The dining story continued.....
On our times out together, my boyfriend and I have been to both Hooters and a local seafood company, where we had issues at both.
I understand that the Hooters in my area has been losing business to, and lost some employees to, another restaurant nearby (Tilted Kilt). We went in for dinner the other night at Hooters.
All we wanted was some good cold beer and awesome wings. When we walked in, we were told by one of the girls walking by to seat ourselves (this varies day by day, if they have a hostess or not, and if there are any special events going on such as wrestling of football). So we found a clean table and sat down. And sat.... and sat. After 10 minutes, we stopped a server walking by and asked her if she knew who are server was, and if she could please let her know we wanted to order. After another 5 minutes, our server came over, saying that she was busy with a big party and apologized for not seeing us. This wouldn't have been a problem, except the big party was in a whole different part of the restaurant, so she couldn't visualize our area from where she was also handling the big party. No biggie, we just want to order.
So we order our beers, app, and entrees. She dropped off our beers and told us the app would be out soon. Another girl delivered our fried pickles (yes, I know this is how food is run here). Then somebody else delivered our food. When the food runner dropped our food, I asked her for another beer for each of us. She nodded and said she would let our server know. 10 minutes later.... no beer and we haven't seen our server. We flag down another server and ask her if she can either get us another beer each or our server. Our server ends up coming over and asking what we need. Um beer. Our glasses are empty and we are sitting here with food that we don't really want to eat when we have nothing to wash it down. Beers are finally delivered and she walks off. Never asks how our food is, etc.
When it came time for the check, she drops it and says she can take it after we are ready. As I'm pulling out my wallet, she says "oh, just put it on the table. I will be back in a few minutes." and walks off again. *sigh* About 5 minutes later, she walks by the table, picking up the receipt and my card as she went. Drops it off a few minutes later and tells us to have a good night. Um no. We've spent over an hour and a half here. We have talked to you only a handful of times and had to request more drinks repeatedly, then you don't even ask how our food is.
We ended up talking to the manager that night. Turned out it was the General Manager. We didn't realize this until after we were done talking to him. No, we didn't insist on free food or having our dinner comp'ed or anything like that. Just let him know that he had an issue that needed his attention. I fully understand having a big unexpected party come in, but that's no reason to neglect other tables. Maybe they should have split up her previously assigned section so that she could just take care of the big party. I understand now though why a lot of customers that were Hooters fans are now going to Tilted Kilt instead. Apparently a lot of the senior servers at Hooters went over there.

The second place was at a small locally-owned seafood restaurant near us. We went there for a nice dinner out since we would both be working a lot the next couple weeks, so this would be our "date night." We were seated by a hostess at a table that was near the windows, with one other table seated nearby shortly after this. We then proceeded to sit there for over 5 minutes while a server came up to the table beside us, set down a bus tub and proceeded to roll silverware. We noticed that neither our table or the one nearby had been greeted yet and nobody had drinks. Okay.... where is our server? We attempted to ask the server next to us if he knew who our server was. Instead, when we said "excuse me, sir" he turned so his back was to us and started humming. Really?! My boyfriend went to the hostess stand and informed her that neither of our tables had been greeted yet and asked if we were sat in a closed section. Yup, turned out we were. How did we find out? When we then got a pissed off server for the rest of our dinner. Apparently she was supposed to have already been cut but then had to take the two tables that were sat in her section. It was a joyful time for all!

What is wrong here?

Recently, everytime the boyfriend and I go out to a restaurant, we get either mediocre or shitty service. Granted, twice has been with a large group of people (different groups). Twice though has been with just us. I don't get it. We don't run our servers, we are polite, and we normally are pretty quick in deciding and give our orders as accurately as possible to limit the amount of questions the server has to ask.

Group A dinner was at a medium priced corporate steak house. At one point, I ended up with 4 empty glasses sitting by my full glass. The BF and I each had an adult beverage and a regular drink (tea or soda). When the server came to give us refills on our regular drinks, he brought new glasses and just left the empty ones in their spots. Okay, I realize it can be hard to clear from the table that you just served if you still have other stuff on your tray and I don't expect it. So, I moved all of the empty glasses over to my side of the table, since that was the easiest place to reach them (on the other side were multiple other tables, so everything was being served/cleared from my side). These sat there for over 15 minutes. Seriously. During this time, our server took bread plates from the table, but continued to leave empty glasses. Finally, one of the dads at the table with two boys spoke up and said "maybe we should just put them in the middle of the aisle. They'll get picked up that way." The server ended up clearing 9 glasses total from the table at this point. Service was slow, even for a busy Saturday evening, the bill was messed up twice, and most of us had incorrectly cooked steaks (not even worth it to try to send them back). We ended up being at this restaurant for 3 hours! Totally ridiculous. Also, it was a kiddo's birthday that we were going out to celebrate. No, I don't expect free dessert. I have no problem buying dessert, especially if it meant you would have sung happy birthday to her. When you bring the tray over to show the desserts AFTER giving us our checks, it is pretty well going to be a "no." Instead, we got offered to buy a $25 company rewards card "that next year they will give you a $25 credit for the cardholder's birthday." Um no. We get shitty service and you expect us to pay more money AND come back again next year? No thanks! Of course, an 18% auto-grat is added due to the large party.

Group B dinner was at a medium-high end seafood place (for an adult's birthday now). She had brought her own cake due to food allergies. We had to ask for refills repeatedly. Drinks, both regular and adult, were forgotten repeatedly. We had been seated for 8 minutes before our server finally approached and told us that he would be right back with waters for us (we all were wanting to order alcohol) before walking off. He returned about 5 minutes later to ask what we wanted to drink (with no water for us). Ugh. It took a while to finally be able to order. When we tried to order apps as he was taking our drink orders, we were told "I'll be back for those in a little bit. Let's just do drinks now." Drinks are dropped off and he runs off. When does he ask about apps? When he comes back to take our entree orders (about 25 minutes after we have been sitting there waiting with no bread or apps). Of course, it is a large party, so there is an 18% auto-grat on it. He brought the cake out, took it out of the box, put it on the table, put a tray of spoons down with plates for the cake. Then he pulls a candle out of his pocket and hands it to the birthday girl. One of the women at the table asked "do y'all sing happy birthday here?" He told her "no, we don't have our singing group here today. There ya go!" and walked off. Seriously? I understand being busy and all, but shit. This is ridiculous. I know our total bill for the table was over $300, but it's too much trouble to sing happy freakin' birthday?

I'll go into the other two later. It just amazes me how people can act towards the patrons of their restaurants.

PSA for the day

If you don't care much about who you get.. um... "serviced" by... you should probably make sure to wrap your willy. When you call because you think "I feel really bad and I need to get checked for venereal disease" is a good reason to go to the hospital, you should know that you will more than likely be scoffed at. If not by the crew of the truck, then the firefighters who came out because you called and said you were having a hard time breathing. When we ask what kind of symptoms you are having to make you think you need an STD check, it is NOT necessary to attempt to undo your pants and show me your junk in the front yard of your apartment complex. I do NOT want or need to see it. Also, you will go to jail for public indecency if you don't pull your hands out of your pants and stop trying to pull them down to show me (just like that nice officer informed you). A simple "it hurts when I pee" or just a general "discharge" is all you have to tell me. No, I don't know why your mouth hurts also.... unless you aren't very careful with what you do with your mouth or you've been sticking your hands in your mouth after playing with your junk. I am also NOT impressed by you telling me "there's so many, I can't really count them" and grinning when I ask how many sexual partners you have had in the past 6 months. At this point, I'm more concerned about how many people you possibly spread your nastiness too... NOT on scoring with you. I know, I know... that's hard to believe... you are obviously a big stud muffin to get all that action from some of the lady entepreneurs of the night out here.
So, don't be a prick, wrap your dick. Don't be a fool, wrap your tool. There's more, but I think that will suffice.