Stiffing the Wait Staff

[Swordfish Flotilla]

The SG's are not just in the parks! Last night, high end restaurant in the I-Drive area:
Manager has set up for the reservation-Party of 36. Made the staff table assignments, moved tables, etc. Where are the guests?
Call the number given, get the boss/group leader on the phone..."Oh, no, we're not coming :twisted:
Seems the secretary who made the reservation called FOUR places so her boss could pick... and let all four reservations stand

Well, we could wait for karma to kick in, but why not share the info from caller ID with other establishments. Can anyone say Blacklist?

My sympathies to the poor abused wait staff with big empty tables.

[Whazzup]

Of all the dirty, rotten, stupid and selfish things to do...! A blacklist sounds like an excellent punishment for this flagrant lack of manners. Or at least the subject restaurant could refuse to take their reservations in the future.

[delsdad]

The SG's are not just in the parks! Last night, high end restaurant in the I-Drive area:
Manager has set up for the reservation-Party of 36. Made the staff table assignments, moved tables, etc. Where are the guests?
Call the number given, get the boss/group leader on the phone..."Oh, no, we're not coming :twisted:
Seems the secretary who made the reservation called FOUR places so her boss could pick... and let all four reservations stand

Well, we could wait for karma to kick in, but why not share the info from caller ID with other establishments. Can anyone say Blacklist?

My sympathies to the poor abused wait staff with big empty tables.

That is so unbelievably rude ! This restaurant might have turned away paying customers in order to keep tables open for the no show jerks.

Most restaurants here will follow up with a phone call the day before to confirm the booking. Some even require a credit card to secure the reservation, which only gets charged if they don't show up.

Big groups can be the bane of waitstaffs. It is tough to sever that many all at once, for the bar and the kitchen. more than 10 patrons per server (in the same group) means that everyone waits a long time. Just getting the orders can take quite a while. its much easier to handle 4 tables of 4 than a table of 16.

And if the group is paying separately , prepare to get stiffed on the tip if it is not mandatory. None of the group will want to tip appropriately, as they all thought the service was too slow - because the server was dealing with the others in the group. And there are those cheapskates who say "I can get away with no tip, because everyone else in the group will leave a decent tip".
This is why so many restaurants impose a mandatory gratuity on groups of 8 ( or even 6) or more. Otherwise the servers loose out big time. While the average restraunt can handle 40 people in its dining room with no difficulty, it is not set up to handle that many at exactly the same time, providing hot meals to them all at the same instant. No one will be happy.

I feel their pain.

[felinefan]

I think all the restaurants should charge that stupid, lazy, inconsiderate company, followed by a letter informing them that they will never be allowed to make reservations there again--ever. In fact, not just the four restaurants that were effected, but they should inform every restaurant in the county or even the state not to accept reservations from these jokers. Gives new meaning to the phrase, "You'll never eat lunch in this town again."

The stupid secretary should've made a list of the restaurants and asked the boss which one he/she wanted, then made the reservations. I hope she gets/got fired for that stupid blunder.

In the old days, no secretary in her right mind would've done that.

[CptnSkippy]

I hope she gets/got fired for that stupid blunder.

But her boss was much more important than the entire restaurant. She probably got a raise for it.

[felinefan]

That does not compute! But then again, the way businesses seem to be run these days, what does? :mad:

[shinysparklybubbles]

wow that is messed up.

I agree with charging SG for crap like that. I used to working in trucking and if a truck was cancelled by the customer within so many hours of the pick up we would charge them with a $250 fine.

[techie-13]

For a party that large, (36 people) I am very much in favor of the restaurant holding a deposit on a credit card for failure to show. If it was a reasonably busy night, the restaurant would have had to turn away customers or make them wait longer for a table. That could affect the other customer's perceptions of the restaurant in a negative way.
The restaurant lost out on the money from those tables and from paying for waitstaff that they probably added to the schedule to handle that party. The waitstaff lost out on the tips from the tables and the party. The deposit probably would cover all of these losses but would at least cover something and make people think twice before not showing up.

[Syndrome]

What total and utter jerks. I agree that a big charge should be assessed.

The title made me think of an unfortunate Ohana incident when Mr. Syndrome and I ate there with our neighbors. They were paying and we used our Tables in Wonderland card and said, "Just make the tip the same amount as the discount" (i.e. 20 percent). Our neighbors are older so the husband misunderstood and thought we said we had left the tip ourselves...he tipped NOTHING!! As if that weren't bad enough, we didn't find out for several months when his wife finally told us. I wish they had said something ASAP as we could have called or run over there and tried to sort it out to give the server a tip. Major embarrassment!

[Mayonnaise]

My LARP group had an unfortunate incident, as well... (what with the large group splitting the bill) but what the cheepasses didn't realize was, they only succeeded in stiffing the guy who was collecting the money, because he made sure the waitstaff got tipped right, and then reamed everyone out at the next meeting.

Now we only go to Denny's because he still hasn't been paid back by the folk who shorted on the bill, and at Denny's they can give us a bill by seat, so everyone's responsible for their own bill and tip and he doesn't get stiffed again.

8^S