Cringe-worthy Restaurant Moments
A survey of chefs, waitstaff, managers, and, yes, diners too
What makes you want to walk out of a restaurant? What makes you want to throw a patron out of your dining establishment?
On either side of the eating-out equation there are cringe-inducing phrases and behaviors that lately have been coming to mind. Any phrase which includes “do” when ordering is my particular trigger. As in “Yeah, I’ll do the pancakes.” Or the steak. Or the salmon.
I wrote about “doing pancakes” earlier this month and it elicited such a strong response that I decided to ask the many chefs, managers, waiters and diners I’ve come to know as a sometimes food-writer to give me their pet restaurant peeves.
“Can I take this away or are you folks still working?”
My intention isn’t to stoke dissent between server and served. Rather, I post here with the unrealistic hope that by listing many commonly hated things we hear and experience in restaurants we might perhaps purge dining out of the things everybody dislikes.
So then, here are a handful of standouts from the many responses I received. Please do feel free to add others to this page’s comments section. I’ll review and include additional ones if they are doozies.
