Sunday, April 5, 2009

Tale of the Douche-Man Waiter

There is an evil that lurks at the Market Street Grill in downtown Salt Lake City. This seemingly innocent place houses a creature that is both offensive and despicable. The name of this creature rhymes with Dallin.
I am sure that 'Dallin' began his day with the thought, "Gosh, I hope I have a bachelorette party at one of my tables so I can behave inappropriately and charge them items that they never ordered. Bachelorette parties usually get drunk and don't pay enough attention anyway. If I charge them for things they don't order, that will boost my automatic 18% tip...it doesn't matter if it is dishonest or deplorable."
Dear Dallin was in luck on Saturday night. My friend Annette decided to spend the first portion of her Bachelorette party at this restaurant. And what luck! Dallin was our server! He began the evening with the finesse of a sleazy swinger. He flirted a little too hard and joked a little too much. Whatever. I enjoy bantering with ambitious servers.
Other than being slightly slow with the water refills, Dallin didn't do poorly as our server. He was knowledgeable about the menu and seemed to get our orders right. Seemed.
I asked our server if I could have my bill (Andy was on his way to pick me up). "Oh," said Dallin. "I didn't realize you were on separate checks." I looked around confused. There were 12 people at the table all under the age of 25. Really? He really didn't think we would be on separate checks? If he had said he 'couldn't' separate the bill, that would have been understandable. Rather, he gave us some story about how their computer system was ancient and it would just take 'so much work to work that out for you, gals' (wink).
Slightly annoyed, but not angry yet, we passed around the check, put our cards in and crossed off our orders. After the check made it around the table someone announced that we were $100 short. With eager curiosity and fear that my retarded arithmetic skills had betrayed me, I looked over the bill. No. Everything was correct. If anything, I overpaid my $10. Everyone seemed to agree. Then we began looking at what wasn't claimed by the people at the table. At last, we found the culprit-- Dallin.
People in our party found that they were overcharged for their meals. One girl was charged for the Ahi Tuna on her salad instead of chicken. Another was charged for a shot that she didn't order. Someone was charged for two crab legs instead of one. "Mistakes" like this were the reason we were $100 less than what the total claimed. And maybe they were just mistakes, but more than five mistakes seems a bit suspicious.
Dallin came back to an angry table of customers. One by one, our table told him what was wrong with the bill that he wouldn't split. One by one, he tried to talk his way out of these errors and justify his upping the price. His disgustingly dapper demeanor vanished as, one by one, he was told that he had to go adjust the total to the correct price.
Forty minutes after asking for the bill, I was able to go meet Andy, who had been waiting for me the whole time.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

You should have talked to the manager.

JessicaBW said...

fucking awesome. i hope you didnt leave a tip.

Candace said...

unfortunately it was already factored into the total (large party and such).
He was a douche.

Anonymous said...

I'm glad you concealed the name of the d-bag waiter. You'd hate for him to find out what you said about him. I'm a little surprised you didn't finagle a free desert out of him for his blatant transgressions. Why is good service, outside of Flemmings and a few rare others, so hard to find? I'm almost positive that there is an ever-growing clan of douche bags that decide they are going to try and eff customers over in their restaurants. Decent service is an art not generally practiced, unfortunately.

Heretically,
Brett

Emilia said...

You should have refused the "large party tip". Just not paid it...he didn't deserve it. :)

Michelle said...

Ridiculous! You should have asked to talk to a manager and reported "Dallin" as well as contacted the Better Business Bureau. I bet this happens ALL.THE.TIME.