My family took my mother in law to an Italian restaurant tonight for mother’s day. As the salads were being handed out the server dropped the plate on my sister in law. The plate hit her right on the shoulder and oil and lettuce went everywhere. The guy apologized and ran to get a wet towel. As he handed the towel to my sister, one of the guys who was actually taking care of table came up and saw what happened. His solution? Chitchat. No kidding. He told us how important mother’s day was to the restaurant and how busy they were. But we still had to ask the guy three times to bring us silverware.
We continued to eat dinner with the salad still on the floor. We had to ask for every refill and at no time did the manager come out and check on the table or the person hit by the plate. Then our check arrived. My sister in law and her husband had to ask the waiter about the salad incident. He said the server never told him about it. The solution was simple enough, they subtracted the salad charge, handed her a gift card and apologized again. But the manager never came to the table and upon further inspection, its possible that the gift card was a mother’s day promotion and not intended to smooth things over. In fact if she had not have asked, they would have done nothing.
Here is what I would have liked to seen happen. The server who drops the salad apologizes and asks “Are you okay?” The table server steps up the service and drops the chitchat. The manager comes out and apologizes. I would have liked to have experienced genuine service.
Jellyfish Principle 