Bad Service - Tis Not Mine To Reason Why

I went out to dinner last night by myself. Well, not exactly alone, I had my current read, Travis Bradberry's Emotional Intelligence Habits (highly recommended, I might add).

Dining alone is neither unusual nor bothersome to me, I travel alone often enough and have no issues doing so (provided there's a good book and sufficient overhead light to read). It is, however, a little unusual when I’m at home, but my wife's been away on business for a few days, and I had just enough of tending to my own culinary needs to want a break.

I went to our local Italian eatery and, to be honest, we’ve a spotty relationship with the restaurant. We witnessed the owner berating a server one night and it was sufficiently disturbing to us that we didn’t go back for years. When we did return, it was a better experience, with excellent food and no untoward behavior from the owner.

Tonight, I can report the food was mostly good (I can’t use the word “mostly” anymore without thinking about Billy Crystal’s character in The Princess Bride – not a bad thing). On the downside, when I asked the owner to seat me where there was a little more light (lifting my book to show him why), he passed good options to sit me in a booth with very low lighting.

Worse again, on a quiet Tuesday night, with only one other table occupied in the restaurant, he sat me right next to them. The occupants, as it happened, spoke to each other as if they were sitting a mile apart.

When the owner brought the menu and a glass of water, I noticed the glass had lipstick on it and, before you make any inferences, I wasn’t wearing lipstick. When my server came over, she looked like she was having a bad life and, for all I know, she might have been.

What I know for sure is that when I asked for a clean glass, sans lipstick, she grabbed the glass and turned in as disgusted a manner as was possible to do without a word of apology or acknowledgement.

The food, as mentioned, was mostly good. The “homemade” pasta that I agreed to over whatever regular pasta was on offer was too good to turn down at a meagre $3 upcharge. Alas, I should have offered an additional $3 to have them cook it properly. Rubber bands come in handy from time to time, but not as an edible.

The light wasn’t sufficient to read, so I ate my food and scrolled emails and social media on my phone. I wondered about the server’s demeanor, which never improved. I thought back to the time we’d witnessed the owner berating a server and wondered if she too was victim to similar despicable behavior.

As I left the restaurant there was lots of stuff swirling around in my head. I’d identify as an empath, and I was imagining what might be going on in my server’s world, or what it must be like to work for a guy like that.

In the final analysis, I decided it wasn’t my job to work that out. I was the customer and the indifferent service from the moment I was seated in the wrong spot, to the lipstick on the glass, to the server’s poor demeanor, to the poorly cooked pasta, was enough to invite another significant hiatus from that restaurant.

It saddened me. I love supporting local businesses. But once again, the experience had fallen short and that is a bridge too far for me. ?

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