Restaurant Review - Turn the tables

Long before I ever critiqued restaurants, I critiqued customers. I remember one evening, after a particularly bad shift a couple of months into my first waitressing job, coming home and staying up all night furiously writing. I produced a manifesto, a directive rant about what I felt should be the golden rules of eating out.

Alas, this being long before the popularity of Internet message boards, my rant went unread. But its quantitative nature made me feel better, compensating a bit for my impotent griping at the bar after a shift.

These days, it’s not hard to find entire websites devoted to server displeasure. I have even received distraught e-mails from Atlanta-area servers hoping to publicize their own manifestos. These are angry, sometimes horrifying documents of hate.

Can’t we all just get along?

Now, I have somehow found myself in the incredibly luxuriant position of critiquing Atlanta restaurants. It’s unfair, really; I get to complain about service and food everywhere from Alpharetta to College Park, and yet I know from experience that there are just as many grievances to be had on the other side of the menu. So this week I’m devoting this page to customer criticism.

Now, most people I know would hate to be thought of as bad customers. So in the interest of a more educated public, here’s a guide of who not to be and what not to do. This week features the villains of the world of customers and their worst habits. Next week: the worst habits of restaurants.

The Cheapskate: In one East Atlanta bar, upon being asked about the worst trait of customers, the owner barks, “People who expect to get something for free!” There are many symptoms of this disease, which often can lead to a worse condition, that of the Bad Tipper. Servers often smell a cheapskate when a table declares loudly that someone knows the owner or the chef, a common maneuver to get freebies. Worse is asking for refills on a bread basket while ordering one salad (to share), asking for enough lemons and sugar to make your own lemonade, sharing one bottomless cup of coffee or soda, etc.

The Picky Eater: As one of my former restaurant colleagues used to say, “This isn’t Burger King. You can’t have it your way.” In reality, most restaurants will bend over backward to accommodate true allergies and reasonable preferences. But in a kitchen at the height of the dinner rush, a change to a dish can bring the whole finely calculated operation crashing down. You should know that your waiter is likely acting as the buffer between you and a screaming chef when you make these requests, and you might consider tipping accordingly. And if five out of the six food groups offend your sensibilities, you should probably learn to cook. At home.

The Overly Familiar: The job of a waiter is to read his tables. Different customers want different things. Some want to be friends, some want to be left alone. But customers should remember that these are waiters, not entertainers. They may not want to amuse you, flirt with you or listen to your life story. A few months back at Bistro VG in Roswell, I felt compelled to leave my waitress an extra tip after watching her suffer through the abuse of two older men regaling her with their political views and personal health details. My pet peeve was when customers would try to involve me in their disputes over who would pay the bill, each trying to thrust a credit card into my hands over the objection of the other. Charm, service, witty banter when appropriate — those I could do. Mediate a lovers’ quarrel? Not my job.

The Lurker, the No-Show and the LateComer: Restaurant economics are built around bums in seats. If you don’t show up for your reservation, show up late or sit around at your table in a crowded restaurant long after you’re done, you are causing the poor hostess an undue amount of stress, making other customers wait needlessly and disrupting the economic balance of the restaurant. Be prompt! Call if you’re running late or not coming! Move to the bar to finish your tenth refill of coffee!

The Diva: If you whistle, snap, yell or otherwise treat your waiter like a dog, no good will come of it. There is usually a way to get what you want, and this is usually not it.

The Bad Tipper: Atlanta is actually a town of very good tippers. But if you’re not one of them, know this: Waiters make less than $3 an hour in salary. That money is eaten up by taxes, and very few of them have any benefits, so what you give is what they make. This isn’t to say that you should always tip 20 percent, but consider exactly what you’re paying for and what it’s worth. How much time did you spend at the table? How much service did you require? If your server was slow, was it because he was gossiping with the bus boy or because he was fetching the six different varieties of hot tea for the book club dining across the room? When you leave a bad tip, leave it for a reason. And when you get wonderful service, contemplate leaving something extra.

The Hater: A Buckhead busboy once said to me, “Some people come out just looking for a bad time.” Some customers view dining out not as a pastime of pleasure, but as a way to vent their frustration at living mediocre lives. You know the type; you can see the gleam in their eye as they relish making another complaint, sending back another dish, enjoying every minute of their discontent. We’ve all had dining experiences that were rotten from start to finish, but if everything stinks everywhere you go, maybe it’s you who needs to clean up your act.

There are a million little things that will drive your friendly neighborhood chef and server to insanity, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Customers are like snowflakes, each one is unique and therefore has the potential to deride and infuriate in his own unique way. But keep the above principles in mind, and hopefully your servers will be able to spend less time writing mean manifestos and more time nurturing whatever other wonderful talent they are sure to posses.

Check back next week when we’ll discuss the villains of the restaurant world.