Cookaholics Bulletin Board

On another more sane and sober web site , we have been discussing whether the fabric of the larger social contract is becoming frayed by the slow but insidious chops, hacks, slices, and thrusts of everyday indignities we all endure and occasionally sling.

The specific case arises from a knowledgeable food critic eating at a restaurant on the night the owner/manager is off. Upon being served a dish with a very over-cooked specific meat instead of a properly cooked other meat (from a well known supplier), the critic inquires as to what it is he has been served. Both the server and, eventually, the chef insist that it is the meat so named on the menu. The critic insists it isn’t (he uses the same meat product in his kitchen) and eventually names are thrown and accusations made. Adding insult to injury, they charge him the full amount. The normally extremely mild-mannered critic leaves enraged.

The next day the owner is aghast to not only hear the story but to note on the credit card receipt who the customer is. Fearing the worst, the owner emails the editor of an emagazine (for whom the critic posts) and offers a very long, rambling explanation and slings a few more arrows at the critic. (The owner admits that it was a badly cooked substituted type of meat that was supposed to have been thrown out and substituted with properly cooked substituted meat because they were out of the meat named on the menu and the supplier was closed. The owner left early that day due to many, many related and unrelated reasons believing everything was under control.) The editor contacts the critic and the critic explains the other side of the story. Eventually, things settle down with the owner and the critic agreeing to meet over free beer and pizza (provided by the owner) and learn some lessons from each.

The ensuing conversations between those of us looking in on a separate private blog with the critic & editor (you gotta be able to let it all hang out somewhere!) is that things seem to be going to Hell in a hand basket in the restaurant business, specifically, and in my opinion, most service industries, generally. More restaurants seem to have the attitude (reflected in the service, the environment, and the food) that they are doing you a favor, they don’t need you, et cetera.

As one of our bloggers wrote: “Social contracts become convention over time and many people fail to remember why there was a need to develop these rules in the first place. The service of food and drink is one of mankinds' oldest commercial/social contracts. Both the providers and consumers have assumptions of how that contract is to be consummated. Unless there is at least a modest effort by one or the other to communicate those assumptions, the possibility exists that there may not be a successful and mutually satisfying contract. The best way to give the people what they want is to ask them - provided of course that you are actually willing to listen. Comment cards, restaurant reviews, and enthusiast blogs are all part of the process of re-defining the terms of the social contract for dining and absolutely essential for society as a whole.”
The editor feels that restaurants aren’t even listening to those cards, reviews, & blogs. The editor believes that restaurants as a whole are sliding. The editor feels that when you unlock that door and let your customers in, it better be ‘show time’!

Now, dear readers, this is not meant to open up a non-ending gripe session about restaurants but rather to ask WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?

I don't have time to go into a lengthy post right now (work is frantic), but I'll offer my $0.02.

1) Every generation complains that the next generation is going to hell in a handbasket. I suppose the thought is that service/social graces/etiquette/business practices are in the handbasket for the ride, regardless if the change (and there is always change) is good, bad or just different.

2) That said, however, the instantaneous-ness (not a word but you get the idea) of today's twitifed (also not a world buy my vote for new dictionary entry 2010) world has changed people's expectations and therefore caused a shift in what is expected from service industries. I would argue the current change is not for the better, but then everyone would think that I belong to the complaining generation and therefore am no longer young

3) Bad food service has existed since the first slop was poured out of the first bucket and splashed all over Ong's loincloth. My course of action is to quit eating at places with bad service, after giving them a chance to redeem themselves from an off night.

I think what has really changed is both the speed with which you can comment about any given experience and the size of the potential audience for your commentary.
The old rule was that an unhappy customer told 10 people, a happy customer told 2 people. Now they can both tell millions of people almost instantaneously.
Also, with the anonymity of the internets people have been shown to be quicker to take umbrage and more extreme in their discourse. They will say things that they would never say in a more direct manner-either face to face or over the phone.
That said, I have been seeing generally worse service when I eat out. And the way that someone started posting that tipping at 20% had become the new norm was infuriating. I think that being wait staff has slipped in the American mind even further from being a real job-especially as people who used to do better paying stuff are now getting into the industry just to have a job at all. Wages are stagnant and few people are eating out all together, making it ever harder to make a living, leading to grumpy servers with no interest in really doing the job.
So poorer service overall, combined with an easy way to complain loudly all over the place? Less satisfaction with eating out. And lots more vitriol floating around raisning everybody's blood pressure.
BeckyH

I had no idea that the previously referenced "Ship of Fools" operated a cruise line...

Well, I can't agree with the premise. At least in my experience, restaurants have steadily improved over the last couple of decades. We now have a lot more of them, and we hear a lot more complaints (both due to the increased number of meals ate out and the ease at which complaints are spread), but my personal experience (not heard from others) is that I have steadily seen better and better food, and more interesting, over the years. I hope to see it get even better.

oh yeah, the food has gotten better. More adventurous, better attention paid to ingredients in terms of freshness, higher expectations from the consumers. But the service staff have gotten surlier and more blatant about demanding bigger and bigger tips. Perhaps the same attention needs to paid to training the FOH people, letting them know that they do a heck of a lot more than ferry plates. Helping them be excited about the food and their place in the system.
BeckyH

I have to disagree that service has deterriorated....at least in the Denver area, the service seems to have gotten much better over the years. Perhaps its the influx of many new restaurants creating a higher level of competition or the fact that servers are thankful to have a job, but I have not encountered the surliness described in other postings. Maybe I just live in a kinder, gentiler place
ilene

Wino,

Actually, 100 years ago substituting inferior ingredients for those named on the menu was quite commonplace (in Manhattan, at least), so much so that it was regarded as more of a caveat emptor then as a prosecutable crime. And 35 years ago there were no ingredients to substitute because everything in the restaurant came out of a can or box.

Heck, the business about the pies in Sweeney Todd is based on an actual incident in London (well, the part with the cats, anyway).

Screwups happen. Bad service happens. Sometimes it's a bad restaurant, sometimes it's the combination of bad staff and a bad day. Even in Japan my collegues managed to get slow indifferent service this trip. In the incident you describe, the owner simply failed to train his staff to behave like he was there when he wasn't. That's not a trend, it's just "restaurant owner fail".

I don't agree that there's a general problem or some kind of general decline.

I will say that in a whole class of restaurants (most of your new restaurants) the combination of rising ingredient and fixed costs and downward pressure on prices has caused them to focus on turning over tables a lot faster, with less staff. Well, less staff doing more work in less time means that a lot of "service" gets discarded in favor of getting you fed and someone else into your seat.

But that's the diner's fault. These same "service slacker" restaurants also serve you better food cheaper than it was ever available before. And if you want more service, you can always go to a restaurant where you get it. You'll just pay more, that's all.

Now, for "the complaining generation" it's easy to think of the kind of service you got for a $60 meal in 1985 vs. what you get for the same price today. But in 1985, $60 was worth at least twice as much as it is today, and I can find you quite a number of restaurants in San Francisco where you will get excellent service for $120.

Or, alternately, you can go to one of the middle-tier chain restaurants which seem to be taking over the suburbs (Claim Jumper, Joe's, BJs, Mimi's), and pay moderate prices to get terrible service and enough food per entree to feed a Somali family for a month. But again, you have chosen to substitute calorie count for service in where your food dollar goes. Your server is indifferent because they get treated poorly by the customers and the management, not paid very much, and are only working there on their way to something else.

So I disagree that there's some kind of downward trend in restaurant service. In fact, given the incredible scrutiny thousands of internet and newspaper readers are able to give to restaurant reviews today, it's probably better than ever; no restaurant can get away with screwing up too many times in a row unless they have some other draw. Well, at least in the big cities.

I just wish that waiters would be forever banned from saying "No Problem" and say "My Pleasure" when a simple request is made...

I suspect that many places have cut their staff to the point where they can barely keep up on a moderate shift, much less when it's busy. Which makes it harder for the staff to do their jobs, and harder for the kitchen to time things properly as well.
BeckyH