Bad Service and Yelp

I have bitched and moaned before about bad service and how customer service in general has just gone in the toilet.  People flat out do not give a big hairy rat's ASS about your satisfaction at the end of a business transaction.  It's as if they have no inkling of an idea that you may, oh I don't know, ever want to darken their doors again!!


What the hell is up with this trend?  It is just getting worse.  People don't seem to know how to say please, thank you or come again.  And you know I am leading up to something that happened recently, don't you?

Just yesterday I ended up The Cove a local eatery.  It's one of those cute little places that sits between a laundromat and a car wash.  It has a beer garden, live music in the evenings, lots of beer and is known around here for being a vegetarian friendly, mostly local and organic food kind of place.  Really casual and on the funky side.  We eat there quite a bit actually.  The food is good.  It is not great by any means.  But it is good and you walk away feeling like you made a healthier choice than many other places you could have gone to.

But yesterday?  Not so much.

There's this one chick who works behind the counter taking orders who is just rude, doesn't seem too bright, isn't really with the program you might say.  And of course she was there.  Now, they have 2 registers but mostly only run with one of them and have people lined up and out the door waiting to place their orders.  So that's a problem right there.

Typically, I get salads or burgers.  But yesterday I was thinking about the nachos.  I have seen plates of nachos being delivered to other tables and they looked good.  On the chalk board menu waaaay up in the air above the counter it said "Bean and cheese nachos with avocado dip".  (wth is avocado dip?  is it guacamole? is it mayonnaise-y?)

So when it was my turn to go to the counter I asked the Rude Chick "What is the avocado dip on the nachos?"

Rude Chick: Oh, it's avocado mixed with sour cream.

Me:  That sounds really good.

RC: Yeah, it's got like pico de gallo stuff, tomatoes, onions, cilantro in it too.

Me:  No, I better not get that.  I don't eat onions.

RC:  Oh, you'll like this.  It's really good.

Me:  No, I don't do onions.  But, could I just get . . . .

RC: (interrupting me) No, it is already mixed in.  We can't take it out for you.  But you should try it.  it's really good.  You would like onions if you tried this.

Me:  No, I wasn't going to ask that.  I was going to ask . . .

RC: (interrupting me continually) Here, let me get this.  (she walks off and returns with a small cup of the dip stuff)  Taste it.  and she shoves it across the counter into my face.  Here, taste it!

Me: No, thank you.  I don't want it.  I am trying to tell you that I don't want it.

RC:  Well, are you allergic?

Me:  Let's just say I don't like them and they don't like me. (looking back at my friends in line, and wondering WTF)

RC:  If you would just taste this, you would like it.

Me:  No.  I didn't get to be 50 flipping years old without knowing what I like and don't like. No thank you.  (I was trying my best not to blow up on her triflin' ass, but she was making it extremely difficult)

RC:  Fine. Do you want beef or chicken on your nachos?

Me: You know what, I don't want any.  I am not eating here.  (And at this point the white hot rage that comes from the pit of your stomach and moves up had come up and hit the top of my head.  And I had had ENOUGH).

And I walked over to my friends and said "Sorry, but I can't eat here.  We'll have to meet another time".

And I left.

Yeah, I probably could have handled it better.  I could have stood there and demanded to see a manager and held up the line that was going on f o r e v e r.  I could have stood my ground and insisted that the Rude Chick not take my order and get someone else.  But at that moment I was just so completely over all the business of no one listening to me and taking my words seriously, that I could not imagine dragging this out any further.

But I did get on yelp.com and write a scathing review of the service.  My friend, the Mom of the Peach says that I should also call the owners and managers and tell them.  I don't know if I care to even bother.

If a place of business doesn't care enough to hire the best possible person to be the Face of the Company to all who walk in, why is it my business to tell them to handle their shit better?  Do it right or expect to lose customers.  That's it.

And as of right now, they have lost me.  I was going there about once every two weeks.  And I never went alone.  So that's a fair amount of business from one source.

The restaurant business is notorious for being hard to keep your head above water.  I have read that most businesses don't last 7 years.  It is a tough, very competitive line to be in.

All the more reason it would behoove the owners to make sure, make DAMN SURE that one rude employee who half-asses her job is not ruining their business.  Is this not Rule #1 in any business handbook anywhere?

Another thing about this particular restaurant's system that is bad is that the servers tip jar is at the register.  How many of the servers get short-changed on the tips due to the interaction with the Rude Chick behind the register?  My guess is a whole bunch.

What say you?  Should I follow up as a courtesy to the owners or managers of this establishment or just let it lie and not go back?