I took my mom out for breakfast this morning. There's a hole in the wall breakfast/lunch place that we love so we went there. Breakfast order was 2 buttermilk pancakes for me and 2 poached eggs with a side of turkey bacon and rye toast for mom. Usually you have your food in around 10 minutes. I watched as people who came after us were served but figured they were working on it. The waitress stopped by a couple times to let us know they hadn't forgotten about us (and from where I was sitting she did check with the cook several times).
After 30 minutes I got up and went to the counter to ask how much longer since every single other table had already been served including everyone arriving after us. The cook put up the plates in the window and they were delivered. Mom's order was correct mine was wrong. I set it back and said I no longer wanted my order. Just take it off the bill and I'll pay for the 1 breakfast, the coffee and the tea.
I left the waitress a $3 tip because she was attentive, filling us in as we waited. My mom disagreed with this saying she was partly at fault for not getting her boss involved sooner to get the meal out. So my question is two fold. How long is too long to wait for a breakfast at a short order cook place? And should you tip based on overall experience which would penalize a server if the cook performs poorly?
D.,
Thirty minutes is a LONG time to wait for a food order. The manager should have come over and apologized at 20 minutes.
While it wasn't her fault - the waitress didn't mess up the cooking - so you still tip her. I would tip but not as much. The whole meal should have been comp'ed in my book.
My husband & I tip based on the performance of the wait staff. If the food is especially lousy, slow or wrong, we will let the manager know, but not penalize our server.
In your case, you saw her repeatedly checking on your order, being attentive to letting you know, and otherwise taking care of you. One thing she could have done in addition, was to get her manager involved. But still, she wasn't dropping the ball in trying to make sure you got good service. So your tip was appropriate.
As for the wait-time, I think 15-20 minutes is adequate. Sometimes they have to juggle orders around the cooking surface, or wait for more supplies to be prepared, so they will put other orders in front. But overall, if you saw other people getting food before you, who had ordered after you, & your order wasn't complicated, over 30 minutes is a bit excessive, & I would have been proactive & asked to speak to the manager yourself.
BTW, we also notify managers when we have had an outstanding experience, in addition to leaving a good tip! T. :)
I agree it was way too long, but that the waitress shouldn't be penalized. I think she should have gotten her manager involved, but I almost wonder if the chief cook is the owner (sometimes that happens in small places) so maybe she had no leverage or influence with him. Your mom's order was slightly more complicated, so there's no excuse for yours being wrong.
I think I'd write a letter to the owner though and say how disappointed you were in your experience since this is a favorite place. Emphasize that your waitress was attentive and clearly went back to the kitchen to check on your order, so you don't blame her. But make the point that 2 pancakes shouldn't take over a half hour unless they had to go milk the cow for the buttermilk, and while you weren't charged, you also weren't fed. Ask if this is what the diner views as good service and if there's no manager on staff to ride herd on these lapses in service. Say you want to know because you aren't sure you'll be back again if they can't be more responsive and apologetic at the time of the problem.
They may take steps to rectify it, and you may even get an offer for a free breakfast.
I take the position that, if they don't know they screwed up, they won't fix it.
The server wasn't at fault, as you said she checked and got back to you, so it is actually any other of a number of reasons. Sometimes they don't have the bread and have to run out and buy it (they should have said so). Sometimes there are cooks who are new and don't understand what they are doing. At other times, some other person took your food by mistake and now yours isn't there anymore. The point is it was unfortunate, doesn't happen lots and you were very nice to tip the waitress. You were very kind, I don't think it's your fault, it's just what happened.
15 to 20 min is plenty for breakfast and you know the usual timeframe. What the waitress should have gotten done was your check comp'd. No charge at all and then you tip her well. Sure, you didn't pay for yours but you got no food! So inconvenient. They should make up for that... I'd likely have left a small tip too but 10% of the bill vs usual 20%. The waitress should know better even though the food wasn't her fault.
Yes way too long. I still tip. I usually tip 20%. If service is bad I do 15%. $3 is not much money no matter what. Assuming the bill was $20 for the two of you, a $3 tip is 15% so I guess that is ok for bad service. If it was good service, I would have tipped more.
The only time in my life I ever did not tip was a time I went to the old Motown cafe in Manhattan. Hubby and I experienced discrimination because we were white. We ended up finally getting our cold food. Paid our bill and left. Never went back. But that is the only time that ever happened.
I have worked for tips.
I would not have tipped her. She is the wait staff. She should have thought to inform her manager as her tip may have been compromised. With you her tip was not compromised too much. But with me and some others her tip would have been zero.
She should have been on that cook the moment she realized that your food wasn't being done right. It is sort of her fault for not getting it to you on time.
But $3 is sufficient in my opinion.
If you were paying the bill, you get to decide the tip. Just know, though, that she probably didn't get the whole $3 in her pocket. Tips are usually shared with other staff, so you were rewarding everyone, not just her.
So, assuming you took maybe at least 10 minutes to settle in and make the order in the first place, it was perhaps 40-45 minutes from walking in the door to actually getting food in front of you, right? That's far too long for a diner-type place like that. I hesitate to say there's a magic time frame after which it's "too long" for food to appear because a great deal depends on what one orders, but in the case of your orders -- your wait was way too long.
I'm glad you didn't penalize the waitress especially since you saw that she was checking on your order with the kitchen. I think the error was the kitchen's here, and you should let the management know that. They need to know that the waitress did her job and was attentive but the kitchen apparently just lost the order and as regular customers there, you hope it won't happen again. I do know that I've seen kitchens simply lose an order as if it never were taken, and it's rarely the server's fault from our experience.
In your case, only because she was attentive and had obviously been talking to the kitchen, I would not have penalized her.
However, I'm sitting here thinking about the time that I was with a family with 2 little kids. EVERY table was served in the place except us. People who came well after us. The children were crying, they were so hungry. The waitress poured water and took crackers off other tables and tossed them on our table. I didn't leave a tip. I'm sure the other family didn't either. I did tell the manager what I thought of the place when I was leaving. Grrr...
I think it all depends on how the server acts.
It probably wouldn't have occurred to me otherwise, but D. B's response is on point. If it's a small, private establishment (a single diner, not some small chain), then it is possible that the server was limited in her options regarding getting things done on your behalf. Small business usually means the owner is on site most of the time, especially busy times. Perhaps the owner even waited some tables--and took your food order to another table(!?) and your server had to re-order your food. It happens. And what is she to do in that situation? Get the manager?
Or, perhaps the owner was the cook. Same thing.
Whether or not those things happened in your case is impossible for us to guess, but my take is this: I can be very patient, even for simple orders like yours, if the establishment is busy and everyone appears to be recently seated so that multiple orders are going in close together. However, if every single person has been served but me, and I was seated (and ordered) well before those who've already gotten their food, my patience has then run out.
Your server was attentive and you saw her check on your order multiple times. Whether or not she had the "pull" to do anything beyond check on it is something you can't really know.
I would have tipped on the food that you received (as you did). I like D.'s suggestion to follow up with a brief letter to the diner's management/owner informing them of your less than wonderful experience, including that you are a fairly regular customer, have not had this experience there before, and that your server appeared to do all she could to get your orders and make things right, but that it didn't happen.
Sorry you had to deal with that. I hate when my morning starts out that way.
It should have been out in 20 minutes (unless they were obviously swamped). I would've tipped the waitress still like you did as she was doing her job.
I think 15-20 minutes is fair. The others around you certainly shouldn't get their food before you if you were there first.
I wouldn't penalize a good server for the slow kitchen. I think you were right to tip her.
