What’s an appropriate time to wait at a restaurant for service before leaving? My wife and I determined it’s 20 minutes. We came to this conclusion after waiting that long at a favorite restaurant of ours recently.
We were seated immediately upon our arrival at the restaurant, noticing it wasn’t as busy as usual because it was a weekday. Upon getting seated, we talked a little about what we wanted to order, but both of us are set in our ways enough there that we didn’t even need to open our menus.
Our server came to our table about 10 minutes later, filling our glasses of water. He asked if we wanted anything else to drink, leaving immediately after taking our drink orders without telling us about the specials. We never talked to him again.
We watched as he went to his other tables multiple times, delivering food and bills, or simply to talk with the patrons. We watched as he talked with the chefs, giving them specific instructions about how the food should be prepared. We watched as he chatted with other servers.
What we didn’t see was him deliver our drink orders, return to our table to take our order or even acknowledge us in any way. It was as though he forgot he was our server.
We tried to catch his eye, hoping it would spark an “oh yeah, that’s my table” moment. We didn’t have any luck.
Our 6-year-old son almost helped our cause with his whining. “What’s taking so long?” he asked loudly. Others heard him, but not our server. Normally, we’d tell him to be patient, and it’s rude to ask such a question, but in this case we were thinking the same thing.
After 15 minutes, my wife got her phone out. “If he doesn’t come to our table within five minutes, we’re out of here,” she said. I agreed.
By this point, we were done with trying to catch his eye. It had gotten to the point of amusement for us. How much longer could he possibly avoid our table?
The five minutes went by quickly as we watched him. He made contact with one table three times during that span, even joking with the patrons. We were glad at least one table was getting good service.
At the end of the five minutes, we got up. My wife quietly told another server why we were leaving. The server offered a small apology and said the server was fairly new, but she did not try to convince us to stay.
A frozen pizza awaited us at home. It wasn’t what we really wanted, but at least we controlled the time in which we could receive our food.
Fortunately for the restaurant’s sake, we know that’s not the normal type of service we receive. I was back the next night, picking up food to go. The perfect service.
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Originally published in The Portage County Gazette on Friday, Oct. 14, 2011.
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