OCTOBER 7, 1987
To me, it’s embarrassing when companions make noisy complaints in restaurants. In fact, I avoid complaining even when asked by the waitress if everything is OK. I usually just nod my head and say everything is fine.
But one of my friends tells me, “You are wrong.” She maintains that it helps the restaurant when you let them know what you don’t like.
OK. I’ll concede you should let them know. But I think you should do it politely.
Recently, a friend complained that the iced tea we were drinking in a local restaurant was so weak it was nothing more than water. She asked the waitress if we could have some fresh iced tea. Within a short time, the waitress came back with iced tea that had some color and flavor. I think the restaurant will serve better tea now that they know the diluted, stale tea they were serving was not acceptable.
The same goes for service. A reader called to tell me she had read a nice write-up about a local restaurant. She said she and her husband had gone there with a reservation. They were left waiting and stranded. They didn’t know if they were ignored because they were wearing jeans. But, she said, they wore nice jeans with neat shirts. Still, they had to wait so long after they finally were seated that they got up and left.
“Don’t tell me, tell them,” I suggested. I encouraged her to tell the manager how they felt and ask if they did something wrong. I think the manager will appreciate it.
This business of rushing diners keeps plaguing me. When I go out to eat, I like to relax and visit with my companions. At some restaurants, the plates are snapped away from us as quickly as we take the last bite—sometimes before we finish.
I know, I know. Waitresses are instructed to remove dirty plates promptly. I think they should wait until everyone at the table is finished.
One day, I was lunching with a friend who had a lot to tell me. I ate my lunch as I listened. By the time she got around to serious eating, the waitress had whipped my plate away. My friend, I could tell, felt uneasy eating alone. So she took a few bites and set her fork down.
To avoid such situations, I now purposely leave a little something on my plate and pretend I am still eating until everyone at the table has finished.
One of my pet peeves about some restaurants is that they serve imitation seafood without acknowledging it. For instance, we were told the special at a Grand Forks dining room was steak and lobster for $8.50. I jumped at the offer, only to find the lobster was some kind of fish reconstituted in the shape of lobster tail. It even had red markings painted on it. Ick.
At another restaurant one evening, a friend ordered a crabmeat salad. When it came, there were little hunks of reconstituted fish in the shape of meat from crab legs. But it clearly was not crab. When we asked the waitress about it, she didn’t know. And when we asked her to go and check with the cook, she came back and told us it was not crab.
North Dakota has a truth in menu law that requires food to be represented correctly. If the menu says crab, then it better be crab. If the menu offers buttered toast, then real butter must be used on the toast. The restaurant needn’t serve butter on toast. It may serve a substitute. But it must not say that it is butter.
From the other side, I had notes from a waiter, a waitress and a motel maid after I wrote a column with the theme that these people earn every red cent they get. Those waiting tables point out their wages are in the $2.85 range and that they depend on their tips. The waitress said she doesn’t mind sharing, or “tipping out,” 8 percent to busboys and 5 percent to the bartenders. But she resents being required to tip out to the cooks. She’s says it’s against federal wage and hour law regulations. But she’s afraid to complain because it might bring on retaliation from her employer. In other words, the ax.
Waiters and waitresses work long shifts with no prospects for getting a raise. They work irregular hours. They must handle the heat in the kitchen. The waiter wrote, “So the next time a waitress or waiter leaves your check and tells you to have a good day, remember to tip them well because chances are they’re not.”
The motel maid said she works for low wages and few—if any—tips. She said, “We have to clean up some of the most revolting messes ever known to man or beast.” She says she never realized what a maid has to do until she tried it herself. “You are either bending over a bed or on your hands and knees. By the time you’ve made 18 to 20 beds, you can’t stand straight. You should follow a maid one day, and you’d agree.”