Note to Chicago Restaurants - Just one waitperson please!

I've had enough of this new "trend." Has anyone else noticed that quite a few of the upscale restaurants in town have a new service by committee approach? That is, you see your waitperson at the beginning of your meal, and then a different person delivers your food, somebody else might follow up with you, etc. You might not even see your original waitperson again. I'm curious to hear what others think. This trend is driving me nuts.

Now, this may not be much of an issue if everything's right with your meal, although I still prefer just one waitperson -- I believe that there's a certain relationship that develops even during a short meal. But what happens when things go wrong? For instance, the restaurant screws up the order (maybe the seasoning, the order the dishes are brought out, the timing, or maybe the preparation) and since the person who took your order is not the same person as the one who delivers the food, it becomes the diner's burden to initially notice the defect. And when you mention the defect, you tend to get a blank look as if to say: "How the hell do I know what you ordered and how you ordered it" or "how do I know how long you've been waiting." I've experienced this issue now at more than a few fine dining establishments in the city.

Now, I know that when you dine at the most upscale restaurants -- Alinea, Avenues, Tru, etc., many individuals will service a single table at a single time, and those restaurants ensure constant attention (without being overburdening). But I'm talking about the situation where only one person waits on your table at a time, and it is always a different person.

Now I can see where this might benefit a restaurant -- less reliance upon one or a couple very good servers, thus ensuring that turnover among waitstaff is never too damaging. But this new trend is going to keep me from returning to certain restaurants where I have experienced inferior quality service due entirely to this approach, and it seems to me that the approach usually results in a portion of the service being subpar.

So I'm curious to hear other's thoughts on this matter, and I'm hoping a few restaurateurs will take notice of diners' displeasure with this trend and just end it (assuming I'm not alone here in my rant).

Though its not exactly the scenario you describe, I encountered something similar during a disappointing visit to what I think is one of our city's most overrated restaurants - David Burke's Primehouse. The service situation and the poor execution on meals were enough, after just one visit, for me to stay away from the place and to steer corporate business I'm involved with to other restaurants. Our waitress was AWOL much of the session and various bus boys waited on our table, and prepared food for other tables. Such service you describe, and which I experienced, is, I believe, the result of inattentive and inexperienced management . . . and a dining public which accepts this with the result it may become the norm in some restaurants.

I agree 100%. It has been my experience that if you ask the person who brings the food to bring something else - you aren't going to get it. I wouldn't mind so much if the original server followed my food delivery.

While I don't expect the person I ordered from to necessarily bring me my food (that's what runners are for), I think I understand what the OP is talking about and I hate it. I ran into that at Shikago - I had one server take my drink order, another server take my food order, another server to ask me how things were, it was frustrating and there was no continuity. There's no way for the server who checked in on me to know if I had ordered a glass of wine from the other server that he forgot . . . or maybe was just slow getting, for example. Not a smooth process at all. At Shikago, anyway, the whole process came off as amateurish and impersonal.

Funny, this doesn't bother me at all.

I hadn't really paid much attention to how many people wait on a table until reading a post about it last week, in which someone claimed an "ideal" as four people attending to a table: the server who takes the order, a second person either delivering the food or otherwise helping out the first server, a person who clears dishes and may also bring bread, and a manager who stops by at some point to see if everything is all right.

The more I think about it, the more I think that what really matters is what works. If there are two servers attending to a table, as long as they communicate with each other, so that you can ask anyone for anything and you get the response you're looking for, I don't think it really matters. And that, to me, is the key - flawless service, with attention to every detail and responsiveness to any request. Whether they accomplish it with one person or with ten, I really don't care. And if there are service problems, again, it reflects poorly on the restaurant, regardless of the number of people involved.

This past weekend I had dinner at my favorite restaurant in the city, one sixtyblue. (And I should mention that I do not go there frequently enough to be recognized as a "regular".) Since being recently alerted to the issue, I observed who was serving our table. And indeed, one person took our orders, and another brought all the food. Yet I would not have realized it if I had not been paying attention; the server who brought the food placed everything at the right place on the table, and every request we made was handled perfectly, no matter whom it was directed to. Yes, there was also a busperson. And Executive Chef Noguier was in the dining room; at one point, when one of our party left the table briefly, none other than Chef Noguier himself reached down to refold her napkin properly. That is attention to detail, and top-notch service.

Again, to me, good service is good service - and it really doesn't matter to me how many people a restaurant uses to accomplish it.

The multiple server approach can work well when executed properly. Two perfect examples are Per Se and Alinea. A captain explains the menu and takes your order, runners bring your food, back-waiters deal with your bread, water, silverware, place settings etc. The key to making this work, in my opinion, is a well trained and pro-active captain who isn't just there to take your order but to keep an eye on you for the night and make sure you have everything you need.

nsxtasy wrote:I hadn't really paid much attention to how many people wait on a table until reading a post about it last week, in which someone claimed an "ideal" as four people attending to a table: the server who takes the order, a second person either delivering the food or otherwise helping out the first server, a person who clears dishes and may also bring bread, and a manager who stops by at some point to see if everything is all right.

I don't think this is what the OP is talking about. The people who bring your food to your table are "runners." The people who bus your table are still commonly known as "busboys" (not a PC term, but, hey, I was one in high school and I'm a woman). The people who are your "servers" are the ones who you communicate your order to, order another glass of wine, discuss any problems with the meal, etc. I, for one, wouldn't order a glass of wine from someone who's job it is to put bread down and clear tables, unless that person specifically asked me for my drink order -- that's a servers job. There does seem to be a trend where the "servers" are multiple people, hence, service by committee.

I understand that the higher end restaurants with a well-trained waitstaff will have more than one server serve your table, but they're are very well-trained and it's done unobtrusively and smoothly. But it's a trend I see creeping into the lower tier restaurants and, as I said earlier, it doesn't work as well.

jesteinf wrote:The multiple server approach can work well when executed properly. Two perfect examples are Per Se and Alinea. A captain explains the menu and takes your order, runners bring your food, back-waiters deal with your bread, water, silverware, place settings etc. The key to making this work, in my opinion, is a well trained and pro-active captain who isn't just there to take your order but to keep an eye on you for the night and make sure you have everything you need.

This has been the model for service in high end restaurants for at least 100 years.

stevez wrote:

jesteinf wrote:The multiple server approach can work well when executed properly. Two perfect examples are Per Se and Alinea. A captain explains the menu and takes your order, runners bring your food, back-waiters deal with your bread, water, silverware, place settings etc. The key to making this work, in my opinion, is a well trained and pro-active captain who isn't just there to take your order but to keep an eye on you for the night and make sure you have everything you need.

This has been the model for service in high end restaurants for at least 100 years.

Oh, absolutely. I was just trying to name a couple of contemporary examples that I think do it well.

The multiple server approach can work well when executed properly. Two perfect examples are Per Se and Alinea. A captain explains the menu and takes your order, runners bring your food, back-waiters deal with your bread, water, silverware, place settings etc. The key to making this work, in my opinion, is a well trained and pro-active captain who isn't just there to take your order but to keep an eye on you for the night and make sure you have everything you need.

Exactly - the waiter doesn't need to or maybe even shouldn't touch the food at this level, but he should always be in sight. In fact at that level, all the plates must arrive at the exact same time, which is impossible without multiple runners. Another role for the waiter is 'narrating your food' letting me know where those English peas came from, or explaining how to eat off the weird contraption placed in front of me.

But I have seen and experienced what you're talking about, the waiter takes the order, and that is the last you see of him - sometimes not even delivering the check. This gives a very disconnected feeling.

jesteinf wrote:The multiple server approach can work well when executed properly. Two perfect examples are Per Se and Alinea. A captain explains the menu and takes your order, runners bring your food, back-waiters deal with your bread, water, silverware, place settings etc. The key to making this work, in my opinion, is a well trained and pro-active captain who isn't just there to take your order but to keep an eye on you for the night and make sure you have everything you need.

I agree that it can work well. As I noted in my OP, the multiple server approach has always been the norm at the high-end places, and they tend to always handle the service aspect of a meal deftly. But I've noticed that when not so high-end places try it (which is really what I'm complaining about), the service tends to come apart at the seams. Perhaps there's a big difference between a runner at a mid-price place, and one at a high-end place . . . I'm not sure. At the mid-place places, I'm noticing an increase in the number of dishes brought to the table and simply being auctioned off . . . something you'd rarely ever experience at a high-end place.

I have had experiences at Brasserie Jo and Salpicon recently, but I'm not really sure if it was intentional or not. First one waiter showing up to take the drink order, then another to take the food order. I really had the feeling that it was more accidental than planned, but maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps it was really an attempt to make sure all tables were waited on as efficiently as possible. At any rate, it was confusing. I also had a dual waiter experience at Old Town Brasserie, but that was more due to our original waiter who had no idea what he was doing and needing someone to step in and fix a few things.

On the other hand, we had an outstanding experience at Trotters with the dual waiter concept that was coordinated to perfection, so I have seen it work well. In general though, I don't know that it really added a lot to the dining experience to have two well coordinated waiters instead of one person in charge of everything.

In Chinese pubs called jyou guans (which I guess equates to "beer gardens"), diners may spend hours drinking and sharing one course after another. Many of these places have a totally efficient way of waiting tables. When not otherwise occupied, the waitstaff stands at the front of the restaurant scanning the room, when a customer wants to order something, they look towards the front and the next available waiter comes over and takes the order. All dishes and drinks are kept on a running tab, that is either kept at the front desk or right at the table, often on a clipboard hanging from a hook. When your order is ready, the next waiter in line brings it to your table and marks it as delivered. It is an amazingly efficient system. Depending on the size of the place, you could have any number of waiters over the course of an evening, each one performing a single task. The customers are waited on instantly, food is delivered hot and nothing is forgotten because the waiters are concentrating on fulfilling a single request at a time. The key to the system is that they aren't working for tips. It would never work in America where waiters are expected to be your best friend, confidant and mentor.

jesteinf wrote:The multiple server approach can work well when executed properly. Two perfect examples are Per Se and Alinea.

interestingly, i think this is one of the things i didn't like alinea. all these seemingly random people coming constantly, it just felt not personal at all. and there were a few hiccups, where one person had just poured the wine and another came back to pour something else, etc etc. (i don't remember the exact details of what the hiccups were, but i wrote of it in another thread i'm sure)

I guess I do not see the point in criticizing how they choose to run the restaurant, so long as they run it effectively. Is the thinking that below some price point, a restaurant is no longer capable of coordinating between multiple people? To take that to an absurd extreme, does this mean that if you have a special request your waiter needs to cook your food since he/she is the only one you have communicated that to? Given the amount of communication and coordination between kitchen and servers, it seems a little communication between multiple servers is not a very big deal.

And the idea that having different people take your drink and food orders is somehow strange strikes me as really bizarre - have you never eaten in a place that has separate cocktail waiters/waitresses, or maybe a sommelier? I use the cocktail waiter/waitress because it was a pretty common way of operating for years, even in pretty modest places.

Having said all that, I agree that increasingly one has to be careful who one asks for something as runners and bus boys often seem to be black holes. And it ain't that hard - all they have to do is ask the waiter to come over, but that seems beyond the realm of possibility.

But I disagree that having multiple people serving a table is the issue. Though it is making me chuckle, because you know I want to be a one server guy, with a stable relationship with a single server from the minute I sit down to the moment I leave. I promise to be faithful to that server and never stray, though I know he/she will be seeing someone else behind my back. But I guess that is fair because at the end of the evening I will leave him/her, maybe forever.

Ah, for the good old days of server/diner monogamy!

Here's something I can't stand: The waiter/waitress/server/who cares what they are called now takes your order WITHOUT writing anything down! What's the point of that? Are they trying to impress us that they can remember everything?

What happens when they screw up? Who loses? You do. Your meal could be completely ruined because they wanted to show off their memory skills (or the management thinks it's impressive - it isn't - it's a horrible idea).

So here's what I intend to do from now on. If they take my order like this, I'll say "If you don't want to write down my order, fine. But if anything is wrong on this order, I'm not paying for the meal. I'm sure you are a smart person, but I'm not gambling on your brain's memory capacity at my expense."

dicksond wrote:And the idea that having different people take your drink and food orders is somehow strange strikes me as really bizarre - have you never eaten in a place that has separate cocktail waiters/waitresses, or maybe a sommelier? I use the cocktail waiter/waitress because it was a pretty common way of operating for years, even in pretty modest places.

I feel like this multiple server issue is a you-know-it-when-you-see-it-type situation. It's distinct from having the bartender or cocktail waitress take the discreet order for an opening drink (and then handing you off to a server), it's also distinct from ordering a discreet bottle or two from a sommelier (where the sommelier is not duplicating the work of a server), and it's distinct from the high-end captain-led, team-style of service which is (or can be) highly polished (because the servers are highly trained at this).

Here was my recent experience at Shikago, which sort of went like an episode of Curb Your Enthusiam (italicized text is my internal dialogue):

I am seated by hostess.

Server 1 comes over, gives menus, gives a spiel. Asks for drink order. I give cocktail order. Because the server looks busy, I tell Server 1 that I would like a glass of such-and-such wine later when my entree is served. He agrees. He fetches and serves cocktail.

Server 2 comes over and takes food order. Hmmm. . . where's the first server? I order appetizer and entree. Server 2 verbally notes that my drink is still partway full, so I'm okay and don't need refill.

In the interim, appetizers arrive; served by runner. I would like some extra sauce. Server 1 comes back to check. I tell him I would like extra sauce.

Server 2 comes over a few minutes later to check. Doesn't she know that we were already checked on? Do I need to tell her I need extra sauce too? Server 1 is taking a long time with this. Maybe he forgot? Maybe I should tell Server 2? But then, I'll get two sauces. And, they'll think I'm pushy. Server 2 notes my empty cocktail glass. "Would I like another one," she asks. "No," I say, "because I ordered a glass of wine with my entree." "Okay." I wouldn't have to repeat myself if I had the same server working on my table!

Entrees arrived, served by runner. I wanted the glass of wine I ordered from Server 1 now that the entrees were here. Server 2 comes over and asks if there's anything else I'd like with my entree. Well, there is that glass of wine I ordered from Server 1. Where is Server 1? He's with someone else. He must have forgotten.

Me: "Yes, I ordered a glass of wine earlier from the other server."
Server 2: "Oh, do you remember what you ordered?" Argh.
Me: "No."
Server 2: "Let me get you the wine list . . . " What? Do I have to flip through that again? I did that already! Right then, I see, over Server 2's shoulder, Server 1 coming, albeit late, too late, with the glass of wine I ordered. Phew. My entree was getting cold.

Server 1 comes back. Do we want dessert? He hands us dessert menus. We decline and hand them back.

Server 2 returns, and hands us dessert menus. She's off before we can tell her we've already seen the dessert menu, and don't want any.

[ . . . ]

And so on. It was a manic experience. I went somewhere else, and I can't recall where, and they were doing the multiple service thing. I think I ended up repeating my requests three times to three different people. I think it's becoming more prevalent. And I think that the point is, that it's not being done effectively, which is why this thread exists.

Ram4 wrote:Here's something I can't stand: The waiter/waitress/server/who cares what they are called now takes your order WITHOUT writing anything down! What's the point of that? Are they trying to impress us that they can remember everything?

Funny you should bring that up, Ram. A while back there was a thread on just that topic, and my reaction was pretty much the same as it is to the multiple waiter thing.

There is nothing wrong with taking your order verbally. The best waitress I ever knew never wrote anything down. She not only never screwed up my order, but if I went back 6 months later, she would ask me if I wanted the same thing. And I was not a "special" customer at all - she did this after my first visit.

aschie, et al, I am not disputing the annoyance factor of incompetent wait people, and particularly those who try to do something a little more difficult than necessary when it appears they are at best barely able to perform the basics. What I disagree with is that there is anything inherently wrong with having multiple servers, or taking an order without writing it down. If done properly, these things can actually add positively to the experience or at least be completely unremarkable, and they certainly are not particularly new or wild innovations.

IMO, you are complaining about quality of service, with specific circumstances. The place(s) were not running smoothly, and/or the specific waitpeople were either not well trained, or just not that good at what they were trying to do.

Heck, if they want to serve me while roller skating, it could be a good time. On the other hand, if I have to live in fear of exactly where the food is going to land each time they roll up - heck, that could be fun too, I suppose, but probably not in the way it is intended. Anyway, when faced with sad service I do try to view it as a high school play, charmingly cute in its bungling. I am not always successful in that, but it often helps. It does hit my hot button when incompetence is combined with a haughty attitude (ahh, Sullivan's, I remember it well), but so long as they have a pleasant attitude and genuinely seem to be trying, I am prepared to play along.

It's all a show , and we are all players. Enjoy it.

dicksond wrote:Anyway, when faced with sad service I do try to view it as a high school play, charmingly cute in its bungling. I am not always successful in that, but it often helps. It does hit my hot button when incompetence is combined with a haughty attitude (ahh, Sullivan's, I remember it well), but so long as they have a pleasant attitude and genuinely seem to be trying, I am prepared to play along.

It's all a show , and we are all players. Enjoy it.

I understand what you're saying, but at some point -- and by this I mean at some price point -- one deserves to expect a better level of service. In my opinion, if you are going to spend $25 and up per entree, it is not unreasonable to demand a certain level of sophistication. There are some restaurants I dine where I know the service will not be the strong part of the equation -- I'm typically going there for great, inexpensive food. But if I'm dropping $50 or more per person for dinner, the words "charmingly cute" will not likely be part of my vocabulary when service is inept.

At more expensive restaurants, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect service at a level equivalent to the food being served. That means, a server(s) bringing the correct dish to the correct person without auctioning it off, naming the dish when it is served, and the server(s) following up to ensure that everything meets the expected level of satisfaction. If I take a client out to dinner and drop $150 (which is very easy these days), I want to make sure the evening flows smoothly, that I don't have a busboy/runner just throwing a plate on the table and running away. I want to make sure my entrees are not served 2 minutes after I finished my appetizer. I want to know that if I order a glass of wine from one person, I won't have to explain to someone new that I ordered a glass of wine from some random person 15 minutes ago -- can't remember who and can't remember the exact glass as the menu is now gone -- and I never received it.

But I fear (and have noticed) that the more servers/runners per table that a restaurant introduce into the equation, the more likely that there will be communication errors, and what should be a very nice meal turns into an evening of frustration. And I don't necessarily blame the waiter/busboy/runner for the service issues -- the management of the restaurant has often placed these people in very difficult situations, situations they are not accustomed to. In any event, I'm never one to make a scene -- I'm more likely to swear off a restaurant with excellent food and never return.

dicksond wrote:There is nothing wrong with taking your order verbally.

I agree with you that there's nothing wrong with it per se. But I know that I've actually modified my order when confronted by a non-writer-downer--I'll pull back on substitutions or side dishes or special requests. It's my personality deficiency, probably, but at a certain point it would almost feel confrontational to place an elaborate order to someone not writing it down, and I don't like confrontation. I say if you really don't want to write down my order, that's fine, but at least scribble or doodle on a pad while I'm ordering so I can request exactly what I want.

Ram4 wrote:Here's something I can't stand: The waiter/waitress/server/who cares what they are called now takes your order WITHOUT writing anything down! What's the point of that? Are they trying to impress us that they can remember everything?

Yes, this makes me sweat anxiously when they do this! Especially when there are lots of modifications made.

Ram4 wrote:So here's what I intend to do from now on. If they take my order like this, I'll say "If you don't want to write down my order, fine. But if anything is wrong on this order, I'm not paying for the meal. I'm sure you are a smart person, but I'm not gambling on your brain's memory capacity at my expense."

Surely, you're not serious?

Ram4 wrote:So here's what I intend to do from now on. If they take my order like this, I'll say "If you don't want to write down my order, fine. But if anything is wrong on this order, I'm not paying for the meal. I'm sure you are a smart person, but I'm not gambling on your brain's memory capacity at my expense."

Whether the server writes your order down or not, you should never be charged for something you didn't order.

In any case, your bravado is impressive.

BR wrote:

dicksond wrote:Anyway, when faced with sad service I do try to view it as a high school play, charmingly cute in its bungling. I am not always successful in that, but it often helps. It does hit my hot button when incompetence is combined with a haughty attitude (ahh, Sullivan's, I remember it well), but so long as they have a pleasant attitude and genuinely seem to be trying, I am prepared to play along.

It's all a show 8), and we are all players. Enjoy it.

I understand what you're saying, but at some point -- and by this I mean at some price point -- one deserves to expect a better level of service. In my opinion, if you are going to spend $25 and up per entree, it is not unreasonable to demand a certain level of sophistication. There are some restaurants I dine where I know the service will not be the strong part of the equation -- I'm typically going there for great, inexpensive food. But if I'm dropping $50 or more per person for dinner, the words "charmingly cute" will not likely be part of my vocabulary when service is inept.

I'm in sync with your thoughts, BR, and think dicksound's reaction a bit too cavalier as I consider it relative to the $125+ p.p. tab at David Burke's I referred to in my earlier comments. The dumbing-down of restaurant patrons to the point that some find the service issue a joke (or don’t comprehend the difference) is one of the reasons some restaurants get away with it and why others of us suffer the consequences.

Bill & BR - I am not saying one should not expect or demand good service. I am just saying that bad service is not dependent on the model (by which I mean whether one writes down an order, or whether one is waited on by a single or multiple servers) - good or bad service can be achieved many different ways, certainly in ways I have yet to imagine.

When confronted with bad service, I try not to get pissed off. It does not make my meal any more enjoyable to be angry, or help me to deal better with the issues. I try to see it as a comedy, put on for my entertainment. Often, it really is funny.

That does not mean I will not comment on the issues, adjust my tip accordingly, or decide to never return to the place again. I do not avoid confrontation, and really do think it important that the establishment understand that there were problems - anything else is unfair to them. But I don't have to get upset to do those things.

S**t happens, you deal, you move on. Was the food good, and worth what you paid? Was the service pleasant? Were any of the stumbles so severe that they interfered with your enjoyment? But mostly, was the food good?

Anyway, in my house, the Bride is the one who gets twisted, so I can be casual. Except, she would tell you, I am far more demanding and critical of restaurants. Trust me, it's true, read my posts. But I almost always enjoy the experience. I might as well, since I paid for it. Sometimes I pay for Shakespeare, other times for farce. You never know going in, even if you think you do.

dicksond wrote:I guess I do not see the point in criticizing how they choose to run the restaurant, so long as they run it effectively...

For me, the whole point is that they are not running it effectively, and even if they did, you don't gain much unless you take it to the extreme.

They are not using multiple waiters per table just for the heck of it. They are, I assume, doing it to raise the qualtiy of the service - for example: to better respond to patrons when things get busy or to make sure that tables are waited on promptly when people sit down. It is intended to improve upon the experience of the traditional one waiter per table philosophy.

However it seems to be very difficult to coordinate because, as mentioned above, the multiple waiters need to communicate what has been ordered or requested, which is not easy. Otherwise, it of breaks down into multiple requests by the patrons for the same thing and redundant questions by different waiters who don't know what has been asked of the other waiter. It takes a whole lot of coordination and the end result is that two waiters work seamlessly as if they were one with perfect coordination, but then why not just use one waiter?

Sometimes what happens is that one waiter may be assigned to greet the table and take drink orders, and another one to take the meal orders and follow up after the meal is served. That's fine, but once again, what do you gain? Why even bother? This seemed to be what they were striving for at Brasserie Jo and Salpicon.

At Trotters it worked well, but they were overstaffed with waiters - or perfectly staffed depending on your perspective. With extra eyes on every table, all you need to do is flick an eyelid and someone appears at your table to meet you every request. That's wonderful, but not realistic for places that don't charge $400 per person.

I wouldn't avoid a restaurant with good food just because the had a confusing wait-staff policy, but I can't help but wonder why they go through all those contortions when the standard one waiter method works just fine.

wak wrote:They are not using multiple waiters per table just for the heck of it.

wak wrote:They are, I assume, doing it to raise the qualtiy of the service -It takes a whole lot of coordination and the end result is that two waiters work seamlessly as if they were one with perfect coordination, but then why not just use one waiter?

Or, the restaurants are doing it to cut down on the number of servers they have to hire. The two servers I had @ Shikago were working a half-filled room like chickens with their heads cut off. Under the "traditional" one waiter system, they probably would have had to staff even a half-filled room with at least one, maybe even two, more servers because individual servers are required to give more than just fleeting attention to their tables.

aschie30 wrote:Or, the restaurants are doing it to cut down on the number of servers they have to hire.

That thought had occurred to me too, but I don't think it was the case in the two restaurants I named. I'm still a little confused on how two waiters sharing tables is more efficient than each doing half the room, but that may be the case.

dicksond wrote:When confronted with bad service, I try not to get pissed off. It does not make my meal any more enjoyable to be angry, or help me to deal better with the issues. I try to see it as a comedy, put on for my entertainment. Often, it really is funny.

That does not mean I will not comment on the issues, adjust my tip accordingly, or decide to never return to the place again. I do not avoid confrontation, and really do think it important that the establishment understand that there were problems - anything else is unfair to them. But I don't have to get upset to do those things.

Trust me, it's true, read my posts. But I almost always enjoy the experience. I might as well, since I paid for it. Sometimes I pay for Shakespeare, other times for farce. You never know going in, even if you think you do.

I often laugh at the people who will let bad service ruin the meal. I've had some great meals with crappy service. I've had crappy meals with great service. Neither one is going to ruin my night - it just determines when/if I come back.

You'll have another chance for many more meals to be ruined - don't let this one getcha down.

stevez wrote:

jesteinf wrote:The multiple server approach can work well when executed properly. Two perfect examples are Per Se and Alinea. A captain explains the menu and takes your order, runners bring your food, back-waiters deal with your bread, water, silverware, place settings etc. The key to making this work, in my opinion, is a well trained and pro-active captain who isn't just there to take your order but to keep an eye on you for the night and make sure you have everything you need.

This has been the model for service in high end restaurants for at least 100 years.

I remember when the Cape Cod Room was considered one of the Best seafood resturants in the city. (I remember several $20 handshakes to get a seat at the Oyster Bar) not only did they have multiple servers, but there was a space for Tipping each of them on the "Standard AX charge slip.