FoodStuff - Restaurant horror stories

John Lethlean

Oh, the things waiters say when they don’t know who they’re talking to. The little slips; the grumpy faux pas; the rude retorts.

There was the waiter who was asked what “twice cooked” meant. His response was that the meat was cooked yesterday, and then put in the fridge overnight “and then cooked again today before serving.”  It was possibly true, but it didn’t put much of a spin on the chef’s technique.

There was the waiter who growled "you don't want dessert, do you?"  After being told that in fact yes, the diners did want dessert, she responded: "Well there is a 45 minute wait."  Told the diners only wanted ice-cream, she insisted this would make no difference; when the dessert finally arrived it was not what had been ordered anyway.

Then there’s the restaurant-table-as-confessional scenario.

A couple was seated with menus for 10 minutes with no service. The very apologetic waiter returned and explained that everything was going wrong today. They were short staffed. There weren’t enough wait staff to cover a function as well as the cafe and to top it all off, the head chef was off sick. The waitress confessed that in fact an agency chef was cooking today, advising that some dishes were “a better bet” than others to order, as the chef “looked disoriented.”

And my favourite. One diner reports: “I was surveying a restaurant in a large accommodation property at one of our snow resorts. After being served a cremated forequarter chop, soggy chips and pre-digested vegetables for an unconscionable amount of money, I was approached by a waiter who enquired if I enjoyed my meal. I answered that that I was less than impressed and his cheerful response left me quite stunned: ‘Yeah, I know it’s crap, and so do the owners, but they know you’ll be gone in a couple of days and a new lot will take your place. They don’t really care — sorry’.”

Heavens, I wish some of these things would happen to me. In fact, they happened to a different kind of diner altogether: the mystery shopper. The paid restaurant stooge. The diningroom supergrass.

Most nights of the week somewhere in Melbourne and Sydney, couples will be dining in restaurants not because they necessarily decided to go there but because the restaurant itself has installed a paid plant. They are there, survey forms discreetly hidden, using the restaurant specifically for the purpose of reporting back to the owner, via a consultant.

“This (Mystery Shopper) is one of a few customer satisfaction surveys that I like to use,” says CBD restaurateur (ezard and Gingerboy) Teage Ezard. “I started using these programs when I was going to Hong Kong a lot. It provides really beneficial feedback to me and to the staff, particularly when I’m absent.”

Melbourne hospitality consultant Tony Eldred, who started the Mystery Shopper program in Melbourne more than 10 year ago, says it “originated in desperation.”

“I was being asked to do consulting work in restaurants and hotels and would often realise that the root issue (in these business) was that they were not operating to a high enough standard — they were just not competitive in a very competitive market. Trying to address the issue I soon learned that some business owners are very blinkered about their ‘baby’ (and) have a tendency to shoot the messenger rather than deal with bad news. I lost more than a few jobs by being honest.”

Eldred developed the survey system as a mirror for restaurateurs who believe listening to the message is more important than shooting the messenger.

They are, he says, designed to measure perception of the critical aspects of a customer transaction: service, product, sales/merchandising skills, environment, value for money and intention to return and recommend.

And they are alarmingly detailed, from how long it takes for the telephone to be answered making a reservation to the telephonist’s name to how they respond to a question about BYO policy. And on it goes.

Initial response (how long did it take to be acknowledged by a staff member on arrival?) customer care (did the staff demonstrate good product knowledge?) selling skills (do the staff suggest alternatives that will increase the overall spend?) etc. Of course, a restaurant owner wants his staff to upsell; as most of us know, there are ways of doing it that are inoffensive and others – such as the default position on mineral water at some restaurants – that are just plain avaricious.

But a restaurant owner who wants to know what’s going on out there on his dining room floor (good restaurants, as we know, are run by owners who are always on the floor, but for globe-trotting, multi-business chef/entrepreneurs, that’s simply not possible) probably can’t rely entirely on the objectivity of paid staff.  

And as we all know, for every Australian who complains honestly and sensibly, there are ten who keep their own counsel and simply never return.Getting a confidential report such as “It felt like we had just arrived at Fawlty Towers.… It would be nice if the staff paid some attention to the state of the toilets. They were so filthy it almost put me off my food altogether,” may be a bit of a wake up call for a restaurateur.

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