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Friday, November 03, 2006

A group of friends & coworkers asked me out to lunch today - being that it's my "non-Birthday" (it's really tomorrow) I said "SURE". When asked for restaurant suggestions, I said "Hey - what about Sam Sneads? They are really good". The previous times I had been there, I was really impressed. Their wait staff - impeccable. Their food - fabulous. The drinks.. Well you get the drift.

Keep in mind we had a limited time to go to lunch - it was Friday - we all have to get back to the daily grind and one of the guys made a reservation - figured we'd be out of there by 1/1:15 tops. When an additional person was going, I called and got this guy who said "Oh - you have a reservation under what name". I give the name and I hear "Oh - yeah if you have a reservation that's fine". You would think I would have gotten a "Hmmm.. Something's not right" but I figured the guy was a tad inexperienced. (Later I found out through the voice recognition that it was Mark - the operations manager - someone quick - buy him a clue).

We sit down at 12:05, order our food at 12:15. When did we get our order - 1:12 p.m. ALMOST AN HOUR. 45 minutes into this waiting game, not one time did the server, Katie H., EVER come by to tell us "oh the kitchen's a bit backed up" or "I'm sorry it's running a little late". I'll give her this - she kept filling up our iced tea glasses, but she did give one of the girls a bit of a "ten heads" look when she asked for water. At 1:05 (I looked at the watch), I had to talk to another server and ask him to check on our order and find out what's up. During this whole episode, our server was playing with a baby, yippin' and no show of "follow through". Now, I try to take it easy on servers - I used to be one and I remember bitchy customers. I also was a restaurant manager in college and, I also remember bitchy customers. But this was beyond unacceptable.

Not more than 2 minutes after talking to the other server (who was a doll by the way), Katie comes over to our table with some bread going "I heard there were complaints. I want you to know for a 7 top (there were 7 at the table) it takes a bit longer but it should be right out". What. The. OH NO SHE DIDN'T! If she thinks she is going to swagger to our table with a little attitude, she don't know any of us. That immediately set the tone for the rest of the meal. At 1:12, there should have been a processional because out comes Katie H. with Mr. Doll Server with the food. The orders were - 2 hamburgers, 2 chicken sandwiches, 1 tuna sandwich (2-3 minutes to grill a piece of ahi tuna - HELLO), one quesadilla and a salad with filet tips.

As she's going around with her little defensive mechanism shield up, she hands one of my friends her salad with steak filet. My friend had requested that the Cesar salad be substituted in place of the spinach salad. A Cesar salad is lettuce, a bit of parmesan, some croutons and Cesar dressing. Not rocket science - hell my cat can make that. It should have been super simple. Well, P. got lettuce & croutons tossed with a bit of the fruity vinaigrette for the SPINACH salad. She brought the fact up to Katie who promptly tried to argue with her and tell her what she ordered. Rather than swapping out a new Cesar salad made correctly (which would take 4 minutes - tops) she told her she could redo it but it might "take a bit". And, on a totally different not, but still disturbing - Katie took it upon herself to address P. with the term "Babe". Ummm.. Hello?!?!?! She also reiterated the point that it took, and I quote - "28 minutes for a 7 top", as was evidenced by her timestamp on the order. So - tell me this Ms. Katie - where was the order from 12:15 - 12:42? Ahhh.. Now - even Sherlock would deduce that it was with HER doing nothing. Granted they were a tad busy, but NOT slammed. She had about 4 tables. Her other server in her section had more than that and not one of his customers seemed to be cranky. As a matter of fact, he had a rather large party about double our size and he didn't even crack a sweat.

We finished our lunch but blood pressure was up. When Katie decided to come around to "see if everything was okay", it took every ounce of restraint I had to not rip her a new one. Then, Katie made a big mistake - she decided to "apologize" to us about our "friend's salad not being right" WHEN P. WAS NOT AT THE TABLE. P and another friend had already gone to get their parking validated (and to talk to the manager). That set it off. I cut that wench off with "That is between YOU and HER and we don't need to hear it!" Katie's damn lucky I was not at that particular end of the table because I would have caused a scene. Don't EVER treat my friends with such disrespect. My gal, M. told me that my expression was far from nice and, I'm sure it was because I was calm. I'm sure I'm still red about the issue. Katie: you might want to learn some sincerity when apologizing.

It gets better - I promise. While waiting for P. to finish with the manager, Katie addressed another couple with the phrase "Lets start with what we DO know" with the same bitchy tone that she tried to address us with after she heard our complaint. The couple was an older woman and a man. No need for attitude.

Shortly thereafter, Mark, the manager came over with a whole bunch of "I'm sorry" blah blah blah. I was later informed that he did comp. out P.'s meal, however he did not discount the remainder of the bill as he had promised. A number of us were former servers and all of us tip generously. This time, I felt that Katie did not deserve anything for her attitude, tone, and trying to start an argument with a CUSTOMER. When I was a manager, if one of my staff ever did that, they'd get a stern talking to - if I heard that phrase after that, they would be out the door so quick their apron would hit them in the nose. Same goes for me - if I EVER treated ANY customer like that, I'd be out of a job - so where does she get off thinking she can feed us a line of excuses?

AGAIN - there's more to this rant… after we left, being that I deal well with fellow publicists, I decided to find out who did their PR. Don't you know Mark answered and told me that I could call Candy after 9:00 on Monday. Great. She's on my call list - Don't worry about that. Still angry about the issue, I figured I'd deal with Mr. Mark directly - I called back and got Andrew who, with a beyond bitchy tone told me "Can you call back in 30 minutes?". "No Andrew", I promptly told him "Here's what YOU are going to do - you are going to take a message, get a pen and paper". I was beyond pissed and seeing red. After fighting with him over his question of "Well who ARE YOU?" and "Does Mark KNOW you" and "What is this REGARDING?" Yeah, little one - Andrew you are beyond on my list - you and Katie - so not welcome. I told him that Mark could call me in 30 minutes. Well, that was at 1:45. It's 3:50 and STILL No call. So, here's what I'm going to do:

1) Mark and I are going to have a "Come to Jesus" meeting. We're going to talk this out. Not hug it out - I'm not Ari from Entourage, but we'll have a "meeting of the minds" whereby he will apologize with some sincerity - comp my friends (all 6 of them) or reverse their charges;

2) Candy and I are going to have a talk about future events to be scheduled at Sam Sneads as I have a few clients who do, indeed, work with them. Should they EVER have my clients treated the way I was, it's on;

3) I'm going to notify Patrick Casey at the Pike Corporation who is the owner of Sam Sneads of the behavior of Katie H. (Server), Andrew (Phone Guard) and Mark - Operations Manager and give him the friendly suggestion that he might want to have someone "drop by" for their section around 12:00;

4) I'm going to encourage every person who I know that goes there in Orlando to really "think twice". If we had 2 servers and one manager who can't control them, that scares me about the rest of the people that go there;

5) I'm going to make sure that my review is posted in a few outlets because seriously - this was ridiculous, uncalled for and disappointing. As I really enjoyed going there before - the fact they were so horrid today (and at my birthday lunch no less), we've definitely got a big problem.

As my friend Amy said so eloquently - Always be nice to others, especially those you don't know, because you never know who you might be dealing with!

On another note - Mark: There's nothing wrong with working for Applebees - I just hope your behavior there was MUCH better when you were a manager then when you were here. You just have to embrace it and stop denying the fact that you worked there - see above statement.

Posted by Lys :: 4:05 PM :: 0 comments

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