Thursday, February 3, 2011
The Snob Scene: Atlanta Restaurants
Being a server is like being in sales, everyone should do it at some point in their life just so they know what it’s like. I was a server much of my high school and college career, it was a perfect job for that time in my life and I enjoyed it immensely. I made good money, great friends, and took home some pretty funny stories from the casual non-corporate lifestyle- which usually compensated for the late night hours, lack of benefits, and the occasional rude customer. Rude customers were always the worst- people with no patience or idea of how the process works that truly enjoyed putting you down for whatever reasons they had. Luckily, I moved on to something I, personally, felt was a little more fitting to my lifestyle.
Strangely, now that I’m a patron when I’m in a restaurant, I still find myself on the low end of the totem pole- and particularly referring to restaurants in the metro Atlanta area. I had heard about top chef contestant Richard Blais opening up a restaurant called Flip Burger Boutique in Atlanta, an upscale burger joint known for their unique shakes, and was excited to try it out. I figured it was a perfect place to have my birthday dinner, the Howell Mill location is close to one of my favorite bars, Ormsby's, and it was a good size for the 15 or so friends I had joining. It was a Friday night and they were pretty busy, so the waiter took his time to get to us initially. But the liquor was flowing, and we were all catching up and enjoying our drinks so we didn’t mind too much. Several toasts and cheers later we received our food, and we all thought it was pretty good despite a few forgotten items by the waiter. Having all been in the industry before we weren’t too alarmed, and were actually thankful after realizing our eyes were bigger than our stomachs during ordering time. Just as everyone finished their last bites and last sips, the waiter brings over the check. That’s right, THE check, as if one person was going to pay for all. And proceeds to tell us he can’t split the check because our party is too large. Computer system problems? Nope, just their “policy”. Maybe if we had known before hand we could’ve asked for paper and pencil to keep a tally on how many drinks each of us had, give me a break..
We pay a premium price for cocktails that have twice the ice and mixer than alcohol. We pay the same premiums for the half forgotten, half cold food that would’ve been just as good made at home, and all so that we can end our pricey experience with breaking up our own bills, adding our part of the tax, and I don’t even remember ever seeing a calculator. Welcome to the Atlanta restaurant industry, where arrogant restaurant staff can do whatever they want because they’ll add their own 20% gratuity anyway. While we all waited drinkless and annoyed for our neighbor to pass us the barely-legible-through-cross-outs-and-math-equations bill, my friend Jimmy pulled out his iPhone to write a less than pleasant review via his yelp account. Maybe if this happens enough they’ll address the problem.
Flip burger isn’t the only place with the arrogant ‘tude, the list is endless. I’ve had similar bad experiences at Pozole, and HobNob and others as well. The worst part about it is all of these restaurants have good food and great locations, but the one thing they do best is aggravate customers. If you want a good restaurant experience, I’d recommend asking for Gregory at Cantina in Buckhead :-)
Labels:
atlanta restaurant industry,
Buckhead,
Flip Burger Boutique,
Gregory Cantina,
HobNob Atlanta,
Ormsby's,
Pozole Atlanta,
Richard Blais
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1 comments:
Well we never visited these restaurants while I was visiting but I will say that Atlanta's restaurant service is horrible. Being a server myself I will try my absolute hardest to make my customers visit to the place I work at an exceptional one...(and at the Po, you know how "classy" we are lol) Well I felt that the servers that we encountered at Six Feet Under and Across the Street were just serving us purely for the fact as we walked in they saw $$ because we were just "another" customer. Hey, technically people do not have to tip (unless added to the check already) so in my opinion these ATL servers need a wake up call and get their act together if they want to make a better cash flow by the end of their shifts :-)
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