A couple weekends ago during Car Care Weekend, Luke, The Wife, The Kid, and I went to Famous Dave’s. We all like BBQ, and I still believe Dave’s is as good as any other place if you just want some decent BBQ. Sure, there are a few knockout BBQ places that would beat the Famous one, but, well, none of them are as close to my house (by an order of magnitude) as Dave’s.
Anyway, we knew right off that our service wouldn’t be stellar. But we were surprised by the attentiveness our waitress gave the table next to us, populated by a couple guys just off the interstate. They arrived about twenty minutes after we sat down.
One of the fellas was a little more talkative than the other. He ordered some drink (I’m guessing iced tea), and asked the waitress to dip her finger in it to sweeten it up. For a side-order he chose beans with the editorial statement that he would “blow his friend out of the car.” Said friend also sided up some beans in order to “fight fire with fire.”
As the waitress came around to check on them, the talkative one described to her the joy of fried okra, lamenting that it did not reside on Famous Dave’s menu. He added that fried okra has the consistency of snot if not cooked sufficiently. And shortly before this pair left, Mr. Chatty mentioned that he would like to eat BBQ everyday, but it would probably give him a horrible hemmerhoid problem.
These baudy diners received their food approximately 6 times faster than we did. They also received their check before us (remember, they arrived twenty minutes after we did). And to make SBG supremely confident in the waitressing skills being displayed, we were asked how our food was tasting. My response was, “I don’t know, why don’t you ask it?” Nah, of course not.
Luke and I are such consistent tippers that we still had to give the young lady 10%, thinking that was somehow punishment. In retrospect I think I need to lower my tipping floor.
Comments (6)
That’s enough to merit a) a comment with the manager or b) a nasty note on the bill w/o a tip.
It says a lot about your waitress when buffoons like that get better service.
Unfortunately I tend to be fairly meek in public settings. Over the phone, hell yeah! I need to work on my restaurant performance requirements. :)
That was a bizarre meal….I can’t figure out why it took so long to get our food. It was probably sitting there for a long time. That, or we’re just pariahs.
We both need to learn how to just not tip. Even if I’ve been treated like shit, I feel terrible leaving a bad tip. Damned liberal guilt…;)
I am making it my goal to not tip the next time I get horrible service. And to tip under 15% if I get nearly acceptable service. And to tip around 25% for my next outstanding service experience. I’m far enough removed from having close friends work as waiters and waitresses - the tipping must be metered appropriately.
Maybe she was just trying to get rid of them?
I gave up on stiffing wait-people awhile back. Something to do with kids making horrible messes, and realizing that there was no way in heck I wanted to be a wait-person myself. I’m glad to give them $5 in exchange for not mentioning the sauce the kids ground into the carpet.
This is true. Ava isn’t too bad, but sometimes (especially when we eat Mexican) the booth is a disaster area.