Okay, the last thing that I want customers to do is start complaining about their dining experiences.  However, if you are having a problem with your meal–your meat is over done, your fish is under done, there is a piece of glass in your drink, a bug in your salad–let your server know!

Customers, for whatever reason, don’t want to speak up about these things.  I find it funny, maybe funny is not the best word, but when a server goes up to a table and asks how everything is, the customers’ answers are often, “fine.”  Even when they are not.

Speak up

Most places want to get it right!  If it isn’t, they want to know.  Stuff happens.  Bugs do cling to those organic greens even though they have been washed three times.  A little piece of that scrub brush will find its way into that risotto.  Fruit flies do like to swim in drinks–especially brown liquors.

Somehow the customer thinks that because these things happen that the restaurant doesn’t care.  They can’t fix it if you don’t give them the chance to! 

Let your server know

So, obviously you should speak up and let your server know.  If you do decide to be brave and let the restaurant know about a situation, be sure to use those special words you were taught when you were a kid.  Please and thank you go a long way. 

Please and Thank you

Let’s see now.  You are a customer who, for whatever reason, is not happy with the meal.  You want to get it right (and I promise you so does the restaurant), so you tell your server.  What is going to give you the best chance of accomplishing this goal?  Using words like please and thank you, or being a crazed, psychopath who yells at their server to fix the problem immediately?  Be nice.  I think that great humanitarian and philosopher, Rodney King said it best:  “Can’t we all just get along?”