Now why in the world would you write to corporate? All you would do is get the manager in trouble, who actually took care of it as soon as they knew about it. What more do you want them to do? The server never told the manager. they can't solve a problem unless they know there is one.
And we don't know what the manager did or didn't do to the server, they may have disciplined them for the incident already.
I would absolutely write corporate if it was a chain restaurant. Even if it's a local chain I would write corporate and I have! Not to get anything free but to let them know about a problem I had. If corporate doesn't know about it they can't follow up with this obvious training issue. If the manager has already taken care of it fine, but corporate should know as well.
I agree under those circumstances I wouldn't have left a tip either. Maybe that server will think twice before he pulls it on someone else. Seriously I'd have to give a lot of consideration to eating there again especially after the way the manager handled the situation.
I agree! We had a situation that was similar, the service was very slow, the server was having a bad day, some of the food arrived steaming hot some was cold. It was not a good experience. I spoke with the manager on our way out (this was a national chain, we were regulars at this particular location which was 15-30 minutes away from home. We ate at this location because it was the closest to us and the kids loved eating there) and let him know we were unhappy. He didn't seem to care, he apologized but that was it, didn't offer to lower the tip (we were a group of 10 so tip was added), didn't offer to do anything at all. He said something to the effect of "you should have returned the food if it wasn't to your standards" to which I replied, "we told the server the dishes were cold, she didn't say or do anything. we asked about having them reheated and she rolled her eyes and simply left not returning until we had finished eating". And yes, we did finish eating but we were starving by that point!! I was less then impressed, my Step-Dad was actually mad that we paid the bill! He said we should have just walked out after we ate. I understood but let him know we ate there quite a bit and didn't want to mess that up. The more I thought about it the more upset I became so I contacted corporate the following day. Corporate apologized profusely, sent a lot of gift cards and let us know they would use this as a chance for retraining. We went back a couple weeks later and received the same kind of service......we used the gift cards, contacted corporate, let them know that no gift cards were necessary as we wouldn't be eating there again and wished them luck retraining. I heard after that they fired the whole management staff and quite a few servers and brought in new people because there were so many complaints. We still don't eat there tho.
My fiance thinks it is awful that I left no tip. He wanted to leave 10% ( we normally tip at least 20% usually a little more) because the food was good. My fiance was embarrased that I left no tip. But I think the server was so bad, he earned his zero tip. I was pretty angry.
He earned his 0 tip, you are correct. However I probably would have done what others said, left a tiny tip so he knew I didn't just forget. For instance, let's say the bill (without the extra drink) was $44.75, I would have left $45 and been done with it. If I was paying with a credit/debit card I would have written on the receipt, no tip left for extremely poor service. lol You did the right thing OP, his tip should be based on the service you received, not the quality of the food. Kitchen staff does not get any part of the tip so your DFi's argument makes no sense.
My Gma always tips 1 penny if she gets poor service, she says it's more insulting then leaving nothing. And I would imagine he would know why he didn't get a tip, especially since you spoke with his manager and he probably got reprimanded for it.
PS Congrats on your new JOB!!!!!!
