Has Anyone Ever Walked out of a Restaurant?
 

Not really weightloss related... but I thought that I'd post it to bring forward some negative attention to Chili's!

Okay here's the story. I'm from Ontario, Canada, and my FH and I and another couple went down to NYC for a couple days over the weekend. We decided to stay in Ramsey, NJ just because it's a bit cheaper than staying in the city. Anyways... we went into Chili's because we've heard about it,a nd wanted to try it out. So we go in, and they are like Oh the kitchen is closing in 6 minutes, we can't serve you. Okay... that's fine, we left and went to TGI Fridays. So the next night we decide to try again. We had been in the city all day, so we went at about 10 pm. We walk in, get a table... it wasn't overly busy in there. So we sit down and wait... and wait and wait. We waited about 15 minutes to get service. By this point, we are starting to get a bit impatient. So we finally get a server, and we order 4 mixed drinks... like alcoholic drinks. We asked how much they were because they didn't have the price attached in the menu ( I hate how they do this!!). The server didn't know. Okay... that's a little weird, but whatever. So she asks us for our ID, and we all give her our licenses. We are all 24 and 25 years old. She goes to leave with the ID, and we're like oh where are you taking it, and she said that her manager needed to see them. That was fine. About 5 minutes later the manager Dwayne comes back and throws one of the ID's to our friend and says, He can have a drink... then he tosses our ID's down on the table and says the rest of you have fake ID's. We started laughing because we thought he was joking. He's like nope we will not serve you. By this point my FH is getting a little upset, and askes how he has gotten to the conclusion that they are fake. Apparently they run it under a black light, and that tells them if it's real or not.

It was completely crazy because these are our drivers lisences that the Government of Ontario has issued us, and they are certainly not fake. The manager was completely rude... didn't ask for any other form of ID. We started arguing saying that we can get into the country with that ID, and it won't even get us a drink. We even went as far as being like well here's our drinks. Anyways it got pretty heated, and the boys made a bit of a scene, but we left.

I have never been sooo embarassed in my life. The manager was incredibly rude by throwing the ID's down on the table. He could have handled it a little better by asking for another piece of ID.

Anyways... that's my story.. .we ended up going to the Olive Garden and it was great.

Sooooo my story is... what is your frustrating restaurant story? Let's call out the restaurants with horrible customer service. I personally will never step foot in another Chili's... i believe that we are going to a restaurant to pay to eat... we should be treated with respect.

Revenge
 

I think you should go to their website and do a customer survey and tell their corporate headquarters what's going on. . . They tend to actually pay attention to complaints because most people won't complain, they will simply not go again. I'd make sure you told them that was your plan.

Just my two cents. You could also go to Just my 3 cents and post a review of their terrible service. It's bound to get more attention than this board.

Mountain Jack's, I hate them. Our server went on break and no one would serve us. When she finally came back we got our food. We were in that restaurant 2 hours. She didn't get a tip, go figure.

I would definately file a complaint with Chilis.I think they will take it seriously and you might get a little satisfaction.Don't let it drop whatever you do.Hold them accountable.

Absolutly I have walked out of restraunts before!! Don't be embarassed at all, they didn't mind embarassing you in front of your friends not to mention the entire place. If I am getting bad service or additude from servers, I feel it is my right to excuse myself from that situation. You went there to eat and enjoy yourself and not to be treated like you were a criminal. Maybe they weren't aware of the fact that I.D.'s in Cananda may be different than the U.S.!! But they still should have went about it in a more professional manner. I would contact their website and complain!! You might get a free meal out of it LOL;) . Just remember not all Chili's have the same ******s working for them...you might have a better experience at another.

I'd also like to say that sometimes an establishment has a really bad day.

I'll tell my Olive Garden story, and then what we did to resolve it.

Olive Garden is somewhere I go a lot with my family, mostly because the food is decent and the location is right smack in between the town where I live and where they live, so we both only have to drive half an hour each way. Anyway, we get there to celebrate someone's birthday, and there is a wait. They estimate it'll take half an hour, we get seated an hour and 15 minutes later. But hey, we're at the bar having a few martinis, so its all OK.

We place our orders, get our appetizers, and everything seems to be going well. We order a bottle of wine - she brings it to the table, already opened, doesn't offer any tastes or anything (which is totally against wine service etiquette, and also against Olive Garden's standard), and splits it into 4 wine glasses by filling them TO THE BRIM with the wine, I guess so she can take the bottle away. Obviously not the way to serve wine, but again, we were celebrating (my dad's birthday, plus our return from a Hawaii vacation) so we were trying to be calm and just roll with it.

Then, our server disappears. For 45 minutes. No entrees, and our appetizer plates and dishes still on the table, water and overly-filled wineglasses empty. After 45 min of NO service, some other girl (not our waitress) comes over, says our waitress had to leave and she'll be taking care of us. We asked her to check on our entrees (it had been, after all, 45 minutes). She is gone for another 10 minutes, then comes back and tells us that the kitchen didn't get our orders and no food has been started for us. We ask her to put in our orders.

After they cook the food (another 20 minute wait), they bring it out to us. I was the only one with an edible entree. My dad's was stone-cold in the middle, my partners was so overcooked that you couldn't even chew it, and my mom's was also too cold. They ended up taking my partners off the bill (it literally was unchewable), but none of the others.

The meal was so bad it was LAUGHABLE, which is what we did...we're a pretty easy-going bunch overall.

My dad wrote to the restaurant on their corporate site, explaining what happened, and explaining that we used this restaurant as a meeting place quite often and that we'd never had a problem before. Within 24 hours, both the corporate office and the manager of the restaurant had called my father personally. We received $50 in gift certificates from corporate, plus $100 from the individual restaurant, and NUMEROUS apologies. In addition, when we went back the next time, the service problems had ALL been fixed...it was a flawless experience. The manager asked us to ask for her the next time we visited the restaurant so she could apologize in person. The manager came out and thanked us for coming back and asked us about the service. All in all, it was a very satisfying resolution, and they have our business back again.

I'd complain. You might be pleasantly surprised at how thoroughly it is handled.

I have a grocery store story. I went to a grocery store and because I'm hard of hearing I have the list of questions the clerk is likely to ask you memorized. This was a military installation and my first time in their store. This woman was phillipine. I can't understand foreign accents so I told her I'm deaf and I can't hear you. I handed her my military ID. She said "blah blah blah?" I can't hear. I'm deaf. Here is my card. This went on for like 15 rounds until the lady behind me says "Don't you know your husband's social security number?" Huh? I had NEVER been asked that before so it was new. I told her, paid and got out. What pissed me off is it is right there on my ID. She didn't need to keep going. I called the manager and reported and from there on I got GREAT service from her.

Edit: In a drive through sonic I parked and saw a handicap sticker on the speaker/menu and it said if I need assistance ask for it. Okay. I pushed the button and put my hand over the speaker so I can tell when they call. I tell them I'm deaf and I need someone to come out and take my order (I don't say hard of hearing cuz people think they need to scream). "Blah blah blah". I'm deaf and...... "blah..blah..blah" (this went on 5 or 6 times. FINALLY someone charges out of the kitchen and said we have to take your order in there because that is where our computers are. "What you do is go inside, find a paper and pen, come out, take my order and go back inside and put it in your computer." "Okay" she says. I waited another 20 min before she came out to take my order!!! Then I waited a while to get my order!! I quietly told her that I thought that was too long and expected someone to come out quicker especially since they didn't do it when I asked them the first time. I showed her the sticker on the menu. Just to be stubborn I went back the following week. Suprise! Same girl! and she came IMMEDIATELY out! AND I got fast service! She got a $5 tip for a $3 order!

ANother time I went to Dunkin Donuts. If the speaker is fuzzy I will ask to pull through and order at the window. (many places say to do that now). I told her I was pulling up (it's not a suprise). She yelled at me and said she would take my order this time but NEXT time order back there. I explained that I have a hearing aide and can't hear back there, etc. She EXPLAINED it is against her store policy etc she CAN'T serve me at the window. Being stubborn I drove back 4 days in a row and repeated it. WHat was she really gonna do? Refuse to take my order? That would have brought the manager over. The fourth day she smiled and didn't say one more word.

I wonder how much weight I gained from these revenge lessons? LOL.

I have walked out of a restaurant also - and never went back. I made arrangements for a large table since they didn't take reservations. We got there - on time- but they had given our table away to another large party who came off the street because they had arrived a few minutes earlier. The problem was that the table wasn't completely set yet and no one was seated - yet they still wouldn't let us have the table - even though the only reason they were prepared for a large party was because I had called ahead since we only live 5 minutes away from the restaurant! We asked to speak to the manager, but he was a complete idiot! We were so mad and it took us another hour to go to another restaurant and get seated. Happy Birthday to me... :(

We tell people not to eat there. If it was part of a chain I would warn all of you to avoid it too... sigh!

We had terrible service once at a Perkin's (like a Denny's). The waitress was nothing short of RUDE. So, the people I was with left a penny and a condom for a tip :lol3: I still get a giggle from that one.

Interesting about Chilli's....

We had the worst restuaraunt expereince there last weekend. Nasty table, sticky as can be. It smelled awful. The hostess who seated us led us on a wilderness walk because she had no clue what was going on. They mixed up our order with another table.... the kicker was, the other table ordered steaks and we ordered grilled chicken (me!) and a burger (him) and they ATE OUR FOOD without a care in the world. They nibbled on it for a while before they requested their actual food. I wanted to throw my silverware at them. The left before we even recieved our order.

I never fill out comment cards. I don't weasel free meals out of establishments. I know we all have bad days. THIS, however, was a letter-writing, comment card kind of experience- and I wasn't paying for it.

Since the manager was so infuriating, I would write a letter and snail mail it to their regional office. That is ridiculous.

You all have some very interesting and frustrating stories!

I have one - A few years ago, my sister Amy and I spent a morning together and then decided to get some lunch. They had built a new Cracker Barrel in the area and we decided to go there. It wasn't an easy decision because we had the website up and we had each lost about 50 pounds at the time, but had a long way to go. We KNEW there was nothing diet friendly at Cracker Barrel, but made an ambitious "Maybe they have something for us!" statement and headed on. After all, it's much easier to be a bad girl when you have an accomplice :p So we walked through the doorway with semi-guilty feelings, but let the smell of hashbrown casserole lead us the rest of the way in. After a long wait, we were finally seated. Then there was another long wait before someone finally came to take our order. He brought our water and spilled it all over the table. He said he would go get a towel, but he never returned. A waitress brought the basket of bread and set it down in the middle of the puddle. At that point, we looked at each other and felt that it was a sign, so we got up and left. We ended up at Wendy's across the street and had low calorie grilled chicken sandwiches.

Suzanne, that reminds me of a hotel I stayed at. The toliet overflowed and the manager came by to give ME the towels to clean it up! I can't imagine bread in the middle of a completely wet table.

Sunni, that experience reminds me how often people will flat out IGNORE the dad when it comes to talking about the children. I'm deaf and I tell them to tell my husband too in case I don't get all the info and he STILL gets ignored.

3rdAngel, that was a rude experience. They should have given you the table.

Junebug, I would have probably eaten part of the meal first too! LOL. It would have been thrown away anyway even if they hadn't eaten it because it had been touched.

Mandilinn, that was probably the worst and at least if I had been dieting I wouldn't be craving that place again!

Linds, at least you got the compliment of looking under 21!! HAHAH! No really I would have been upset. I might have suggested they call the law enforement and ask them to run the numbers. How could yours NOT show up under the blacklight? Defective?

I had a bad dinning experience at Chillis too about 2 weeks ago.

Maybe the whole chain sucks?

I went to a 24-hour fryn' pan (kind of like a denny's) with two frinds and ordered three coffees to start. The waiter left and thirty minutes later and no coffee we flagged someone else down and asked after the coffee. We found out that out server went on break before he took the order so he never put it though. We got the coffee eventually, and left 3 cents. One penny from each of us.

I'd have asked the manager to speak to his supervisor! or take write down his name on a paper and then email a supervisor!

I've walked out of a restaurant once. It was a high end chinese place and I asked them if a particular salad was vegetarian and the server said yes! But when he came back, he placed a chicken salad in front of us and argued that we eat it! We are strict vegetarian and its more than just the veggie craze for us so naturally I was offended.

I said no, i cant have it and he called the head chef who also argued with us that its ok to eat chicken!!!???!!! WT...H?? We just placed 25 bucks(charge of salad and tea's) on the table and walked out!