Does it suck in here or is it me?

Last night for back to school night Susan and I took the kids to iHop for dinner. For some reason they think having pancakes and bacon for dinner is a real treat. Maybe they’re on to something.

We were greeted at the door by a short lady with both the face and the disposition of an angry bulldog. “How many,” she snarled. Despite the fact that it wasn’t presented as a question, we answered and found our way to a table.

We ordered dinner right around 5pm, and no food was on our table at 5:30pm. For at least ten minutes, all we could hear in the restaurant was the cook fighting with the waitresses. Around 5:35 most our food had begun to arrive, although the last 25% trickled out over the next five minutes as the waitress went around the table asking each person what they were missing. Mason was missing his bacon and Morgan was missing her toast. Unfortunately for me my pancakes weren’t missing; they had obviously been cooked the minute we walked through the door and had been sitting somewhere getting cold and hard for the past 30 minutes. During our entire time there (roughly 45 minutes) the kids got one refill. I wish I could attribute all of this to the place being packed, but when we arrived we were one of only two tables that I could see.

Total for dinner with tip was roughly $50.

I wish I could attribute this to one isolated incident, but it seems to me like most of the places we eat at have raised their prices and hired the absolutely least competent employees they could find.

Last week, we went to El Chico for dinner. We like El Chico, or at least used to. The first bad sign was six or seven tables in one section all being handled by one waitress. We sat waiting for 10 minutes before ever talking to the waitress. By the time she came by the table we were ready to order so we tried ordering our dinner and drinks at the same time, but were stopped cold. “I’ll take your food order after I take theirs,” she said, nodding toward the next table.

She was a waitress full of apologies. “Sorry about the wait.” “Sorry this took so long.” “Sorry I forgot your food.” “Sorry we are understaffed.” “Sorry it’s so hot in here.” “Sorry about the refills.”

The people next to us asked the waitress for some extra napkins. The next time she came by they asked for some extra salsa, and the napkins. The next time she came by they asked for some more cheese, some extra salsa, and the napkins. “Sorry!” “Whoops, sorry!” “Sorry about that!” Our luck was no better. “Sorry, I’ll bring you some more chips.” Why bother? We’ve been out of cheese and salsa all night.

We left a 10% tip. “Sorry!” Fortunately our bill was only $40 this time as the waitress forgot to put our drinks on the ticket and wrote one of the dinners up incorrectly. We didn’t correct her.

Over the weekend we had lunch at Arby’s and met Scott. Scott works the front counter at Arby’s and believe me, he would rather be anywhere else on earth than taking people’s orders at Arby’s.

Scott: “hellowelcometoarbyscanitakeyourorder.”

Susan: “Yes, we would like a combo number one, a…”

Scott: “hold ON.”

With each drink we ordered, Scott slammed another cup down on the counter. I went to go find a seat because I was already tired of Scott’s attitude. There are 8 tables in Arby’s that are not booths. We sat at the only clean one.

Five minutes after we started eating, Scott let us know he was cleaning the other tables by coming out to the dining room and kicking the metal chairs around on the tile floor, shoving them this way and that way with so much noise that conversation became impossible. Just when we thought he was almost done, Scott kicked a chair so hard that it toppled over directly behind us, causing a crash so loud it made all of us jump out of our seats. Did we get an apology, a “Sorry!” or even an “oops?” Ha ha ha, you’ve not met Scott. No, after setting the chair back up he went back to his funny-to-watch technique of swinging his wash cloth wildly, knocking any remaining bits of food off into the floor in every direction.

At one point Morgan had to go up to the front counter to get some condiment. She was greeted by Scott’s backside, who was sitting on the counter facing away from customers. The girl working drive-thru was the one of finally helped her.

I won’t even get into our recent trip to Taco Bueno, where the front booth (with six children and no adults in it) was being used as a make-shift daycare for employees, and the temperature inside the restaurant was 80+ degrees.

I know part of this is me. I like places like Poquito’s and Chileno’s and the Chiner, places where we can walk in, get a decent meal at a decent price, and be waited on by people with a smile (or at least not a frown). Sadly it seems like this is no longer the norm. I don’t expect a song and dance from my waitstaff, but if you’re only going to make my day worse rather than better, I’m not coming back.