Review: Tropical 7Up & Poor Restaurant Service: What Would YOU Do?
Junk Food Nation, what would you do in this situation? Recently, the Junk Food Gal and I went out for a meal at one of our favorite restaurants here in DC. Great food, cool atmosphere, convenient to get to – it’s always tops on my list. Usually the service is top notch. This time…not so much.
First problem: no bread. Usually that’s the first thing the waiter brings to the table after the order of drinks. This time, nuthin’. I decided to give the waiter the benefit of the doubt, “Hey do you guys not do bread anymore?” Waiter: “Oh, you didn’t get the bread yet? Let me get that, let me get that.” Oooooh-k.
Second problem: After our appetizers were cleared off, the waiter began setting down small spoons. Like, really small spoons – dessert spoons. When he saw us looking at them curiously, he piped up, “You guys are just waiting for dessert, right?” JFGal: “Er…we haven’t gotten our entrees yet.” “Oh, right right, I’m sorry.” He swept away those small spoons and brought us our actual meals.
Third problem: After the entrees were done, we still hadn’t received a side we had ordered. Our waiter was no where to be found. We caught a different waiter, “Hey, we ordered ____, can you check if it’s coming out? If not, you can just remove it from our order.” That random waiter cleared away our dishes, and checked in the kitchen, eventually bringing out the side and two forks. Awkward; there we sat, eating the random side after having already finished our meals.
Fourth problem: The waiter finally reappeared to give us our check. Here’s the problem – we had ordered dessert. When I reminded him of this, he reeled back, and said “OOOOH RIGHT, sorry sorry.” He then went back and brought us out our dessert. Then he looked right at me and gave me a random salute. WTF, dude?
Thankfully, we saw that we had not been charged for the late side dish…and the food the entire night WAS still excellent, even though the service was so friggin’ random. I ended up leaving standard tip, something around 20%. I’m a softie apparently.
What would YOU have done in this situation, Junk Food Nation? Let me know in the comments below.
Today’s junk food: Tropical 7Up!
Tropical 7Up: The Money Shot
Junk Food Nation, I’m not much of a soda guy, but after talking about sodas with the Nosh Show guys, and seeing this Tropical 7Up in the stores, I thought “Meh, why not?”
Tropical 7Up: REFRESCO!
According to the web, this Tropical 7Up is supposed to taste like pineapple and mango. Only tropical fruits in this can, suckas.
Tropical 7Up: 190 cal per can
Tropical 7Up: Ingredients
This 7Up came in tall-boy form, just to make sure I get 1000% times my daily intake of corn syrup.
Tropical 7Up: Orange-y
When I popped the top of this Tropical 7Up, I could smell an island-punch-like flavor. A little pineapple for sure, and some oddly …floral notes? Slightly..smelled very sweet, regardless. Mostly pineapple.
Pouring it into the glass, the liquid was bubbly and sort of orange/peach colored. Time to sip!
Tropical 7Up: Bubbly
Sipping on this Tropical 7Up, it tasted…well, very sweet. But I liked it! Tasted like a whole combination of fruit flavors – definitely caught some pineapple in there, a light taste of mango, but the two flavors I actually got a lot of were (oddly) a melon and a peach taste. I think that was the floral note I was picking up off the smell – the weird melon/peach-like notes were unexpected, but I didn’t hate them.
I’m used to tropical punch being more fruit-punch-y (I’m thinking of the recent Mt. Dew Solar Flare), but this was definitely more “tropical” in nature. I liked it! SUPER SWEET though. If you like soda, I think you’ll find this very refreshing.
PURCHASED AT: Safeway
COST: $0.69 on sale
Thoughts? Please comment below or hit me up on Twitter @junkfoodguy or LIKE my Facebook Page and message me there. I also have Google+!! Let’s hang out.
Sincerely,
Junk Food Guy
Discuss - 30 Comments
That’s appalling. I would have left no tip. If they didn’t earn a tip, then they don’t deserve one.
Yeah, you are a softie…..but it doesn’t sound like that waiter was rude so I dunno. Maybe 10% for doing half the job. This pop ….or I guess I should say soda, sounds like it needs alcohol!
oh yea – i’d try it if you added some vodka! lol. and i call it ‘pop’ 😉
@Kaitlyn: POP??? Nooooo it’s soda 😛
@Sarah: LOL, stop trying to add booze to everything!
Appalling service doesn’t mean no tip: it means a visit to or from the manager. Pooled tips may mean that you, in sticking it to a crappy server, are causing collateral damage to the take-home pay of the busser or dishwasher. It is unfortunate that withholding a tip is considered a spur to better service, because if it’s used that way, it’s a terribly blunt instrument. I think perhaps 1 server out of 20 might consider a $0 tip to be a source of introspection, and they might come to the realization that yeah, they didn’t “deserve” one. The other 19 servers think you’re a douchenozzle.
But that gets to the other issue at hand – must a tip be “deserved” by a server? Think of it this way: we exempt servers from minimum wage laws because we assume a server will make up the difference in tips. That difference isn’t “extra”, it’s PART OF minimum wage. When I have a bad day at work, my boss DOESN’T NOT PAY ME. And even my boss withholds a year-end bonus, at least I get the minimum pay I’m supposed to get, and that’s at least minimum wage.
So when you withhold a tip, at its most limited, what you’re saying to the server is “you don’t deserve even minimum wage.” And at it’s most far-reaching, you’re telling the dishwasher that *he* doesn’t deserve minimum wage either because some bozo in the front of house fucked up your bread basket. If you really don’t think the guy deserves to make minimum wage, tell the manager and get the guy fired. Eat somewhere else and vote with your dollars. But don’t make a man work first and then not pay him because it wasn’t done to your liking. I don’t think you’re a softie. I think you’re a human being who recognizes that that man is also a human being who should be paid at least minimum wage.
But if you’re still thinking “but then the system’s not fair and it won’t change unless I make a stand,” you’re half right. The system’s not fair. But play inside the sandbox you’re in (ie. leave a goddamn tip) and then send your legislator a letter saying that the exemption for restaurant workers from minimum wage laws is an atrocity – that’s the stand you make: against the system, not against the worker.
When you work in the service industry, you’re supposed to provide service. Why reward bad service? The server learns nothing from getting a tip for bad service. You shouldn’t get money you didn’t earn.
@MP: “The server learns nothing from getting a tip for bad service.”
The server learns one thing from getting no tip: that you’re an asshole. Unless you verbalize your complaint to the server, ie. look him in the eye and tell him, “you did a crappy job and now I’m docking your pay for the following specific reasons; don’t do it again,” you have done no such teaching and have only passive-aggressively withheld part of a human being’s paycheck. And if you don’t have the mettle to tell that to your server’s face (or even to verbalize it to your server’s manager), you’re taking the cowardly way out and leaving behind no usable lesson whatsoever.
Which then asks whether or not your going out to dinner is even *supposed* to be a teachable moment between you and the server (which is patronizing as hell). You sound like you’re training an animal or a five year-old.
Finally, although I suppose I get that a generic person in generic time and generic space should not receive money that they do not earn, a server in a restaurant in 21st century America relies on *you* to fill in the rest of the paycheck that everyone, as a society, has decided that he or she has a legal right to earn: the minimum wage. We have (for some reason) shifted that burden from the restaurateur to the customer and, as such, it behooves us as humans, much less as customers, to make sure the server doesn’t go home with less than he deserves. That’s a loaded word, sure, but if you come back with “he did a shitty job so he doesn’t deserve a paycheck,” then feel free to get his ass fired ex post by talking to his manager and complaining, not by taking upon yourself to deliver some inscrutable mute judgment / lesson of the day by the withholding of a few bucks. Nobody “deserves” that.
If rotten servers continually get lousy or no tips they will seek employment elsewhere. Think of not tipping as encouraging job relocation.
i’m like you, i would have left a 15-20% tip because i always feel bad leaving less than that. service has to be extremely bad (like the one time a waiter ARGUED with me about what i ordered! ridiculous) for me to leave less than 15%. however, i would definitely have bitched about the waiter all night, lol. around here, we don’t have many good waiters anyway, so i’m pretty used to it.
@Kaitlyn: LOL, I hope you argued back! That IS ridic.
I’m like you I just cant not leave a tip even when I get takeout I tip or else I feel cheap I don’t know why, my boyfriend on the other hand wont even to tip the take out guy. SOOO, off topic here Eric did you try the pumpkin spice Oreos? I have been hearing about these mythical pumpkin spice Oreos and I finally caught a glimpse of them on the consumerist but I thought that the bag kind of looked fake but they also provided tweets of people who have tried the pumpkin spice Oreos and mentioned Ryan and the nosh show. So did ya try them are they real?
@Ashley: Re Pumpkin Spice OReos – hopefully you saw my review at this point 🙂 http://www.junkfoodguy.com/2014/09/15/pumpkinspiceoreos/
I think I would have done pretty much the same as you, maybe a little less than 20% tip. The service was more weird than bad, and I feel like they did right by not charging you for the side.
@Sara: Yeah, the no charge for the side was good. Sounds like I should’ve said something to the manager
The tip would have been a little light and I would have complained to manager.
@Eric: Sounds like I should’ve
I would have left the tip, but I also would have had a chat with the manager and let him know that the waiter was helpful and hospitable but needs some further training. Maybe the guy was new? I would have suggested that he may need a backup waiter for a few more busy dinner runs if he was new. If he wasn’t new though…I don’t know what to say. How bizarre.
@Jenn: Yeah, sounds like the consensus is its best to speak up. I will next time for sure!
All of my waitress friends make amazing money in tips, even the ones who aren’t actually the best at their jobs. Just saying, they aren’t all paupers…
@Herbert – true!
This past weekend my family was eating at a fast casual burger place that serves you bottomless fries. We ordered water to drink and when the server brought them, my wife’s glass had stuff all around the inside of the glass. She flagged down our server and sent it back. The next glass came out and had stuff on the rim! This time she took it to the manager and explained the situation. They then brought out her water in a to go cup. They laughed about it not being able to be dirty but we thought it was because they had probably all spit in it.
@Steve: GROSS!
I tip on the range of 15% – 20%. 15% being poor, 18% being average and 20% being above average. I might go above 20% if I received excellent service, but I’ve yet to experience that.
I would have rated your service poor and left a 15% tip. The server seemed very inattentive as you described, but still made appearances. I don’t fault servers for food quality, but I do fault them for accuracy and attentiveness. That’s really all I ask for. A good server knows what you need before you ask for it. Drink refills, more bread, offers dessert or to go drinks.
Well done. I would’ve left a tip, given there was no ill intent on their end.
Good for you, good karma.
@MarcP: I always go for karma
I would drink the 7up with gin or vodka. But that’s just me. I would chalk the restaurant up as an off night with a new waiter since the food was good.
@RunInBoise – yeah I’ll prob head back there anyways at some point.
Much like everyone else said. Leave a tip, if a bit lower than usual but be sure to speak to a manager first. Just inform them that you don’t exactly have a problem with waiters having a substance abuse problem but that it definitely impacted your enjoyment that night.
@TehBULL: LOL – substance abuse problem