The Bitter Bistro

Of the many letters, emails, and comments customers have sent about me and my service at whatever dining or club establishment I was currently employed, I've often found that no matter how terrible they thought the service was, it was made even worse by the fact that I didn't have the decency to give them my name. "The steak was over cooked. I blame "what's his name?!" "Things probably would not have been so bad if that guy had told me his name." "Do you normally have your employees not introduce themselves when they are taking care of customer's? My wife and I spent a lot of money in your restaurant, I'd expect to at least know the server's name!"--all true comments, by the way. My name? I had no idea it was so valuable. If I had known that my name would be so magical in making a crappy dining experience that much better, I'd approach each table with a high school marching band and glee club exalting my name to the...

"The hours of operation are from 9am-5pm." That means you can patronize that business for 8 hours during the day. After 5pm, the doors are closed and locked. Why do customers in restaurants feel the need to sit and stay even after the restaurant has closed? Just because you've paid X dollars, doesn't entitle you to own Table 10 as a piece of "restaurant real estate." And that goes for the slow eaters as well. Seriously, when will customers understand the concept of time? You can't make a reservation for 6, show up at 8, (without a phone call,) and expect your table to be waiting for you. "But I made a reservation..." Yeah... because all reservations have a statute of 3 months before we release the table. As Ferris Bueller said at the end of the movie, "You're still here? Leave. It's over. Go home." until next time, "Servers don't pay their rent with compliments." "Bitter, party of one? Your ta...