So my friend & co-worker, Mary, and I tend to have the worst experiences when we eat out together and have joked about blogging our misadventures. Here is the first of most likely many blog posts of this type to come…
I had a buy one get one free coupon for Steak ‘n Shake’s new M&M milkshake so we decided to go before it expired. Steak ‘n Shake isn’t known for there speediness so the packed restaurant was already a bad sign upon arrival. Service started out pretty good as we order waters and our shakes. A few minutes later we ordered our food. Then we waited… And waited… And waited for our milkshakes. At one point another waiter even asked if we had ordered shakes and what kind. We told him yes and then waited a while longer. Surprisingly, our shakes actually arrived prior to our food. Of course, that’d be because we waited even longer for the food to arrive. The milkshakes were tasty but probably the thinnest shakes we’ve ever had. It was almost like we were drinking milk. Upon arrival everything appeared to be served properly until I noticed that my Chipotle Grilled Chicken sandwich was lacking the diced jalapeños it stated. A female manager happened by at the same time I was dissecting my sandwich to verify their absence and asked if everything was okay. I told her that I didn’t have any jalapeños. She offered to bring me a side of them and came right back with them. Unfortunately, they weren’t heated up, but still tasty. This was the first time I had ordered this sandwich and I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. Made up for the craptastic french fries they serve. So… we enjoyed are meal and were ready to go. Normally we would have our check before now, but no. We waited thinking she’d come by with it. Eventually she came and took our plates and walked off again. We waited. We started looking around and she looked over finally and asked if we needed our ticket. I said yes. She walked off to help another table. Then she walked to the back room. Then she walked back out to the other table (walking directly past us and not even looking over). Then she walked back to where the other servers were and started chit-chatting. It looked like she might’ve been working on getting our check ready then, but in the meantime another manager (this time a guy) happened to see us sitting there idly looking around and asked if everything was okay. I said yes we’re just waiting on our check. He walked a few steps towards our waitress and said “table 6 is waiting on their check”. She must’ve said she was getting it ’cause he then asked “when are you supposed to give out the checks?” I didn’t hear her response but he reminded her that it is supposed to be left when the food is brought and that even if she hadn’t done so with the food, she should’ve seen the next time she stopped by that we still didn’t have it. He was still getting on her about it as she walked over and laid the check on our table.
We walked up front with the check and our coupon then. I didn’t expect the same manager to be standing there. He asked if we needed the check split. I said no… Mary said yes… I said no… Mary said yes… and back and forth. He watched us like he was at a tennis match moving his head back and forth and was smirking the whole time. He then said he was going to take a couple of dollars off for us having to wait. He put it all on one and reached for my debit card. At that point Mary slapped me. He laughed and she told him it was a good thing that he worked there or she would’ve slapped him for it too. So he then reached out his arm to her and said “go ahead”. She did. We were all laughing. As we were leaving he was still hollering at us saying that he’ll see us back again and he expects that treatment every time.
Our bill:
Food: $10
Ice Waters: Free
Milkshakes: $7 (though buy one get one makes it $3.50)
Tip: $1.53 (and she was lucky to get that)
Total Bill Paid: $14.00
Experience: PRICELESS
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