Mis-Steaks Galore!

In Part 2 of our series of bad restaurant experiences, we’ll discuss an incident a few years ago at a local steakhouse. While we won’t identify the restaurant by name here, we will say that it rhymes with “Bone Bar Bakehouse.”

We went out to eat with good friends of ours, and at that time their son and our daughter were very just a few years old. So many things went wrong that night that I have succeeded in forgetting much of it. I can recall that the service was super painfully slow and rude, our orders were almost all completely wrong, and they had run out of many, many stupid things. For example, they were out of bread, which made it tricky for them to make cheese sandwiches for one of our kids. I believe they substituted by using bottoms of buns instead of sliced bread, which was just weird.

I believe they were also out of milk, and after getting the kids excited about the fact that their meals came with ice cream, our waiter announced that they were out of it, too. I should point out that this restaurant was practically across the street from a grocery store, so one would think that in a pinch they could have walked over and grabbed a few essentials.

I wrote a snotty note to the company after this experience (always write these notes the night they happen; you get the best, most sarcastic results this way!), and they sent a very nice, lengthy note back. They apologized profusely for all of the trouble we had, and told me to use the letter to redeem a free meal for all six of us at our convenience.

When we finally decided to return to the restaurant (actually, we went to another store in the chain, figuring that the original location’s employees would spit in our food after reading the letter), they bent over backwards to kiss our butts. It was awesome! We had a wonderful meal, and at one point or another, every manager and employee seemed to show up to make darned sure we were having a great experience. The letter apparently put fear into their hearts.

Some number of months later we went back again, and wound up having yet another miserable experience of doom. Go figure. We don’t go there any more, mostly out of fear. Tomorrow I’ll wrap up the bad service series with yet another bizarre steakhouse experience: “The extra ingredient is glove!”