Jeweled Web

I don't think I'm a bad customer. I tip well, I don't commmonly complain, and if there's a problem then I'm pretty patient. Well. Mary and I went to Applebee's tonight. The waitress was nice and she kept up with us pretty well. The manager came by just as we were getting our food and asked if we were doing "all right". We said yes, we were fine. Then about half-way through her salad, Mary realized that the blue cheese crumbles where missing from her salad. They had never been there. I asked if she wanted to call the waitress over and she said no, she was nearly done anyway.

When the waitress came by, I told her that Mary's salad had had no cheese. Now keep in mind this was a "bleu" salad and what makes it such is the bleu cheese! We explained we weren't really complaining, but just wanted to let the resteraunt know. Well, when she came by with our check she asked if "Mario" had been by (the manager). We said no, and she said he would be. "Mario" then came by and Mary told him about the missing cheese.

Now ... we had NOT been rude, adamant, or challenging. We were not asking for free food or anything gratis. We didn't feel this was necessary, not for a few missing cheese crumbles (although I do love bleu cheese). But he didn't let us finish, Mary was interrupted. INTERRUPTED. And we were told basically that it was too late for us to complain since we had already eaten our meal, and that we had told him that everything was "fine" when he came by earlier. And all of this was told in a condescending manner as if we should either know better or were probably idiots.

So I stopped him. I told him that we didn't want anything, and that when he'd come by the food was just being delivered and we hadn't known the dish wasn't complete yet. And that we were just informing him of our experience, not asking for anything. At this point he smiled and pretty much said "thank you" and went on his way.

All we wanted was an "We're sorry, we hope you'll join us again. Thank you for coming." That's it. Instead we were talked down to and brushed off.

Bad Applebee's manager, bad. We were not raising a fuss or asking for anything. Maybe try listening to the customer first before leaping to an erroneous conclusion and end up turning a minor glitch into an irritation.

fromage rules!
Lola