Thursday, July 10, 2008

What's Your Limit?

Okay folks, before I start today's tale, I want you to know upfront that I would love your opinions (read: Please, leave me some comments!!) on the following situation.

Here goes....

The Wade crew went out to eat a few nights ago to a popular chain restaurant that has free kids meals every night. The restaurant shall remain nameless, but for the purpose of this story, we will just call the restaurant "Doh'Farleys."

While at Doh'Farleys, Jeremy ordered some pasta dish, Jackson got a corn dog, and I ordered a combo meal with a salad, baked potato, and chicken tenders/a side of steak cooked medium well.

That really makes me sound piggish...

Anyways, the salad came out and was great. Then my meal came out. While our waitress was standing there I went ahead and cut into my steak. The word "mooing" comes to mind. I was frantically trying to move my potato and chicken out of the way of the pool of blood that was now seeping across my plate. Ugh. Disgusting!! Our waitress (who was wonderful) immediately took the steak back to the kitchen, and I immediately began thinking about how quickly someone was about to spit into my food for sending it back. As I was waiting, I begin to eat some of my other food. My potato was so overcooked that the outside was hard. I was able to scrap out some of the inside, but there was no way that I was going to say anything about that, because I was not about to send 2 items back into the kitchen. That's simply not gonna happen.

5 minutes later....

The steak comes back out with out sweet waitress. Once again, blood pours out. She is apologizing constantly and after I reassure here that I was not upset with her (read: "Sweetie, you will still get your tip!") she took it back into the kitchen again with the promise that if it came out overcooked that they would cook me another one.

10 minutes later...

I'm not really hungry anymore (but since when has that stopped me) because of my bread, salad, chicken, and potato, Jeremy and Jackson are done eating, and my steak appears once again. It is now black. I don't dare risk complaining because I don't want someone grinding their shoe into my future cut of meat. I cut into the meat, and the inside is a sickly gray color. I try to choke down one bite, and I immediately have to spit it out. It is awful! Jeremy gives it a try, and he can't get eat it either. We get our waitresses attention and politely ask her to take the cost of the steak off our bill. She apologizes profusely (it is still not her fault) and the manager comes over to our table. He offers to cut the cost of my meal in half, and I guess after he saw the shocked look on my face, he ended up comping my entire meal which is exactly what he should have offered to do from the beginning. Had he not, there would have been a not so nice email being sent to dohfarleys.com to detail my oh so pleasant experience. But, since he took care of everything, no email shall be sent. I shall just blog about it instead.

All that to say, at what point do you send something back to the kitchen, and when do you not worry about it? I would love to get ya'lls opinion. Have a great Thursday! Bye ya'll!

3 random thoughts:

Miranda said...

Hhm. I don't know what to say. Doh'Farley's sounds kind of familiar....any link to O'Charley's? Probably not. Anyway.

I have not had such experience as the one you described, but if I did I think I would politely send an email/letter anyway to corporate. It sounds to me like someone finally got mad and overcooked the steak.

Anyway....in all seriousness, I think we should start a petition to get Zaxby's a more kid-friendly menu and some better toys. Maybe we could make the newspaper! Do you feel like starting a picket line?

Seriously, again. Zaxby's must do something about their children's menu.

Anonymous said...

Definitely send the steak back -- no mooing for me either. I'm with Miranda -- I think you should e-mail the corporation, but be sure that the mention the part about comping your meal. Also, mention that the waitress was very cooperative and understanding. You might also mention that you will give them another try IF they give you a nice coupon to redeem themselves. Otherwise, it would be a VERY long time before I returned.

Unknown said...

Amy, I, too have a hard time sending ANYTHING back to the kitchen. But I have never had good service at Doh'Farley's, either. Never!

But I guess I never thought about the kid menu at Zaxby's cuz mine are not little anymore but I LOVE me some zaxby's....

sorry you had a bad experience!!!

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