Worst. Service. Ever
Worst. Service. Ever.
One act.
The players:
Three young yet fairly funky professionals looking for food and a drink after work, in one of the few restaurants still serving food after midnight, in a cool, funky part of town.
Heather: don’t get her riled
Sarah of the Sun: really don’t get her riled
Mel B.: all she wants is curry without zucchini
George: the bartender, drunk off his ass
Minor characters:Â
Waitress: who recognizes the women, but can’t wait on them because they sat at the bar
Three people who work at another restaurant, offering adviceÂ
A woman who has just finished bartending school and her friend
A young man wearing a bandana, and his girlfriend. He makes the mistake of ordering food tooÂ
Enter the funky three, stage back door, leaving the hot night and their work shift behind. The women sit down. George the bartender asks what they will have. He seems to wobble a bit, and his words are not all that clear. His eyes are glassy.
Heather: I think we’re also going to have food.
George, slurred: All right. Hands over menus, starts putting down napkins.
Heather knows what she wants. With authority, she asks for an amaretto sour. Mel B. is only interested in water. She’s trying to work out, and though she loves Thai iced tea, she is passing it up tonight. Alcohol also full of empty calories, she passes that up.
Mel B.: Water, please.
Minor characters shout no!! But it is too late.
George yells WHAT THE?, rears back, gets the water hose and squirts it all over the three women.
Heather and Sarah of the Sun are both clearly irritated. Mel B. was shocked, but water never hurt anyone. Yes, her menu is wet. The bar is wet, and she wipes it up with her meager bar napkin.
George: I thought you ladies looked hot.
He thinks it’s funny, the double meaning. It has been rather hot in town lately.
Mel B.: Not any more.
Various mutters from Heather and Sarah of the Sun about assholes and cocks and jerks.
George, yells: Lemon or no lemon?
Mel B.: Whatever makes you happy. Whatever will keep me from getting water sprayed again.
George: No, it’s your choice. It’s totally up to you.
Mel B.: I don’t care. No, I don’t care. Whatever you want.
The water arrives with lemon. Sarah of the Sun gets water without any more fuss. Heather’s amaretto sour has to be remade with amaretto.
More repartee from George. Not witty, mind you. Can’t tell whether he’s ever smart, but he certainly isn’t in this state. He wears the annoying boy uniform: the plaid shirt, the gelled hair. He’s a big guy, not overweight, but massive. You probably couldn’t pick him out of a crowd of a bunch of identical college students.
Most of his banter involves WHAT THE? shouted at ear-splitting levels followed with more quiet, conversation-interrupting proclamations of I know, I’m the asshole.
The three order food, and Mel B., in the spirit of insulting George in the way her friends are, asks him to listen, she will talk slowly.
Mel B.: Musaman curry with tofu. No onion. And no other vegetables. Sometimes they put in carrots if you get vegetarian, and I don’t want any vegetables. Just what it says on the menu. Tofu. Curry. Potatoes. Peanuts.
George: Chicken?
Mel B.: Not chicken. Tofu. I don’t want any zucchini either. No anything.
George: Red or green curry.
Mel B.: Musamun curry.
George: Which number?
Mel B.: No. 38. You see? It has these ingredients, and I don’t want onion or anything else not listed on the menu.
George, slurring: No onions.
When Heather orders, Mel B. remembers she wants sticky rice too. George assures her he’s got her covered.
Sarah of the Sun orders something similar to Mel B.’s curry, with all the veggies. She loves ‘em. But she asks distinctly for a separate check, and George makes a big show of going to another ticket, fumbling as he does so. His handwriting is bad, but one can’t tell if that’s normal or his state of inebriation. One hopes that the cooks can make some sense of it.
Mel B. leans to Heather: I bet you my order comes out wrong.
Heather: I’d be very surprised if it came out right.
Heard in the background, George is yelling out the order to the cooks. Can’t tell whether he gets it right, but the bet is on.
More conversation in between. A bartender from a nearby restaurant is giving advice on bartending. Her employer interrupts and says don’t pay to go to bartending school. Bartending school is a waste of time. Watch. Drink a lot. The subject of this lecture is highly irritated because she was interrupted and tells the restaurant owner to go away. But watching drinks made in this bar is rather pointless. Nobody would learn anything, except to not drink while bartending. An order of spring rolls arrives, unordered. But the women think this is George’s way of redeeming himself for being “the asshole.” Maybe. Sarah of the Sun realizes later there was shrimp in the spring rolls, and it makes her sick. She’s a full vegetarian in the way Mel B. is not, and doesn’t eat seafood. Ever. She’s eaten something that had been alive.
Meanwhile, Mel B. is generally amused. She has gotten over the water and is listening to conversations. She occasionally has the opportunity to sharpen her sarcasm on the bartender. She is actually having a good time, until her food arrives.
George: Musamun curry, no onions, and garlic chicken (given to Heather.)
No rice.
Musamun is soupy, and needs rice to be eaten effectively. Mel B. takes a peek under the lid of the curry while waiting for her rice and discovers the curry is packed with all the vegetables she did not want.
She is very disappointed. It shows on her face. Heather insists on George delivering the sticky rice. One order, not two, comes out. Mel B. is sad at this point, but she will eat what she can, with as little rice as she can.
She methodically picks out the cabbage, the zucchini, the carrots, the green beans. She’s never had green beans in there before. She doesn’t find any onions, but everything else she hates is in there. Her friends often kid her about being the vegetarian who doesn’t like vegetables, but she can come of with a list of the things she does eat, when pressed. And none of these items are on the list.Â
She spoons out just some of the sauce onto a pile of rice and starts eating, but she is not happy. But she almost never returns food.
Her friends argue with her, keep telling her to send it back, but Mel B. feels terrorized by the bad bartender, and does not want to ask for anything else. She eats glumly and hopes they can leave soon.
Mel B.: I don’t think there’s any tofu in here either.
And her friends have had enough. They make George retake her order, but he’s not listening.
He yells the order to the cook, and yells chicken.
Heather: No, no chicken!
George: Tofu, sorry. Red or green curry?
Heather: Musamun. And no vegetables. All she wants is …
George is still not getting right. The order has to be repeated to him a couple more times before Heather is satisfied. She doesn’t bother to ask for another rice. While Mel B. is waiting for her food, she eats what little she can from the first order, and eventually shoves all the vegetables to Sarah of the Sun.
George apologizes in a polite manner. By now, Mel B. finds it pretty funny, because not a single thing has gone right. She tells George it’s funny, like the time she ordered a sandwich without mayonnaise, and all she got was mayonnaise.
George: I understand. I hate mayonnaise too. So I know what it’s like too. Ugh, if it even touches my food…
Mel B. feels a very slight twinge of kinship. Someone who doesn’t like mayo, who doesn’t think that’s weird. And he’s being nice, only occasionally talking over her and saying yes, I know, I’m the asshole!
Surprisingly, the food does arrive as ordered. Mel B. gets a smile back on her face, and takes a little bit more of the rice, doing the best she can. The last thing she wants to do is order more rice.
Another minor character comes into the restaurant with his girlfriend. This character is chatty, sees Sarah of the Sun’s food and decides he wants it too. The women make lots of jokes about vegetables, but the young man with the bandana likes vegetables.
George, taking the order: Beef? He hadn’t been listening. Bandana guy ordered chicken.
Bandana guy: Chicken.
He also orders steamed rice, but it takes George returning with his food for bandana guy to remind him about the rice, and then George has to plod back to the kitchen again.
Back to the women. They are finishing up their food. They are so irritated they just want to leave. They ask for boxes to take the leftovers. Mel B. wasn’t able to eat very much without rice, but maybe she can make some at home. Besides, she’d eaten what she could of the first order.
George brings over two to-go containers, and drops them on the floor when he tries to get them apart. The women watch him to make sure he throws them away, and doesn’t pass them off as clean.
He returns with three containers, including one for Sarah of the Sun’s leftover rice. At least someone got rice.
He spends a couple of minutes trying to get the containers apart. This is an operation for a three year old. He loses a lid and has to return for another one.
George eventually delivers the check. And he didn’t divide it up.
Sarah of the Sun is clearly angry, berates him. He looks confused, and goes back to do some more figuring. The two new totals he comes up with don’t seem to add up to the first total. But the women do not care. They will pay just to leave. They don’t see the itemized bill, and Mel B. suspects her imaginary rice is on there. And then George spouts new totals and Sarah of the Sun is angry again, as George says, you had the beer, right?
Sarah of the Sun: I didn’t have a beer. I had water. And she (Heather) had an amaretto sour.
George: Oh.
More complicated figuring, and he spouts a new price.
The women pull out cards. Mel B. becomes very nervous at this point, and Heather tells her, don’t do anything. He’s got our cards. I don’t trust him.
George returns, looks blearily at the receipts, and hands them over. Sarah of the Sun luckily looks at the name on the receipt to find out even though it has her total, it has Mel B.’s name on it.
Mel B. looks at her receipt. It also has her name on it.
Sarah of the Sun: You ran her card twice!
George: No I didn’t.
Sarah of the Sun: Look!
It’s doubtful whether George is capable of reading at this point, so after squinting a lot, he returns back to the register. Sarah of the Sun is willing to just give Mel B. money, but no, George is going to void the transaction.
Luckily, he has help. He even shows Mel B. the voided receipt, which Mel B. then takes from him, as proof in case it doesn’t get voided.
The women leave, and Mel B. walks over to where their normal waitress is hanging out with friends on the patio.
Mel B: Next time we won’t sit at the bar.
Waitress: What happened?
Mel B.:Â Nevermind. But we’ll sit at a table next time.
Waitress: Was it crazy?
Mel B.: Yeah, it was crazy.
Though crazy doesn’t really describe drunkenness. She’s just happy to leave.
Sarah of the Sun says she’ll never go there again, but Heather and Mel B. both love that place and support it because it’s one of the few places serving good, real food that late at night, though only toward weekends. Mel B. spent all day yearning for curry.Â
The women just know never to sit at the bar again.
Bartenders do not do make good waiters/waitresses. I’ve had a bad experience or two sitting at the bar, but nothing as bad as this. Usually, bartenders just act pissed that you’re sitting at the bar and ordering food and no liquor. So they show you how pissed they are by ignoring you after they slam your plate down in front of you.
What a horrible experience you had, though. Lynn would call the bar owner and complain, after she got home. I’ve done that as well. I did note that no one left George a tip, however.
I’d be very surprised if the owner of the restaurant was not aware of this problem. Maybe some people consider it color. I consider it inexcusable, and I tolerate a lot of bad things. And to our credit, one order of alcohol was ordered. Just not all of us.
Anyway, I’d also hate to get someone fired, if that would even happen. Regardless of how terrible this experience was, I’ve never wanted anyone to lose their job.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t bring myself to not leave a tip. He didn’t get my normal generosity, however.
And I have had very inattentive service at bars serving food, but no one was ever actually drunk.
I’m going to be a little hard on you here: “worst service ever” and you still left a tip? You’re a pushover
I’d still complain to the manager, however. Promise never to return and to swear that you will advise everyone you meet to do the same. I can understand not wanting to get someone fired, though. Maybe you’re right and it’s just better to say nothing.
I am a pushover.
And that place is the only decent food after midnight… I can’t swear anything, except I will never sit at the bar again. That makes me stupid.
Would it count if I said I won’t go back for a while?
Ordinarily, I don’t return to places I’ve had bad experiences at. I hold a mean grudge. But the food is still really good.
This experience is completely uncharacteristic of the place itself. We’ve eaten here many many times. They never treat us funny (that’s pretty big in my book), our food is nearly always hot, it’s some of the best Thai in town, they’re always friendly. But that’s the waitstaff and the kitchen.
The owner is a man who wanted to locate in the swanky part of town, but decided against it, both because they wouldn’t let him stay open past 10, adn because the cool part of town is more accessible. Part of why we go so often is to support a local restauranteur doing his thing.
It’s not just the food. We like this place. This service is limited to one asshole drunk. Perhaps we should talk to the owner, because he seems like a reasonable guy. Maybe. Though he did hire the asshole bartender.
[...] The only place I became a semi-regular at here, I had to boycott. Still haven’t been back. But we checked out a new Thai place just down the street, with late hours, and, as it turns out, much better food for a reasonable price without the water and the drama. [...]