Steak -- man with red tie
How do you decide when you rate “service?”
“Food” and “Atmosphere” seem pretty straight forward, but service is all over the map.
My wife and I ate at the Bluenose Inn in Bangor, Maine, where each dish was brought, one at a time, to the table by the waiter using only his right hand; he held his left hand behind his back. The bus boy did the same thing in reverse when removing the dishes.At Foti’s Restaurant in Culpeper, Virginia, if there are 4 diners, then 4 waiters bring the main course plates to the table and upon a signal from one of them, they lower the plates simultaneously and there is one thud as all four plates touch the table at once. There were just the two of us, so only two waiters were involved in this ritual.
At the other end of the spectrum is the “who gets the…?” That is a real tip buster for me. Two of my children were waiters and they told me that there is really no excuse for “who gets the…?” They claim that if the waiter can’t remember, he only has to make a simple notation beside each item, such as “steak - man with red tie” and there would be no confusion.To answer Charles' original question, assigning stars for service is no more difficult for me than for food or atmosphere. All three are difficult, and mostly it's just gut feeling unless something unusual happens. Obviously my standards are higher at more expensive restaurants. Good service is one of those things that you may not be able to define, but you know when you get it.
Comments
I've seen this issue from both sides--as a customer, I have had a great meal wipe away any problems I had with the service---as an owner, I always felt that a server has to rise to the occasion when serving great food (be it in a 4 star eatery or a greasy spoon)---in general, I think service has gotten worse on the whole across this country. Those who do serve food seem almost embarassed that they're doing this job---a contrast to this is a place like Galatoire's in New Orleans where the waiters there are "generational"---"my dad and his dad were waiters here---that type of thing. The view that serving food is a noble profession is lost on many of those who practice that art today.
Posted by: chefjp | October 22, 2007 7:20 PM
Actually, that's what I tell people as well -- the most memorable restaurants that we would love to go back to and actually do, are the ones we had good to excellent service.
I cant say the same for the Inn at Little Washington when we went there for our anniversary dinner...it was not worth it for us when the waiter told us rudely "Close your eyes and point." after we asked for his suggestions from the menu...bad, bad, bad...
Posted by: Eric | October 26, 2007 2:25 PM
Link spam at 1:51 AM! (It's yet another post shilling a termpaper-writing service, although with grammar so poor that nobody would want to use it.)
Posted by: hmpstd | February 22, 2010 7:13 AM
Anti-tern papier writing anti-spam at 7:13. Why does peoploe hates writing so much! Smoky links rule!
Posted by: Anonymous | February 22, 2010 12:53 PM
Anon,
Got dictionary?
Posted by: RayRay | February 22, 2010 1:35 PM
Dictionary spam at 1:35! Those dictionary salesmen are everywhere!
;-)
Posted by: Lemon Girl – Blog Tart | February 22, 2010 2:35 PM