Most Mistakes Ever

by Nick Coons
Aug 25, 2004

Recently I had a very interesting dining experience. I won't mention the restaurant's name, because it's uncharacteristic for this dining spot that we otherwise love so much. A small group of us walked in on a Friday evening where we were greeted and seated as usual. And the reason this was such an interesting experience was because of the myriad of mistakes made by our server.

The drinks are brought out quickly, except mine turns out to be a diet instead of regular. And here comes the first problem. Our server seems a little annoyed at us each time we point out his mistake or ask for something else. But the reason we're doing that is to have it corrected, not to rub it in his face. So we place our orders, and my friend sitting in front of me ordered a soup with his entree instead of a salad. When my salad arrives, which I ordered, a salad for him arrives as well.

About 15 minutes after turning that salad away, or main courses arrive. My wife's dinner has broccoli on the side instead of tomatoes, my friend receives (and is charged for) a full rack of ribs instead of the half-rack he ordered, he wasn't given any bacon bits for his backed potato as requested, and my chicken tenders didn't come with the buffalo sauce that the menu says come with the "Buffalo Chicken Tenders." Keep in mind that at this point the soup has still not arrived.

Halfway through the meal, someone arrives with a cup of French onion soup. Right soup, but way too late. As we're moving along, the manager comes up to profusely apology for the experience that the four of us were enduring, and offered to provide all of us with the free dessert of our choice. We ordered dessert, and these came without issue.

As we were wrapping up and just receiving the bill, we were sort of hoping that some of the meal would be compensated other than just the offer of the desserts. Not the case. The bill did come with dinner mints, but only three, and there were four of us. At this point we didn't even want to mention anything.

This got to the point where it was more ridiculous than annoying, and we know we were being waited on by a server who had only been there two days, so we don't hold it against the restaurant; especially since it is one of our favorite locations to frequent.