What is it with poor service at restaurants recently?  It seems like everytime I go out for a nice dinner the last few weeks I have had to deal with poor service i.e. Inattentive wait staff and slow food service.

I know that if I was willing to drop a hundo on every meal, maybe I would get better service. But, unless I get promoted to an executive rank or some paper or magazine decides to pay me what I am really worth  ..I am going to stick with the typical Chile's, Applebees, etc. level of restaurants for most of my outside the home dining.

I am not expecting much. If I am eating a known spicey dish, it would be nice if I wasn't sitting staring at an empty glass for 15 minutes, praying the waitress will see my sweaty brow and refill my drink so I can put out the fire.

Last night was another example. We went to a restaurant after seeing the new Batman movie (an excellent film, but depressing knowing Heath Ledger is gone). We, being non-smokers, asked to sit in the non-smoking section. So they took us to a booth right next to the bar. When I asked the hostess if she heard us ask for the non-smoking section, she said this was the non-smoking section. Huh? Well, oaky we will see.

Well sure enough the two people who were sitting close enough that I could reach over and touch them, lit up some cigs...you can guess where the smoke was going. So when our waitress came over, I say, "Can we move?" When she asked why, I said we would prefer a non-smoking section where there wasn't people smoking aka not right next to the bar. Her reply "I just work here, it's not my fault. Management decide this was non-smoking". Okaaayyy,  nice attitude.

She took us to another section where we were smoke free but still received mediocre service....and of course slow food delivery.

Someday, I may just make a running list of the restaurants I have visited and either praise or complain about my recent experience. It probably will not make a difference, but it will make me feel better.

Terry