Five Things that Annoy the Hell Out of Rob

1. Waiters who can’t pronounce the items on the menu

You’d be amazed at how often this happens. There’s no reason for it but I encounter it weekly. One egregious mispro is the continued insistence by the uninformed that bruschetta is pronounced “Brew-shetta” when the correct pronunciation is “Brew-sketta”. The ch in Italian takes a “k” sound (Chianti for example would not be pronounced “chee-anti”). I’ve actually been corrected by one wait person who said that I was wrong and he was right. I asked him where he had worked previously and he replied “Applebee’s.” I rest my case. Another annoying one is the Central Market staffers who insist on pronouncing Quinoa “keen-wah” instead of the correct “kee-no-ah.” The grain is from South America, not France.

2. The recitation of the daily specials ritual

You’ve all listened to your wait person rattle off a seemingly endless list of nightly specials. No problem when it’s two or three items but the list can often be much longer at high-end places. If so, buy a laser printer and print out the specials. It costs next to nothing and saves the server and the customer a load of grief. How many times have you had a momentary lapse during a lengthy specials recitation and then had to ask: “what was the duck..ah..or was it the pork special again?” Usually the server is forced to start at the beginning because they’ve rote memorized the damned list and can’t just jump in at the middle. Again, think lazer printer.

3. The 16-year-old who answers the phone

Often times the first and only impression a person gets of a restaurant comes from their initial phone call to that establishment. Yet many restaurants routinely have their youngest and lowest-paid employee answer the phone. I called a place last week to make a reservation.

“Oh we’re totally slammed,” said the young girl on the phone. She seemed anxious to move on to the next important call.

“Good for you,” I replied. “So glad that you’re slammed. But is there any chance we can get a table?”

“What?” she said. “It’s really noisy in here.” (That must have been because they were slammed.)

I gave up moments later and called another restaurant where the person who answered the phone actually had a clue and could hear me.

Moral of the story: try to accommodate the customer or at least create the appearance of attempting to do so, even when you’re “slammed.” Put the house phone away from the din of the restaurant. (Wow, am I the first one to think of that?)

4. The noisy table from Hell

We were out with friends the other night at a nice, quiet fine-dining restaurant. Then a party of six was seated and immediately ordered a round of double scotches. Within minutes, these people were having the time of their lives and everyone in the restaurant was privy to the most intimate details of their conversation. The most annoying of these was of course the builder with the loudest voice. “Hot damn,” he said repeatedly. “This whiskey is stickin’ to me like gum on a bedpost.” We also caught most of his jokes, almost word for word.

We asked our server to summon the manager after a while and requested that perhaps he could ask the table to tone it down a notch. The manager seemed uncomfortable. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “But they’re regulars.”

Well, one thing was certain, we would never become regulars. And we told him.

Austin is a rather noisy dining town: of that there can be no question. And I’m fine with that. As a rule. But when a particular party is so loud and obnoxious that it ruins my dining experience, well I’m not fine with that. Every customer deserves the ability to have a conversation at his/her table that is not overwhelmed by the bad manners of idiots, regular or otherwise!

5. “How is everything?”

You get this a lot at lower end chains and even occasionally and regrettably at fine dining places as well. And that is the so-called manager who buzzes from table to table asking “how is everything tonight.” The thing is if you’re going to approach a table and ask how everything is, you’d better really mean it and be prepared to do something in case everything is NOT alright!

My experience has been that in far too many cases, the “how is everything” question is purely rhetorical. It’s something out of the corporate page book that managers are instructed to say. And in a lot of chains, these managers are simply and unfortunately not empowered to do anything more than ask the question.

I heard a scenario the other night that went something like this:

Manager approaches the table and gushes, “How are we doing tonight?” He is already looking toward the next table.

Woman replies “well, my soup could be warmer. I mean I like the flavor… but…”

The manager’s smile freezes. He stands there like a robot with a memory chip removed. “Uh… um… well….”

Of course, his immediate response should have been, “I’m sorry Ma’am, let me get your server to get you a hot bowl.”

Instead, he stammered something unintelligible and moved on. Amazing to see, but it actually happened.