2016 continues to be the year that restaurant owners are making Yelp their bitch. It’s almost like owners across the country have collectively agreed to stand up to the Yelpers and make sure that other people know when a review is unjustified. Such is the case with a restaurant called Milestone in El Dorado, California when a woman named Gretchen V. sharted up a review on Yelp about what she perceived to be a less-than-ideal dinner experience. Gretchen V. was so displeased with her Steak Diane that she lost all ability to form correct sentences and forgot what punctuation is, because reading parts of her review is like trying to decipher hieroglyphics with the Rosetta Stone. The first time she got her panties in a twist (like she wears ‘em) was when her entree came out before she finished her salad. The horror! Even though the manager offered to keep the plates warm in the kitchen Gretchen V. refused and then when she thought the steak was only lukewarm and they offered to remake the dinner, she refused again. We all know why she refused: because then she wouldn’t have anything to complain about. Gretchen V. also complained that her waitress never came back to check on her and was still unsatisfied even when the entrees were taken off the bill.
Enter Nick D., the business owner who is going to explain to Gretchen V. what is wrong with her review. “Your service will, more often than not, be a reflection of your own attitude and energy,” he tells her and the she just doesn’t “get it.” He also tells her that after it was clear that Gretchen was never going to be satisfied (“Tell me about it,” says Gretchen’s husband), the waitress (and everyone else) was told to simply ignore the table and use the positive attention on people in the restaurant who were happy to be there. I kinda love that he instructed all the service staff to avoid her table which was probably pretty easy to do, what with the overwhelming stench of vinegar that was probably emanating from her every orifice. He also straight out tells her she is “not at all kind” which, in my experience may or may not be corporate speak for “you are a miserable person.” Finally, he tells her that, although she would be willing to come back to try the burger or the fried chicken, to not bother.
Bravo, Nick D., bravo. Why shouldn’t business owners defend their online reputation? Milestone has great reviews on Yelp and he wants anyone who sees her shitty two-star review to understand that the problem was with her and not the restaurant. If this is the new trend for Yelp, I am all for it. Here is Milestone’s Facebook page in case you want to pop over and say hello. I’m sure they’d love to hear from you.
As for Gretchen V., I suggest she saves her complaints for big corporate restaurant chains who are more than willing to jump through hoops and bend over backwards in effort to please a bitch. If she complains on the right Facebook page, maybe she’ll even get a coupon for a free dessert from Applebee’s.
Dave
The owner sounds like a pompous asshole. I found the yelp page for this restaurant and the guy responds to all of his negative reviews like a teenager who can’t handle constructive criticism. All of these comments jocking the guy are hilarious. No wonder there is such shit service everywhere you go nowadays.
CL Johnson
Hey look! Another entitled, (probably) fat whiner. Stay home, Jackson.
Fawn Skinner
I don’t think that “pathetically petty” are the appropriate words to explain this woman’s review. The owners reply couldn’t have been any better as well, they were dealing with someone who is obviously impossible to please. The wait staff , manager, etc seemed to have handled this customer with the utmost level of professionalism. Given this woman is still probably losing sleep over the fact that she wasn’t informed of what the soup of the day was, personally if I was the waitress I dont think I would be able to wait on her if she decided to come back to try the chicken or a burger. Maybe someday she’ll get served a black eye with a burger and realize that being mean and nasty doesnt get you anywhere. She obviously doesn’t think about the impact that posting negative comments like she did has affects on people’s livelihoods. Hopefully anyone that read that saw her for the bitch that she apparently is.
Scott
I was able to find Gretchen V’s experience at another restaurant on youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjNuuBAANBk
Rachel
Cooking your food and delivering it to you in a timely matter makes YOU feel rushed? That is a personal problem. Nobody “makes” you feel anything. Their job is to cook what you order, when you order it. If you can’t handle the real world then stay at home. The world doesn’t revolve around you. How dare you publicly cut down somebody’s lively hood due to your inability to cope with unfinished lettuce on your plate!
TJ
If given the choice between eating a fresh off the grill steak or a handful of lettuce… Steak wins and the salad can be discarded, fed to a passing homeless person, given to a goat farmer in Florida, or simply thrown into the parking lot. The greatest salad I’ve ever had would be shoved aside for a steak I’d been warned about.
As for Gretchen… It’s unfortunate that she was so badly mistreated by the dastardly restaurant. Really, how dare they! Not supplying a new fork? Maybe she’d been gnawing on the first one and it was too mangled to make headway for the steak, or perhaps it had gotten sick of listening to her whiny crap and had taken action to gouge her eyes out, thus necessitating a more docile replacement. Her tone in the review gives off the impression that she is a highly annoying person and that she was so disgruntled by such small pitiful complaints proves it. Gretch, didja come to the joint for salad or steak? If you are coming for the salad, don’t order the damn steak. If you came for the steak, don’t worry ’bout the damn salad.
Proves what I’ve believed all my life: some people actively look for reasons to whine and it doesn’t take much to get them started. If the worst thing that ever happened to me was for a waiter to try and give me *steak* to replace my salad… I’d say I’m farting through silk as far as problems go. As far as the fork is concerned… if it bothered me that much I think I’d bring a satchel full of silverware from home so I’d never be without a fresh one. Being seated by the door? Well… it’s a chair, and a table. Location is largely irrelevant unless it’s around the side on the patio behind the parking lot where your food gets cold between the kitchen and the table. If they’d seated the grouchy ol’ cow in the middle of the dining room between the sneezer and the gas passer, she’d have complained about that too.
Michelle
Love the blog! And God help me with “squatters.” Can’t stand that.
I have feedback about the whole “steak before salad” point: When it happens, it makes my husband feel rushed because now he has to hurry to finish his salad or else the steak gets cold. Outback does this all the time. The issue I have with it is that many tables are cramped and plates oversized, so salad and entree plates are practically stacked on top of each other. We no longer go to Outback.
When we’ve gone to Mastro’s on the other hand, they are super attentive and this never happens. So it’s a different level of service, for a different level dining experience, but it’s still a matter of better service.
Gretchen seemed like a bitch who isn’t happy unless she’s complaining, but I thought I’d offer some logical reasoning behind that one complaint.
Don Sbragia
Did I miss the rule about “You can’t eat the entree until you’ve finished the salad”? Are you afraid the two might touch in your tummy?
Frank Norton
We are a popular restaurant for both locals and tourists alike. Having been in business for many years, we noticed that although the number of customers we serve on a daily basis is almost the same today as it was 10 years ago, the service just seems super slow even though we added more staff and cut back on the menu items… One of the most common complaints on review sites against us and many restaurants in the area is that the service was slow and/or they needed to wait a bit long for a table.
We decided to hire a firm to help us solve this mystery, and naturally the first thing they blamed it on was that the employees need more training and that maybe the kitchen staff is just not up to the task of serving that many customers. Like most restaurants in NYC we have a surveillance system, and unlike today where it’s a digital system, 10 years ago we still used special high capacity tapes to record all activity. At any given time we had 4 special Sony systems recording multiple cameras. We would store the footage for 90 days just in case we needed it for something.
The firm we hired suggested we locate some of the older tapes and analyze how the staff behaved 10 years ago versus how they behave now. We went down to our storage room but we couldn’t find any tapes at all. We did find the recording devices, and luckily for us, each device has 1 tape in it that we simply never removed when we upgraded to the new digital system! The date stamp on the old footage was Thursday July 1, 2004. The restaurant was very busy that day. We loaded up the footage on a large monitor, and next to it on a separate monitor loaded up the footage of Thursday July 3 2014, with roughly the same amount of customers as ten years before. I will quickly outline the findings. We carefully looked at over 45 transactions in order to determine the data below:
2004: Customers walk in. They gets seated and are given menus, out of 45 customers 3 request to be seated elsewhere. Customers on average spend 8 minutes before closing the menu to show they are ready to order. Waiters shows up almost instantly takes the order. Appetizers are fired within 6 minutes, obviously the more complex items take longer. Out of 45 customers 2 sent items back. Waiters keep an eye out for their tables so they can respond quickly if the customer needs something. After guests are done, the check delivered, and within 5 minutes they leave. Average time from start to finish: 1:05
2014: Customers walk in. Customers get seated and is given menus, out of 45 customers 18 requested to be seated elsewhere. Before even opening the menu they take their phones out, some are taking photos while others are simply doing something else on their phone (sorry we have no clue what they are doing and do not monitor customer WIFI activity). 7 out of the 45 customers had waiters come over right away, they showed them something on their phone and spent an average of 5 minutes of the waiter’s time. Given this is recent footage, we asked the waiters about this and they explained those customers had a problem connecting to the WIFI and demanded the waiters try to help them. Finally the waiters are walking over to the table to see what the customers would like to order.
The majority have not even opened the menu and ask the waiter to wait a bit. Customer opens the menu, places their hands holding their phones on top of it and continue doing whatever on their phone. Waiter returns to see if they are ready to order or have any questions. The customer asks for more time. Finally they are ready to order. Total average time from when the customer was seated until they placed their order 21 minutes. Food starts getting delivered within 6 minutes, obviously the more complex items take way longer. 26 out of 45 customers spend an average of 3 minutes taking photos of the food. 14 out of 45 customers take pictures of each other with the food in front of them or as they are eating the food. This takes on average another 4 minutes as they must review and sometimes retake the photo. 9 out of 45 customers sent their food back to reheat. Obviously if they didn’t pause to do whatever on their phone the food wouldn’t have gotten cold. 27 out of 45 customers asked their waiter to take a group photo. 14 of those requested the waiter retake the photo as they were not pleased with the first photo. On average this entire process between the chit chatting and reviewing the photo taken added another 5 minutes and obviously caused the waiter not to be able to take care of other tables he/she was serving. Given in most cases the customers are constantly busy on their phones it took an average of 20 minutes more from when they were done eating until they requested a check.
Furthermore once the check was delivered it took 15 minutes longer than 10 years ago for them to pay and leave. 8 out of 45 customers bumped into other customers or in one case a waiter (texting while walking) as they were either walking in or out of the Restaurant. Average time from start to finish: 1:55 We are grateful for everyone who comes into our restaurant, after all there are so many choices out there. But can you please be a bit more considerate?
dapple darling
She missed her rant about not tipping for such horrid service.
I must be redneck lowlife, I actually have my salad with my meal and can use one fork for all.
I feel sorry for the “man” with her. Since she did all the “work” “I made reservation” “I requested booth away from door” “I demanded booth away from door””I demanded another fork, that guy didn’t get one.”
I recommend he either just runs away in the middle of the night or divorces.
Since the owner didn’t say both of you were absolute shits, lets assume he’s also a victim here.
Kudos for these owner, even though in this case anyone reading could tell she’s horrible.
SinCityKitty
Did anyone have a flashback of the movie “Waiting” when they brought the steaks out to that lady still eating her salad?? She also complained that her steak was medium, not medium rare. And that there was no gravy on her mashed potatoes. So of course the kitchen hooked up that steak! Lol
Anyone who starts with:
“I don’t mean to be rude…” Yes, you do mean to be rude.
“The customer is always right..” It’s the only time you feel any type of significance because you must be a jerk.
“They don’t know how to cook…” Hey, take your ass home and cook it your damn self then.
This dumbass was just nitpicking, finding anything to complain about to justify getting food for free. In your face Gretchen!
Arturo Alici
I done that in my restaurant.. My feedback from my Facebook followers was “costumers always right”.
Anyway, excellent job Nick D.
MANGLER
The only time a customer ever says “the customer is always right” is when they’re being a dbag.
Sharon
Word.
It’s like when someone says, “I don’t want to be rude, but…”
You know you are gonna hear some snark.
Don Sbragia
Of course, costumers are always right. They’re the ones who make your costumes!!!
Jenni
Yea wow… She must not really understand the importance of serving a steak fresh off the grill. When you leave it under a heat lamp, then you risk having your steak being served overcooked, especially if you ordered it on the more rare side.
Guess she needs to learn a thing or two about steaks too. Maybe she could take a english class and learn from recipe books. Then she could learn all about cooking steaks AND how to write.
Teresa Speer
Miserable people suck.
Don Sbragia
And sucky people are miserable. It’s a cycle… 😉
Sharon
I cannot imagine being so petty and miserable inside that I would actually use my voice in a public place to whine like this.
Dang, I would hate to be any person who ever has to say “No” to her.
I really don’t understand why it was so horrible that they got their entree a few seconds before they finished their salads??? Is that even a legit complaint??? Is it against her religion to just eat her entree and enjoy the last few bites of salad at the same time?
(And, how is she finishing her salad faster than her man???? SLOW DOWN, GRETCHEN!!!! Breathe between bites, girl!)
Nick was BATMAN for telling the staff to leave her completely alone.
The way I see it is this… You complain, I try to make you happy as much as I can, and then we will both be happy. YAY!
I do my very best and still you ain’t happy? I wash my hands of you and then, guess what??? I am happy anyway. YAY!
Meredith
Fuck Gretchen
Nance
Meredith! Perfect! Just perfect!
Kate
I’m still laughing over the fact she was so upset about her entrée coming out before she was done with her salad. Does she not understand that is actually good service? It means the food was prepared as soon as the order was placed. I’ve never been in a restaurant that wouldn’t allow you to keep your salad if you wanted to continue eating it along with your entrée. And I’m willing to bet she never requested the booth away from the door when she called.
I wish more bosses were like this, willing to lose a miserable customer in order to have their employees’ backs.
Janelle
i so love this i have been serving in ny for all my life i’ve experienced a lot of different people. I realized that just a smile pisses them off more but i love what this owner did. there was no bashing nor rude comments just the truth. The reailty is you can not please everyone but at the end of the day just need to warn the fellow staff what that person is about. we are not your slaves nor are we at your beck and call. we have several more tables and things to prepare for treat us with respect just like they taught you in kindergarten and we will be happy to do the same!!! love happy customers!!!!!
Ron
Actually that is not good service. They should wait until you finish your salad and bring entree’s anywhere between 10-15 minutes after they are cleared. Don’t get me wrong, this woman sounds like a bitch, but getting my salad while I am eating my app or salad does annoy me. I think they were trying tio rush this woman along so she could get home to watch Murder She Wrote.
Jeremy
You’re actually 100% wrong. In most restaurants it’s called serve a course, ring a course. Of course I don’t expect the same from a 5 star restaurant that charges $100+ for a dish. Please don’t comment unless you know what you are talking about. Thxs
Pook
Sorry, but you’re wrong, the service was fine. SPORTS. BAR. This wasn’t a fancy French restaurant where the waitstaff wears white gloves. And the thing you do is say, “no, no, I am not finished,” and they not only leave your salad plate, but you MOVE ON.
Don Sbragia
Seriously? I go to a restaurant because I’m HUNGRY. If they waited 1-15 AFTER my salad to bring the entree, I would be a bit not happy. Thank you for once more validating my belief that “Idiocracy” is happening right now,,,,
Jeremy
If you bring my meal 10-15 minutes after I’m done eating my salad I’m gonna punch you in the face. Industry standard is that your entree is on the table 15 minutes after YOU SIT DOWN…not after your app is done. Know your shit before posting brainiac.
Riva
It depends on the style of the restaurant. If it’s white table cloth, a course should be cleared before the next one arrives. If it’s casual, it’s no problem to stack courses unless the guest asks you not to.