Restaurant special request. Who is right?

kaos16

I recently was at a restaurant with DH and a few friends.  We sat at the bar to have drinks.  While they had all eaten before coming, I was coming straight from work so I ordered a dish.  The dish was supposed to have shrimp in it (amongst other things).  While technically I am not allergic to shrimp, they make me violently ill, so I do not eat them.  I asked the bartender, "can the etouffe be made without shrimp?  If not, no big deal, I will order something different."  The bartender assured me that it was certainly possible to make it without.  Great, I placed the order.

45 minutes went by, and no food.  At this point everyone else in my group was itching to leave.  I told the bartender that if it was going to be much longer, I could just cancel.  He ran into the kitchen and brought it out immediately.  (that makes me wonder how long it was sitting, but I digress)

Within minutes the manager and the owner both came over to tell me that when the order came in they saw no shrimp, assumed allergy, and had to start the entire dish from scratch.  They both said it in a way that it seemed they were trying to make me feel bad.  I specifically told the bartender when ordering that if it wasn't possible (as sometimes things are already made) that I would get a different item!  I feel like, if anything, it was the bartender's fault for saying it was possible, not mine.  Thoughts?

To make it even more annoying, this is a restaurant we go to often!

Inkdancer

They certainly should not have tried to make you feel bad about it. Seems like the bartender said something about the wait, and they were trying to CYA. It is perfectly fine to ask for changes at a restaurant!

pinkshorts27

also bartender could have told you it would take longer when he put the order in. I would have expected some warning.

JellyBean52513

I'm not sure if the bartender was wrong here. You asked if it could be made without shrimp, the bartender said yes, and so it was literally made without shrimp. I think the bartender could/should have let you know that it would be made from scratch and therefore take longer, but that's the only misstep of his I can point out. 

The kitchen staff should not have talked to you in a way to make you feel bad. Just my opinion, but I think that when special order-items are going to take a considerably different amount of time than is usual, the customer should be made aware when placing their order. The customer has no idea how the kitchen operates.

JCbride2015

They should have told you it would take longer, and they shouldn't have talked down to you.  It's understandable the dish might have taken a longer time than without the shrimp, but I think they should have let you know!

phira

Bad service and instead of apologizing and offering to comp your meal, they blamed you.

- When you placed your order, you did not say, "I am allergic to shrimp." I'm not going to say that they were wrong to assume you were allergic to it (better safe than sorry), but what they did was imply that had you been "honest" about ordering without shrimp (e.g. if you had only known to clarify that you weren't dealthy allergic), they could have made your food faster. That's not okay. You're not required to explain your dietary preferences or restrictions in detail.

- The correct thing to do if the meal would take much longer to be made from scratch would have been for the bartender to take your order, find out from the kitchen that it would take 45 minutes to make, and then come back and confirm with you that this was fine.

- I agree with you: if after waiting for 45 minutes with no sign of food, your food is immediately ready when you ask about it, it's likely it was ready beforehand. However, it's ultimately irrelevant because ...

- ... you shouldn't have had to wait 45 minutes for your food. If the meal was going to take 45 minutes to make from scratch and it actually had just been finished when the bartender went to check on it, the problem still is that you had to wait 45 minutes for your food. Like I said above, if it really was that difficult for the meal to have been made, the best thing to do from a hospitality perspective would have been to check with you first.

- Finally, I don't understand WHY the manager and the owner found it necessary to come over (while you were FINALLY able to eat your food!). It doesn't sound like you asked to see either of them to complain, and if you had, making excuses is the wrong way to deal with a complaint. If you hadn't asked them to come over, they basically interrupted your meal to explain how it was totally not anyone's fault here that you had to wait forever for your food.

One of my worst restaurant experiences that I can easily recall was a couple years ago at an Uno's. I do an annual week-long flute festival (not this year because of the wedding), and after the concert at the end of the week, my mom and I go to Uno's across the street. Typically, other members of the festival go as well, but they all get a huge set of tables together in the event room, and I just go with my own guests.

That year was the first year that my partner was coming to the concert, and my future father-in-law and my mom's boyfriend came, too. We got to Uno's before the rest of the flutists did, and the restaurant was really pretty empty and not too busy. Somehow, though, it took 30 minutes for the waitress to come by and take our drink orders, and it was only after we had gotten up and gone to the hostess to ask where our waitress was. Drinks came after about 5 minutes, and our waitress took our entree orders, and then ... that was it.

There were guests who had been seated after we had, and more guests seated after we'd placed our entree orders (so guests who were seated during the first 30 minutes we were waiting, and guests who were seated after that). Over the next 45 minutes, all of the people seated during the first 30 minutes had gotten their entrees, and a lot of people who'd been seated after that were getting their appetizers. We kept waiting for our waitress to come by so we could ask what was taking so long, but after a while we actually noticed her avoiding our booth.

When we finally got up to leave, the manager stopped us to apologize and comped our drinks. However, he said that the waitress at our table was new, and that there was a huge group that was there that had slowed the kitchen down. Knowing that the huge group was the flute festival, and that they had arrived about 30 mintues after we did, we knew that it wasn't the explanation for why our food never arrived. We went across the street to another restaurant, and that's the restaurant we've gone to in the years since. No more Uno's post-festival for us.

The worst part, besides me being really embarrassed that my partner, his dad, and my mom's boyfriend had never come to my concert before and we couldn't even get them dinner in a timely manner, was that I had BEGGED my mom to come to the concert and dinner that year, and she and her boyfriend said they would come but dinner would have to be quick so they could get up early for work the next day. Considering that dinner should have been at 6:30 and was suddenly at almost 8pm, I felt awful.

HisGirlFriday13

The bartender (or whomever was processing the order once it was placed) should have told you, 'Yes, it can be made without shrimp, but it will take about 45 minutes, is that OK?'

Because he was accurate in telling you it could be made sans shrimp, he just wasn't precise in telling you what that would entail.

And the staff was just flat-out rude for implying it was your fault in any way, shape, or form.

lyndausvi

HisGirlFriday13 said:

The bartender (or whomever was processing the order once it was placed) should have told you, 'Yes, it can be made without shrimp, but it will take about 45 minutes, is that OK?'

Because he was accurate in telling you it could be made sans shrimp, he just wasn't precise in telling you what that would entail.

And the staff was just flat-out rude for implying it was your fault in any way, shape, or form.

This.

I commend the kitchen making the dish from scratch.   Too many allergies and people wanting to sue out there to risk a mistake.  That said, the bartender should have told you about the wait.

The manager and owners might not have known the bartender didn't inform you of the wait. It might have been a case of their delivery was off on explaining why it took so long to get your meal.  You know like "we wanted to make sure you were safe to eat the food so we made if from scratch".  Which I can see how you would feel bad they went through all that trouble. Especially since you were given not warning that they were going through all that trouble.

Bottom line the bartender is totally at fault here.  Had he told you about the wait you could have declined or accepted.  Since he didn't, you were left waiting for a very long time for unknown reasons which made the manager and owner feel the need to explain that they were trying to make sure there would be no medical emergencies on their watch.

I specifically told the bartender when ordering that if it wasn't possible (as sometimes things are already made) that I would get a different item!

The problem is it was possible, there would just be a wait.  Bartender should have told you the wait.  However, the bartender isn't a mind reader to know that you really wanted any dish that will come out quick and not just that specific dish.  You would be surprised how many people demand special meals at whatever cost. 

emmaaa

I don't think this is [entirely] the bartender's fault, but it is definitely not yours. I worked in the restaurant business long enough to know that even if something has to be made from scratch, there are certain prep times and it should not take that long. Especially when so many people have gluten allergies and we had to COMPLETELY start from scracth, the restaurant is still expected to deliver your food in the same time as it would have taken if it had been ordered "normal". I bet this was a front for the managers to cover their butt. This could have been avoided if the bartender had checked on your food after waiting 20 minutes and noticed that you still did not have it (because honestly, it was probably sitting back there a while).