I have heard of this before, which I feel that the restaurant owners that want to inforce not writing orders down actually get more mistakes happen in customer's dining experiences, therefore, give away money they may have not needed to in a comp for example as well as possibly losing customers to poor service.
I think MOST restaurant owners DO let the servers write down the orders and that is what I am going by. For me personally, I have never been a server, but I was counterhelp at a donut shop/diner for over 2 yrs off and on between 1998-2002, where even when I took ONE order without writing it down at the counter or booth for instance which I had already FORGOT some of what the person said when I got to the register that if they wanted cheese on their burger or wanted cajun or regular fries, so I just look at it from the fact that I couldn't remember one order very well just by memory alone that I feel MOST people are like me. I feel it is RARE to have a real good short term memory as far as taking customer's orders are concerned. I would think completely differently if my order would come out 100% correct most of the time when servers don't write the order down, which 99.9% of the time my order isn't written down, it comes out wrong somehow. It may be my husband's order messed up and not mine, but SOMETHING goes wrong. It usually is the server coming back to our table to ask "so what did you say" when they don't write the order down.
I don't feel it looks more professional to not write down the order. It really makes me WORRY about if my order will come out correct or not when I sometimes even asked a server to write down the order, even have given my OWN written order at times, which they refused, and of course the order comes out wrong.
I feel if the restaurant owner doesn't want you to write down the order, I wouldn't work there, because sooooo many more mistakes will end up happening more than likely. I feel what kind of tips you are going to make making more mistakes than what you could be?
For the restaurant owners that do let the servers write down the orders, if the server chooses not to write it down and it comes out wrong, it makes me take off more points off the tip for not at least TRYING to REMEMBER. Some restaurants I know for sure let servers write down orders from frequently going to the same restaurants, so if I see one server not writing it down the next time I go, I seriously doubt they all of a sudden changed their policy as well as I can take notice if other servers are writing down orders in the restaurant while I am there.
Writing the orders down doesn't EVER guarantee correct orders, but it sure does help some. The key is to REREAD the written order as well as write it, which me and my husband have had orders completely wrong or forgotten even when they were written down.
I really hate the restaurant owners that want servers not to write down orders. That is really frustrating as a frequent diner.
