News Flash: Restaurants Do Not Control the Weather on the Patio

132

Summer is here which means it’s time for every customer in the world to suddenly want to eat outside. Working at a restaurant that has a patio is fraught with high drama because the success of the patio is based on the weather. And customers sometimes don’t understand that we have no control of that.

Customer: It’s really bright out here.
Waitress; Do I look like Mother fuckin’ Nature to you?

On a recent review for Panama City Beach, Florida’s Runaway Island Beach Bar and Grill, a woman is upset that she waited an hour and fifty minutes for a table after being told it would only be an hour. While she was waiting, it began to rain which is what increased the wait time. The woman says it drizzled for five minutes but the restaurant said that it rained for twenty minutes, “long enough to douse everything on our back deck.” Our customer retorts with “I had a young child who was growing impatient and there were at least a dozen tables (if not more) inside and outside. My biggest complaint is if you know rain caused additional delays-then include it in your wait time.” She also says it was “hardly a rain!” Thankfully, we have another customer who pipes in to confirm that it was indeed a twenty minute rain and that the staff was hustling to get all the customers covered and then they diligently worked to get all the tables dried as soon as it stopped raining. Our grumpy customer also is upset that the restaurant seemed short-staffed on a holiday weekend. Finally, she says that the food was not worth ever coming back and that many people agreed with her as they all waited for their tables.

Where shall I begin?

  1. If it rains, yes, you are going to have to wait longer. Every table that is outside is now deemed unusable and it can cut the seating in half. So, yeah, that means you might wait twice as long.
  2. Just because you have a young child does not mean you take precedence in the seating rotation. If you don’t know your child well enough to gauge whether or not she can handle waiting for a table for over an hour, that’s your issue and not anyone else’s.
  3. How can the hostess predict how long it’s going to rain? If she could look into her crystal ball and see that the drizzle will stop in twenty minutes, she could give you a more accurate wait time, but if the high-paid weather forecasters on TV can’t get it right, how the hell do you expect an 18-year-old hostess to do it?
  4. We know that customers like to exaggerate to make their point stronger. Don’t say it rained for five minutes when everyone knows it rained for twenty. It makes you look stupid. Well, more stupid.
  5. It’s Memorial day weekend, lady and you’re eating at a restaurant on a beach in Florida. Of course, it’s gonna be busy. No matter how many servers are on the floor, it’s gonna be busy. Face facts or eat at home.
  6. So, while you were waiting for your table for an hour and fifty minutes, everyone around you was agreeing that the food was not worth coming back for? This makes no sense. If the people are waiting with you and they are telling you the food is not worth the wait, why the hell are they waiting? Or do you mean that while you were waiting you were talking to people who were already eating? Because if that’s what you were doing, you are even more annoying than I thought. Maybe if your young child was getting impatient, you should have paid attention to her rather than bothering people who were trying to eat their meal in peace without having to listen to some ranting customer whining about the long wait and the weather.

Listen people, if you want to give a bad review to a restaurant, at least try to make the review about something the restaurant has control over. To leave a 1-star review because it started raining and you had to wait longer than you were told is just a customer complaining for the sake of complaining. Try harder.

Discussion

  1. JDamon
  2. Concerned Citizen
  3. Irish Chef
  4. Stephanie
  5. Sous Chef
  6. Kim
    • outhousecat
  7. KarenL
    • Anonymous
  8. Stephanie
  9. Stephanie
  10. Samantha
  11. Maggs
  12. Server 30+
  13. Manager
  14. Manager
    • Chris
      • Linz
  15. Y'all need to calm down
  16. Sierra
  17. Paul
  18. Paul
  19. Chris
    • Paul
    • Jen
  20. Chris
    • proud former server
  21. Eating Popcorn
  22. Teagan
  23. Chris
    • Emma
      • Chris
        • Eating Popcorn
    • Kelly
    • catherine
    • Adriane
  24. Amanda
    • dead_elvis
  25. miss kitty
  26. Laura

Leave a Reply