Restaurant Horror Stories

Success in the restaurant business is not entirely about food! Much emphasis has been given to the culinary side of the restaurant business: food choices, preparation, plating, and serving. The skill level for chefs as well as the kitchen crew continue to climb, as seen by the mushrooming of culinary schools throughout the country. Investments on equipment and silverware likewise eat up a substantial part of expenses. However, all these are only 50% of the success attributes in a restaurant business. The other 50%, which is actually more evident to a diner, involves the dining experience, where waiters, servers, guest relations personnel, cashiers, and other crew are involved. The sad part is that these are the crew members who don’t get much training and certification in terms of skills and competency. These personnel interact and communicate with diners, creating the public perception of a restaurant. Here are my own share of horror stories, classified as peculiarities for easy identification. I encountered these at various restaurants and food outlets around the country.

Johnny Come Lately. This occurred during an out-of-town trip. A group of friends and I decided to have merienda after a five-hour road trip to Baguio. Our group’s order was taken by a 'Johhny,' who assured us that the burgers, cheese sandwich, hotdogs, and brewed coffee would take no more than 15 minutes. True enough, after 15 minutes, Johnny returned to advise us that the burgers and cheese were not available! He convinced us all to switch to hotdogs. After another five minutes, Johhny broke the news to us. The hotdogs had run out! To make matters worse, after waiting for another 10 minutes (Now a total wait of 30 minutes), we were advised that only 3-in-1 coffee was available!

Billy the Goat. Ever been attended by a waiter who is chewing gum while taking your order? This happened just last week at a steakhouse in SM North Edsa. At 1:30 p.m., some business friends and I decided to take a late lunch. A guy named 'Billy' comes over, gives us the menu, and starts taking orders. Everything was fine, except that Billy was chewing gum while attending to us. Maybe Billy just had lunch and hadn't found the time to go to the washroom to brush his teeth before facing customers. When we asked for the bill, Billy was still chewing gum!

Mike of the Wandering Eye. 'Mike' was taking our order but his eyes were not on us. He was ogling some pretty girls walking by the restaurant! We could understand the need to look at other diners, but to stare at people passing by the restaurant? Worse, Mike even called the attention of another food server and carelessly told a joke about one passerby within earshot of those whose orders he was taking!

Susan, Denial Queen. We came across this restaurant somewhere in the vicinity of Rockwell. After our group ordered, the waitress repeated our choices and even confirmed them when we followed up after 15 minutes. Then after another 10 minutes, most of our order was already served, except for the soup. When we followed up our soup order for the second time, Susan denied getting such an order and said the soup was never prepared! When we decided instead to cancel the order, we were appalled when another server butted in on our conversation with Susan and said our soup was already prepared and on its way out of the kitchen!

Ivan the Terrible. It's understandable when people have mood cycles and decide to stay home to relax or stay away from work to blow off steam. However, in this case, this food server called 'Ivan' decided to come to work and share his many mood swings with everyone! He took customer orders and delivered poor quality service with an arrogant voice and a scowling face. To top it off, the wrong food was served!

If only restaurant owners and managers would also spend enough time training the rest of their restaurant staff, then maybe horror stories like this would be less common.

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