was no problem

so we go to check in and was told by the manager that he hopes we didn't bring any extra people cause they couldn't put anymore at our table

ok fine but somehow I knew this was going to be a problem

one of my nephews stayed in the car for a while so my great niece could sleep a bit server kept peeking in (we had like a little private area of the restruant ) and apparently saw we were still waiting since there were 2 empty chairs--when we signed in no one asked if our whole party was here

so we sat--finally the server about the 2 we were waiting for--told him they were in the car but we would order

so he took all of our order for dinner--never asked if we wanted anything to drink or app

it took over half and hr for just the soups

after sitting another half hr we started checking on our dinners--one time the manager who sat us came and said we should just enjoy the holiday

with the family my nephew and DGF told him if the dinners didn't come soon we were going to leave

just as they were putting their coats on our dinners came

server said they were lost in the kitchen--how do you lose an order for 20 people

dinners were messed up as well--my son didn't get one--he didn't want to order anything else since they were doing another family visit as well

my nephews chopped steak was so overdone you could have soled shoes with it

I hate to admit this but we didn't leave any type of tip--nothing--they way we were treated and the service was so bad he didn't deserve a ip

I hope he was happy with his 2.33 an hr--we got there at 130 and left at 4

needless to say we wont be back there

 

[Dznypal]

wow that's bad dclpluto

wonder how things would have gone if it was the other way around--Im sure Pizza Hut would have closed down for retraining like I think was it starbucks just did recently--when actually the people didn't buy anything but were waiting for some others--

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

People also grossly overstate the time they've been waiting for a server or their food. Where I work now is all computerized, so when someone says they've been sitting there X amount of time, usually it's much much less. We can look at the screen and see when they were sat. That and when people say they've been waiting 45 minutes for their food, but have only been sat for 25 (so by the time they got their drinks, got their order, it was rung in, they've really only been waiting 15-20).

For sure people don't have the best track of time some outright exaggerating to make it seem worse.

It's not always though.

I def. watch my phone when it's taking too long to get a drink order and then to get a food order, etc so I'm well aware of the actual time.

There's been times where the waitress/waiter forgot to put our order in but didn't even remember forgetting to do that so then they look at us like we're crazy when we're like "we need refills, oh and it's been 45mins since we ordered is our food coming out soon".

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

It's happened from time to time.

The time I can remember the most was at a Chinese restaurant. 5 tables served with their food before we even got our drink orders back so a long time had passed. Even with step-father-in-law getting up to alert someone didn't worked.

We ordered what many Chinese places consider apps (like crab rangoon, egg rolls, etc) but asked for them to come out with our meal (as they asked us if we wanted that) but they sent it out beforehand and after 45mins of not getting our food with our "apps" getting cold we up and left without paying anything and haven't been back since.

Same two people by the way serving the whole small-ish restaurant and we had been sat down before the other tables and ordered food before at least 3 of them and ordered drinks before all of them.

 

[GaSleepingBeautyFan]

Several times. Got up and walked out on one.

Another time, the restaurant wanted everyone who walked in to tweet and use their hashtag restaurant name. I did a tweet about sitting there now and getting no service and I was leaving in 5 minutes if we didn't get a waitress. It took less than that for a manager to stop by, apologize, and stood there while our order was taken. I guess he was watching twitter.
And then we never got our food or were checked on so I tweeted again. At that point, the manager came back, apologized and said our food would be comped. I told him we were tired of waiting and if the food wasn't ready right that minute we were leaving.
He went back to check, came out, there was a mix up and our food was given to another table. We left and never went back. They went out of business a year or so ago.

Another time, I asked for a manager when the waiter said It's not my table. The manager never came so we left. Never went back.

And on Saturday we were shown our table and waited and waited. Finally a server came over, took our order and left. Bartender brought our drinks himself because he said our server left! Then another server comes over to "take our order" so we had to explain we'd already given it. Then the manager came over to clarify things because the server went to her confused. And our appetizer didn't come out until we were done with our entree. The manager came back - comped the appetizer and offered free dessert. I've no idea what was going on but we were over it so we didn't get dessert. We paid for our drinks and entrees and left.
I'd try them again since we did get our food but it was a strange meal for sure.

 

[Julie's Haircut]

Several times. Got up and walked out on one.

Another time, the restaurant wanted everyone who walked in to tweet and use their hashtag restaurant name. I did a tweet about sitting there now and getting no service and I was leaving in 5 minutes if we didn't get a waitress. It took less than that for a manager to stop by, apologize, and stood there while our order was taken. I guess he was watching twitter.
And then we never got our food or were checked on so I tweeted again. At that point, the manager came back, apologized and said our food would be comped. I told him we were tired of waiting and if the food wasn't ready right that minute we were leaving.
He went back to check, came out, there was a mix up and our food was given to another table. We left and never went back. They went out of business a year or so ago.

.

I'd probably immediately walk out of any restaurant that wanted me to tweet.

 

[bcla]

Just to make it clear, I'm not necessarily thinking of a place where perhaps it's really busy or where staff is overwhelmed. I was thinking more of the case where you or someone you know seemed to be singled out for getting no service. I can deal with waiting 20-30 minutes because I'm in a popular place. I can't deal with waiting 20-30 minutes with just a menu in hand when someone at the next table who just walked in 2 minutes ago gets an order taken and the server walks away. I wouldn't have gotten upset if that person gets an order taken before me, and the server immediately comes to my table.

That's one reason why I like to sit at a bar counter. There, the bartender takes the order, and it's not considered rude to flag down said bartender. It's considerably harder for customers to get lost in the shuffle when there are shift changes, the manager forgets to assign a server to a table, etc.

 

[bcla]

I'd probably immediately walk out of any restaurant that wanted me to tweet.

It sounds like something that's encouraged, but not necessarily mandatory.

I do find it hilarious that getting someone's attention in person seems to be difficult, but a tweet is another matter.

 

[AP1209]

A couple of months ago me and my wife went to a restaurant and order margaritas. The waiter came back and brought water and said it would be a couple more minutes for the margaritas. At that point he took our order. About 10 minutes pass and we notice another table that came in after us recieving margaritas and other assorted drinks. I flag him down and mention we haven't gotten our drinks yet. He apologized and said he would check on it. Another 10 minutes pass and he brings our entrees with NO margaritas. ***! It was just so weird. We have never had any problems at this place before. I told him to make sure the drinks are taken off the receipt. We ate quickly and left. Haven't been back since. I'm sure we will go back eventually but it just left a bad taste in my mouth.