Restaurant nightmare....What would you do? Honestly.

Question

My family was in town visiting and I live in an area of lots of good restaurants. A new one opened up close by, and we were there once and the experience was decent...great atmosphere , good food. I called ahead for reservations for 8, and asked if they served a light menu--sandwiches and such. The girl put me on hold, and came back and said yes. So we went, ordered drinks (took 15 minutes), ordered appetizers (good) then I asked for a sandwich menu and they said they weren't doing sandwiches! After investing time, we decided to go ahead and order meals ($16-$25). Then the salads came.....wilted & small, only half of us got salad dressing. I'm not one to really complain--especially when I have a meal in the back (I've worked in restaurants). 3 of us ordered King Crab Legs. They were skimpy & some had visable dirt, she brought 1 pair of crackers for us to share because they were short, the chicken marsela was soaking in grease, and the salmon was burnt and dry. The owners kids (probably 10 & 12) were serving the sides, which were all mixed up & some non-existant. To top it off everything was served on paper plates! It's an outdoor restaurant, so I understand that, but don't be serving $20 entrees on paper plates! The hostess/mgr. didn't offer to take anything off the bill ($200), so I happen to know the brother of the owner that owns a successful restaurant and he was appologetic & said to call his brother and he would make it right......He told me to come in Tuesday or Wednesday and he would adjust my credit card...went in yesterday and he left early. What would you do and what would you expect?

Answer 1

forget it. call the brother and say you were sorry to miss him and that you won't be back. he'll freak and you won't have to go back.

Answer 2

Eating out is one of the few times that the normal buyer-seller relationship is altered significantly. You commit to pay for a meal and dinning experience before you can judge its quality. You clearly lost on this gamble, but caveat emptor.

The only thing you can do is to deny them business in the future. Don't go there anymore, and post reviews on one or more small-business review sites. They deserve to get reamed for their performance, and indeed, they may need it. They are going to go out of business very soon like that, and a few negative reviews may force them to chance prices or quality, either of which may save them.

Answer 3

i would go back, and see if the person you need to talk to is there, and if not just ask one of the employees for the  phone number so you can ask what time they are going to be there again. and i would mention about everything that went wrong  

Answer 4

sorry to hear that

Answer 5

In this case I would go to the place you got bad service and make them take the money off your bill, but make sure to call ahead, to make sure he is there.  

Answer 6

i would stay on top of this till it was made right. im really pissy about good service esp when im paying  over 15 a plate and after being told one thing getting their and finding out something else, and if you keep getting the run around make a formal complaint with the bbb asking for a full refund. and if you still dont get any where sue and include your court costs,  if that place dont learn now then many others will get suckered, and its not so much the money as it is the princable and the fact that you took your family from out of town there.  and you get real plates at buffet lines.. so paper  plates!!!  h**l no

Answer 7

The first thing I would do is what you did - call the owner. Reducing it to writing would help as well. Fact is, you had a choice - you could have gotten up and left when the wilted salads arrived and you didn't. Now I know you had a party there but it's a risk you took and something you'll pay for. It's done, don't go back. If people ask you about the restaurant, be honest and if you want to post reviews on public sites be honest but it's done and you stayed and ate the dirty crab legs off of paper plates at the price they asked.

Answer 8

I think i would let it go at this point.  Just make sure you tell everyone what a horrible place it was and never go back.