Have you ever sent something back at a restaurant?

I can handle sending something back to the kitchen because it's under-/overcooked or the wrong item (a waitress at the Cheesecake Factory once served a Jewish friend of mine--who was wearing a kippah at the time--a cheeseburger). But how bad does something have to be for you to break down and ask the waiter to do something about it?

I've thought about sending something back to the kitchen very few times in my restaurant-going career, mostly because I am a big wuss, generally do not like confrontation, and can suck up just about anything.

However, I had the worst steak frites ever last Saturday. The frites were limp and soggy with oil, and the steak...well, let's just say that the first bite was good, but the 46 subsequent chews it took to turn it into a hunk of gross gray, grainy, meat-gum were torturous. I had to go spit it out in the bathroom. I wanted to complain, and yet, I didn't complain. Instead, I cut up that steak into tiny tiny pieces that required only 12 chews to make them swallowable. Oh, and the tab for dinner for two people was $80.

Mine is an untenable situation. I want to have the (ahem) guts to send the bad stuff back. I need encouragement! I need your stories of successfully returned food.

Chowhound seems more appropriate a source for answers to this idiom of question.

Yes, send something back if it isn't cooked to your specifications....know what those parameters are aforethought...don't be fickle.

Do not send something back if it's what you ordered but you don't "like" it.

If it isn't what I've ordered and I'm willing to wait for a new plate, I'll send it back.

If it includes a hair or something along those lines, I'll send it back. In this type of scenario and if its a good restaurant, the manager will approach our table and comp that entree. This happened to us during vacation while dining at a chain restaurants. Despite the nasty hair sticking out of our open faced meatloaf sandwich, we will return because of their prompt and fair service.

If the service was extremely poor, I wont hesitate speaking with the manager. In one instance when we waited 45 minutes between our soup and entree... without any acknowledgment from our server, we spoke with the manager and as a result, the entire meal was comped.

The way I see it, Im paying for convenience and good service... and if I'm not satisfied, the restaurant needs to know so that they can use the constructive feedback to improve in areas.

Christopher Gordon wrote:Do not send something back if it's what you ordered but you don't "like" it.

I have no problem ordering something else though. My first trip to LTH fave Lotus of Siam in Vegas, I ordered some sort of Northern stew that had this funky vegetable, and after a couple bites I knew I just couldn't eat it. I apologized and asked for something else, making it clear I had no problem paying for what I'd originally ordered, but they insisted on taking it off the bill. I don't remember, but I hope I tipped well.

That sort of thing is pretty rare.

I've sent back chicken that's raw in the middle. I'm much more likely to whine about undercooking than, say, overcooked beef.

Do you ever mark a piece of undercooked meat with a distinguising cut to tell whether you get the same one back again?

nm

tiptoemole wrote:I can handle sending something back to the kitchen because it's under-/overcooked or the wrong item (a waitress at the Cheesecake Factory once served a Jewish friend of mine--who was wearing a kippah at the time--a cheeseburger). But how bad does something have to be for you to break down and ask the waiter to do something about it?
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Why do you ASSUME that a waitress at any NON-KOSHER restaurant know complexities of the various Kosher regulations?

HI,

Thank you for giving me an opportunity to post on an incident last week: My friend and I ordered gyros, which I confidently ordered after checking there was a meat cone rotating. I'm chatting with my friend when I see from the corner of my eye the grill master taking gyros slices from a bucket and reheating on the grill. "Stop! I want to change my order!" The guy looked at me quite startled. I explained, "If you are not offering me gyros sliced fresh from the cone, then I don't want it." "This was just cut a few minutes ago, I am reheating it briefly from the grill." "No thank you, I will take a patty melt instead." My friend switched her order to an Italian Beef.

If this guy had had the privacy to spit on our food, I'll bet he would have loved to. He was not happy with us as he picked up the gyros meat and returned to the bucket for another less observant client.

Regards,

If I got the wrong thing, I send it back, unless it looks better than what I ordered. If it's just not good, I never 'make a scene'.

If there's something wrong with it - for example my raw chicken tenders at a big sports bar, several long hairs at a thai place, or strips of aluminum foil at an Indian place, I'm done eating there. I'm not waiting for it to come back from the kitchen 'fixed'.

Why do you ASSUME that a waitress at any NON-KOSHER restaurant know complexities of the various Kosher regulations?

well, first of all, i'd assume the guy didn't actually order a cheeseburger, so serving it to him was clearly a mistake.

second, service staff SHOULD understand the basics of things like kosher regulations, so as to be better prepared to serve their clients.

good restaurants (especially big corporate entities like cheesecake factory) should and do make the effort to inform their staffs about dining preferences. servers at these restaurants SHOULD be aware that a guy wearing a yarmulke probably won't be eating shrimp or a cheeseburger.

servers SHOULD be aware that most indians are not going to order beef, and that many are vegetarian. servers SHOULD know that most muslims don't eat pork.

now, that being said, they should also take the time to communicate with their customers, and not just assume that their preferences are the same as the various ethnic groups they're members of, but quality establishments WILL make their service staff aware of these general tendencies.

it's not really all that much to expect.

my rule of thumb- if I ordered wrong I suck it up and eat it, but if it was prepared incorrectly (pasta should be al dente not soupy for example) or they messed up then it goes back until they get it right.

elakin wrote:

Why do you ASSUME that a waitress at any NON-KOSHER restaurant know complexities of the various Kosher regulations?

servers SHOULD be aware that most indians are not going to order beef, and that many are vegetarian. servers SHOULD know that most muslims don't eat pork.

now, that being said, they should also take the time to communicate with their customers, and not just assume that their preferences are the same as the various ethnic groups they're members of, but quality establishments WILL make their service staff aware of these general tendencies.

it's not really all that much to expect.

I would argue that a lot of people can't tell a person of one ethnic origin from another, much less place a Pakistani Muslim from an Indian Hindu. Add into it people of one ethnicity who convert to another religion, and there should be no assumptions of what a person's religiously-ordained dietary restrictions are (although I do admit that a yarmulke should be a give-away). Even if you could tell religion, you can't tell the level of piety or interpretation of religious dietary law (when I was working as a counselor, I had a Muslim tell me that doing drugs was ok, but alcohol was forbidden - the justification was that the Koran specifically called alcohol a mind-altering substance, but didn't mention cocaine).

-gtgirl

Boy, I've never heard of training employees on ethnic or religious restrictions-for the overwhelming most part-who knows what someone will order? The customer has the responsibility to make their restrictions clear, and inspect their food a bit. What if some place puts a smear of sour-creamed based "special sauce" on every burger?
After something like the cheeseburger incident happens-Then there may well be a little seminar along the lines of "What are the chances this guy ordered the cheeseburger"? But servers at a Cheesecake Factory being skilled in various dietary laws? C'mon.

elakin wrote:

Why do you ASSUME that a waitress at any NON-KOSHER restaurant know complexities of the various Kosher regulations?

well, first of all, i'd assume the guy didn't actually order a cheeseburger, so serving it to him was clearly a mistake.

second, service staff SHOULD understand the basics of things like kosher regulations, so as to be better prepared to serve their clients.

good restaurants (especially big corporate entities like cheesecake factory) should and do make the effort to inform their staffs about dining preferences. servers at these restaurants SHOULD be aware that a guy wearing a yarmulke probably won't be eating shrimp or a cheeseburger.

servers SHOULD be aware that most indians are not going to order beef, and that many are vegetarian. servers SHOULD know that most muslims don't eat pork.

now, that being said, they should also take the time to communicate with their customers, and not just assume that their preferences are the same as the various ethnic groups they're members of, but quality establishments WILL make their service staff aware of these general tendencies.

it's not really all that much to expect.

So , I guess that in addition to serving the food, the waitstaff is also responsible for enforcing religious laws and regulations. I DON'T THINK SO. Personally, the individual customer should be served what they ordered.

From my experience, for every Jew who follows Kosher laws observantly, there are several who do not. One of my doctor friends used to order bacon every morning.

Am I supposed to not serve my Saudi clients alcohol when they come to Chicago on business? Not if I plan to do business with them (even though I find alcohol usage offensive personally).

Most people with religious dietary requirements are generally fairly upfront with their requests. There are certain people that aren't and use that to beat up on the waitstaff.

jlawrence01 wrote:So , I guess that in addition to serving the food, the waitstaff is also responsible for enforcing religious laws and regulations. I DON'T THINK SO. Personally, the individual customer should be served what they ordered.

And this particular customer was NOT served what he ordered. So he sent the item back.

What exactly are you arguing about here? The poster gave an example of a restaurant patron who was brought the wrong dish that he had no choice but to return because he could not consume it. Why are you acting like the customer ordered the bacon-wrapped shrimp in cheese sauce and then threw a fit because the waitress didn't know to substitute gefilte fish and matzo?

Aw, gee...

I never meant to imply that the waitress necessarily should have known my friend was Jewish (really, I thought it was just a funny aside). I would only assume that she would serve him a hamburger, which he ordered, and not a cheeseburger. (I would also assume that she would bring him an altogether new burger when he pointed out that he got something he didn't order, but that didn't happen, either. Instead, she brought back the same burger with the cheese scraped off. My friend, who is observant enough to wear a kippah, but not observant enough to keep strictly kosher--we were in the Cheesecake Factory, after all--was just going to eat the burger at that point, until another friend spoke up. ANYWAY, this is all beside the point.)

My question is this. As evidenced by my "steak" that required WAY too many chews, I got a REALLY crummy piece of meat. Should I have sent it back?

tiptoemole wrote:My question is this. As evidenced by my "steak" that required WAY too many chews, I got a REALLY crummy piece of meat. Should I have sent it back?

Yes, yes you should have. I'm not sure I would have wanted another steak though.

jesteinf wrote:

tiptoemole wrote:My question is this. As evidenced by my "steak" that required WAY too many chews, I got a REALLY crummy piece of meat. Should I have sent it back?

Yes, yes you should have. I'm not sure I would have wanted another steak though.

Depends- if you are in TGI McFunsters- that's all you're gonna get. If you're in a self proclaimed steakhouse, even if it's outback- send it back.

Even in a steakhouse that serves a too-chewy steak, I'm more in the "serves me right for coming here--I won't make that mistake again" camp than the "justice must be served even if I have to have them bring me everything on the menu until I find something edible" camp. Life's too short.

riddlemay wrote:Even in a steakhouse that serves a too-chewy steak, I'm more in the "serves me right for coming here--I won't make that mistake again" camp than the "justice must be served even if I have to have them bring me everything on the menu until I find something edible" camp. Life's too short.

Yeah, I suppose I agree. I was down in central Illinois at a little lunch joint, and I ordered the special - a barbecue pork wrap. Out came this wrap with Open Pit BBQ sauce, some grilled onions, a little metled cheese. A mess, it could have been good, but the first bite was off. Then I took a couple more, and it was clear the pork was not good any more. So I finished the soup, grabbed a couple of crackers, drank my pop and decided that I was supposed to eat light for lunch.

Of course, part if the reason I made that decision was that I doubted anything else there would really be good, though hopefully nothing else on the menu was going to have expired like the pork. And I had lost my appetite.

Ya places your order, ya takes what comes, even it is lumps. But there would not have been anything wrong with sending it back. And I did tell the manager as I paid if only to save others, and he did take it off my bill. That's the thing, you owe it to the restaurant and other diners to tell them if something is really bad. They probably do not want to serve crap. And things go wrong sometimes at every place.

If the food is rotten, or old, or just really inedible like the steak the OP mentioned, you should be able to send it back without guilt. They're charging you several times the actual cost of the product, so you deserve something that is at least edible.

I usually don't send it back unless my order is totally wrong, though. I've had several inedible dishes , including rotten fish, raw pork chops, a very gristley steak($30) and mashed potatoes that were literally a puddle(that was a weird one that I still wonder about) at nice places that I didn't do anything about. I guess it just feels uncomfortable to. I think in the future I should speak up more about these types of things.

HI,

Years ago, I was part of a group of 12 having dinner. Several ordered fish, which had off flavors. When they commented this to management, they were told they were ill-informed on how fish should taste and refused to acknowledge a problem. This fish was salmon, which is hardly an unknown taste and texture.

This short-sightedness cost them further repeat business from a group of 12 who ate out once a week.

Regards,

OOh, it's my first post on LTH, and I'm going to disagree with the majority!

Well, not disagree. But I have sent many things back in restaurants, and have a wider spectrum of conditions under which I will do so. I certainly send something back if it's poorly cooked, tastes off, is lukewarm, has a hair in it, etc. I have also sent things back that I "didn't like" or even "wasn't what I was expecting". In those cases, it was really only when the food was truly bad that I did this.

I don't know if this varies by city, but, having eaten out a lot in Boston, I had many meals where someone else's dish would be good or great and mine would be truly awful. Not just not to my liking (and I'm adventurous so not because I ordered the bitter melon and didn't like it) but just badly made, with bad ingredients, or completely wrong compared to the description. This most often happened in "mid-priced" restaraunts that are still expensive and I felt completely justified and comfortable doing so.

I haven't had this experience here, but I do think people are justified under those circumstances to send a dish back. There are times when it's hopeless or not the right circumstance - a place where everything is utterly over-salted, for example, or a cheap fast food place. But I've had some really bad meals at supposedly great restaurants, and I think they deserve to know that the food is awful.

I think the original poster was looking for support around the stressful act of sending something back, and certainly having critera will help, but I think assertiveness takes practice. I also have read that sending something back puts the waitstaff in a difficult position on occasion - they are as subject to bad policy on this topic as you are - but a good restaurant will comply in the case you mentioned, and many will comply when I send something back because it's simply bad. I always make sure to give a good tip in this situation, esp if something is comped - I tip to the original amount.

There's an interview with Ruth Reichl somewhere where she definitely advocates sending food back that is simply bad - the reasoning is that otherwise the restaurants will never know, and never get better, and seemed to imply it's their responsibility. But I bet she doesn't have this experience to often. And I haven't had it here in Chicago yet, though that might have to do with being a student again.

sorry, I meant to say, assertiveness in this situtaion just takes practice - it gets easier each time - plus some luck in getting the right person really helps. If they won't take back gristly steak, I really think it means something wrong is going on with how the restaraunt is managed, and it doesn't have to do with how you ask.

dicksond wrote:

riddlemay wrote:Even in a steakhouse that serves a too-chewy steak, I'm more in the "serves me right for coming here--I won't make that mistake again" camp than the "justice must be served even if I have to have them bring me everything on the menu until I find something edible" camp. Life's too short.

Yeah, I suppose I agree. I was down in central Illinois at a little lunch joint, and I ordered the special - a barbecue pork wrap. Out came this wrap with Open Pit BBQ sauce, some grilled onions, a little metled cheese. A mess, it could have been good, but the first bite was off. Then I took a couple more, and it was clear the pork was not good any more. So I finished the soup, grabbed a couple of crackers, drank my pop and decided that I was supposed to eat light for lunch.

Of course, part if the reason I made that decision was that I doubted anything else there would really be good, though hopefully nothing else on the menu was going to have expired like the pork. And I had lost my appetite.

Ya places your order, ya takes what comes, even it is lumps. But there would not have been anything wrong with sending it back. And I did tell the manager as I paid if only to save others, and he did take it off my bill. That's the thing, you owe it to the restaurant and other diners to tell them if something is really bad. They probably do not want to serve crap. And things go wrong sometimes at every place.

In a situation like that, I agree that calling it to the attention of the establishment is the thing to do, if only to save other patrons. To me, that would be not so much a case of "sending it back" as saying, "here, throw this out." I would hope to have it taken off the bill, but I wouldn't be wanting anything else in its place. I'd consider myself ahead of the game if I didn't die.

Oh, here's a recent one where I tried to send the food back, but was refused: I was at a well-liked seafood Vietnamese restaurant in Omaha. I ordered a fried squid app. It was not fresh, and smelled and tasted really bad. I informed my waiter of the problem. He just shook his head and smiled like I didn't know any better, then said "Oh yeah, that's just what fish tastes like", and walked off. I was . I didn't push it (I could have, i guess, but I didn't feel like getting into an argument), and just ordered something else. I know its Omaha, and I should have known better, but still...

I was in a brewery type restaurant in San Jose three years ago and everyone in our international group was ordering big steaks, but I fell for the waiter's pitch about their linguine and clam sauce. He raved about how meaty the clams were and such, so I ordered it. All the steaks were huge and terrific looking. One guy from the UK said it was the best steak he had ever eaten. My dish was ridiculous. A little portion of pasta with about eight baby clams. I regret to this day that I didn't call the waiter over and tell him how he misrepresented the clams, and ask for a steak instead.

This also reminds me of a time when I was in a large group that went to a chinese restaurant somewhere near Antioch. We were the only ones in there and among other things we ordered two orders of shrimp and lobster sauce. The shrimp were rotten; completely inedible. We had to scrape and wipe it completely off our plates. The waitress didn't come back while we were eatiing, so we couldn't tell her about it. Our one friend who had too much to drink and didn't seem to mind, ate all of the rotten shrimp.

The kicker is when we were leaving the waitress asked, as we were about to go out the door, "How was everything?" My sister said, "The shrimp were rotten." The waitress replied, "Come again!"