Excuse me, Sir, but you’re a jackass

Jump to Comments

Working in the restaurant business sucks. The money doesn’t, but the kind of crap you have to put up with is just ridiculous. I mean, I don’t understand why angry, mean people go out to dinner. Why don’t they just stay home and yell at the tv or something?

So this is what happened to me last night: this older dude with white hair sat at my table with two other guys. I stopped by and said hi, asked if they would like a glass of wine to begin and they said they needed some time to look the list over. Great, no prob, I stopped back a while later and asked if they had decided. I was given a blank stare by this asshole. No one said anything to me. Seriously. They all just kept talking or reading their menus. That’s not unusual in my restaurant, actually. People love to ignore the servers there. It must have something to do with fine dining: people like to treat the wait staff like servants or whatever.

So, anyway, I walked away, telling them to take their time and let me know when they were ready. I didn’t stop back for A LONG TIME. Like, 10 minutes or something. I decided I’d let them let ME know because I wasn’t going to be ignored again. The asshole waves me over and they order a $109 bottle of Pinot Noir. This one:

Great. I get the bottle, bring the glasses and pour a taste for the gentleman who ordered it. Not the old guy, a different one. He approves of it, so I pour for everyone else. I take the order, turn it in, and everything is going fine.

Then they order another bottle of Flowers. Awesome. That’s over $200 in wine alone. Sweet. Since it’s the same varietal, the same year, the same EVERYTHING, I didn’t bring new glasses. The asshole says “We’d like fresh glasses, please.” “Of course, sir” I said and brought new glasses. They still had a full glass from the previous bottle, so I just opened the bottle (after presenting it to the nice(r) guy) and left it on the table. I then kept an eye on their old glasses so I could see when it would be time to pour the new bottle into the new glasses.

The asshole was ready first, so I filled his glass. “Wait a minute! Did you let the other gentleman sample it first?” “No, sir, I’m sorry. Since it is the EXACT SAME WINE I didn’t realize he wanted to taste it.” Of course, I was stumbling a little bit more than that. It’s not cool to be called out like that. And, by the way, it’s fine to just pour if it’s the same wine, it’s just this guy is the father of Satan. Jackass says “I can’t taste the wine correctly because my glass is full” (he was saying this to his friend, but it was obviously pointed at me since I filled his glass, and then when I poured a sample for the other guy he held his hand out to tell me to stop…LIKE I DON’T KNOW WHEN TO STOP!!! THIS IS WHAT I DO EVERY DAY!)

So this dork says that it doesn’t taste the same as the first bottle. “It’s not good. It has more acid than the first.” “Yeah, it does” the other guy agrees. “Send it back. We’re not going to pay such a high price for that. Bring us another bottle.” “Of course, gentlemen, but I just want to let you know that all the other bottles are the same year,” “That’s fine, just bring it.” So now I have a returned, expensive bottle of wine that we don’t serve by the glass and I’m getting ready to open another one that they probably won’t like, either.

It gets better. He sent back his veal milanese because the risotto was mushy and the arugula wasn’t good. And then he tried to convince the other guys they didn’t like theirs, either, but they were like “It’s fine. It’s good.” Even they didn’t like him, I could tell.

“Jack obviously isn’t here tonight” he said. Jack is the owner and you know what? He doesn’t even cook! He knows shit about food, that’s why other people run the restaurant for him! HA! And he was there, but he was having dinner with his family, so I said “Actually, sir, he IS here.” which probably pissed him off, but at this point I didn’t care. I knew I was screwed, so I figured I’d have some fun with it!

Wow, this has really turned into a long story. Oh! And they did keep that 3rd bottle, they said it was better than the other one. Dumbasses. The manager, another server (who has passed her semmolier exam) and the bartender all smelled and sipped the returned bottle and said it was fine. I hate people.

4 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized