If you've ever returned a dish at a restaurant you know how awkward it can be -- for you, and sometimes for the waiter too. Well, Italian restaurant Frankie and Benny's banned a customer for returning dishes too often. It seems a little harsh, but wait until you hear more about this customer, and exactly how many times she returned her meals.
Apparently diner Kerry Prior returned her meals 90 percent of the time. And! She ate there three days a week --for a whole year.
"I know I am fussy," Prior admits, "but I'm never rude and if I send it back it always comes back fine -- the food should be of a certain standard." OH WELL ALL RIGHT THEN, I GUESS THAT MAKES IT FINE. It's a wonder the chef put up with this as long as he did.
I'm just going to ask a silly question here: If you thought 90 percent of the food served at a restaurant was so substandard it had to be returned to the kitchen, wouldn't you just stop eating there?!?
Prior has an answer for that, too, not that it makes any sense. "I know all the staff there and there is a pleasant atmosphere. I have a laugh with them about the food and when they get it right, it is great."
Yeah ... no.
Eating at a restaurant where you hate the food just because you like the staff is bananas. What an enormous sense of entitlement you must have to put waiters and cooks through this. It's a waste of the restuarant's resources, among other things.
I've returned food at a restaurant only a handful of times in my very long life, and each time I agonized over it. It feels like such an imposition. I really have to hate what I've been served to do it. We've all done it from time to time, when something was deeply, truly wrong. But this? This is ridiculous and bad for business.
I guess I don't have to tell you that Prior is outraged (!!) over the restaurant banning her. That's actually the most delicious part of this story.
When do you think you're justified in returning a dish at a restaurant?
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