Written by Samantha

I have been craving a Chicken Club wrap from what was one of my favorite restaurants for weeks. I finally made it there last night and the experience was horrible. The wrap comes with marinated chicken, bacon, lettuce, cheese, salsa, avocado, and green chile sauce. I don’t like the last three items……. I have never had a problem ordering this item sans avocado, salsa, or the green sauce. Never. Apparently, there really is a first time for everything.

We placed our orders and I specified clearly what I didn’t want. It came. It was covered in all of the offending ingredients. I always feel bad sending food back, always. The waitress came over and I explained the problem and apologized. She said she didn’t realize I didn’t want those ingredients- perhaps writing something down would help. She took it away and then the manager came over. I use the term manager extremely loosely after last night. First off he *might* be 19 (and acts it). Second, he looked offended that I would send something back to the kitchen and demanded to know if I told our waitress the way I wanted my order. No, I assumed she was psychic and wanted to play a rousing guessing game before dinner. It came back a few moments later (the food, not the manager) and this time it was covered in sour cream. Never mind the fact that sour cream isn’t even supposed to be involved. Never mind the fact that I have now explained three times- that I onlywant chicken, lettuce, bacon and cheese. I was so frustrated I just wanted to leave. My husband insisted that this was their issue and they needed to correct it. He called the manager over because our waitress was no where in sight. This time Mr. Manager looked plain irritated. I apologized again and told him that the wrap was covered in sour cream. He said “You didn’t say you didn’t want sour cream.” I sighed. I didn’t specify that I didn’t want little green army men either but since neither are a part of the lengthy description and I’ve never received a wrap with sour cream or little green army men before- I didn’t think it was an issue. I didn’t say any of that. I calmly mentioned that it wasn’t supposed to have sour cream in the first place and I clearly said I ONLY WANTED CHICKEN, LETTUCE, BACON AND CHEESE. He stormed off. When he returned he sat the new plate in front of me without saying a word, and huffed away.  It was almost half the original size and my side item was missing.

Some advice for the “manager”:

1) Guess what? You are in the customer service field- if you don’t remotely want to please customers- perhaps you should go into telemarketing.

2) When a customer places an order and their food comes out ALL wrong- through no fault of their own, you have no right to act annoyed, put out, or frustrated with said paying customer.

3) If a meal is screwed up twice- you should apologize and adjust the bill, especially when the customer is being polite even though you are not.

4) You should be respectful and friendly to everyone- it doesn’t hurt to assume that everyone who enters the restaurant is tight with the owner. Sometimes you are serving the granddaughter of the man who owns the freakin’ building and just happens to be close, personal friends with your boss.

Now that I’ve shared my story- I wanna hear yours. What was your worst restaurant experience?

Tags: