Restaurant Whoops
Posted on August 13, 2007 by Him and tagged food, humor
Has this scenario ever happened to you?
You're on your way home from visiting family that's about 4 hours away, and you want to get something relatively inexpensive to eat. Maybe something like Applebee's but not a chain. You're not familiar with the area, but see some good restaurants. After picking what looks like and inexpensive place you'll like, you enter the restaurant, and ask the hostess to seat you. She cheerfully obliges, and on your way to your table you see that everyone is pretty much dressed like you, so it has to be a casual place. You can't help but smell and see succulent dishes being served to the other patrons. You think to yourself, "Damn I'm good at picking value restaurants."
You get to your table and are seated, and the hostess lets you know that your waiter will be with you in a minute. You pick up the menu and open it to the entrees...
...to see that everything is $25+.
After you and your dining partner silently and uncomfortably flip through the rest of the menu, you look at each other. "Well, we only live once," one of you nervously chuckles. Visions of numbers being added up dance around in your head. Not good, not good.
You flip through the menu again, maybe to see if there was a misprint or the decimal point was put in the wrong spot or if there's the non-appetizer dish that's under $15. It only seems like everything is getting more expensive.
You finally decide, "Let's just leave. Before the waiter comes and takes our order."
"OMG, can you do that? Have you ever done that before?"
"Yeah, once. During a business trip."
"Uh...okay."
After surveying the area, you look for the fastest way to get to the exit. In your mind you think, "1, 2, 3, GO GO GO." You get up, controlling the urge to sprint. You make your way to the exit, looking behind you to see if your dining partner was sniped by a waiter. "We're gonna make it," you tell yourself sheepishly.
Almost to the exit, you see the hostess resume her position at the greeters podium. Your mind is saying "Abort!" but your legs continue to move towards the exit. You manage to flash a smile at the hostess on your way out, muttering, "We were looking for something more casusal." Your partner zooms by, head down, no eye contact. You finally manage to push through the doors, and let out a sigh of relief. You made it out to dine another day.
(Yeah, I could have just wrote, "Have you ever sat down in a restaurant, saw the prices were too high, and then walked out?" but that would have been soooo boring.)
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Yep, we've done that. We often ask to see a menu when we first walk in the door of a place we haven't been before. I love when they post the menu outside near the door. Being able to back out of an expensive situation - even if it's uncomfortable to do so - is part of smart money management. Good job!
edenz | Aug 13, 2007
No - but we rarely dine out unless we're planning to go to a place that's really nice. I love places that post the menu outside - besides the price, I'm a selective eater and hate going into restaurants and then not finding anything on the menu appetizing.
acidspit | Aug 13, 2007
haha-- I've totally done that, except it had nothing to do with prices and everything to do with their poor selections on their menu. I think it was more uncomfortable for my partner than it was for me. I had no qualms about being sat (?!) and walking out after about 2 minutes of perusing the menu!
I've never done that because usually I want to get home ASAP, so it's Roy Rogers on I-95. In and out and back on the road!
I have walked out of a restaurant after dining on the appetizer. I was with a vegan friend and we wanted to try a raw food restaurant. BIG MISTAKE. We both agreed we couldn't eat raw food. We paid for what we ate, left a nice tip, thanked them and went to go eat at another restaurant. That was a really unusually circumstance though because that was a culinary experiment. (And within a year the restaurant had failed.)
guinness416 | Aug 13, 2007
"Hi - can I see the menu please". Learn it, use it, love it. Why would you eat anywhere you haven't seen the food anyway?
A lot of restaurants have their menus posted in front of the restaurant. And why would you have second thoughts about getting up and leaving? If the hostess asks just tell her the truth - the prices are more than I'm willing to pay.
devil | Aug 14, 2007
I've never walked out because the prices were high. I've left because the service was poor (why wait 15 minutes just to be acknowledged?).
Oh, years back there was a restaurant called "Po' Folks" which had a menu that was written in "Hillbilly" language. It was so politically incorrect the place would never be allowed to do business today. Anyway, one look at that menu and I was out of there like a shot.
Christine | Aug 14, 2007
Yep!
I was in Chicago with my art history class, and we had free time to explore the city and eat lunch. A group of us went off to find Real Chicago Pizza, and found a place that didn't look too unreasonable.
After we eat the bread we realized that the pizza wasn't chicago style... and is expensive. We sat there for a couple of minutes, then someone said, "So... you guys want to try someplace else?" It was what everybody had been thinking, so we each plopped a dollar on the table for the bread, and then found an AMAZING and rather reasonable place for lunch.
I get nervous every time I see a menu where they leave off the cents in the prices. Yes, I too prefer restaurants where they post a menu at the door. That way I can see all the prices and make a yes or no decision before entering.
Slinking quickly up and avoiding eye contact is MUCH braver that sucking up and having an expensive meal because you're too embarrassed to leave.
Infophiliac | Aug 14, 2007
I live in New York and find it almost bizarre when I travel to other parts of the country where restaurants don't typically post a menu outside (although I suppose this is because in most places, you drive to your restaurant, and walking allows you greater perceived freedom to decide about a restaurant spontaneously, so the menu outside is more useful in that context).
Chi Gal | Aug 14, 2007
This happened to me once. We also stopped in a casual looking place and found everything to be out of our price range. We left pretty quickly and went for subs! He felt bad, I didn't.
!wanda | Aug 14, 2007
That happened to my friends and me once. We walked in, and the restaurant was overpriced and not what my friends were looking for. Luckily, I also happened to receive a phone call before ordering, and we told the waitress that something had come up and that we were sorry but we had to leave.
Hazygrey | Aug 14, 2007
I've definitely done this before, at least once after they brought water to our table. I've now learned to ask for the menu first. As a previous commenter mentioned, it also helps that I'm in NYC and most restaurants post the menus outside.
brent | Aug 15, 2007
I LONG for the day when I look at the left hand column (the names of the dishes) first.
My wife (when we used to go clothes shopping) would ask my opinion on a shirt or something and I'd have to honestly say "I don't know. I can't see the tag."
We had to walk out on a bistro a few months ago: got to the end of a road trip with 2 kids under 4, promising them hamburgers for dinner when we got there. The prices at the first place we went to were all _uncomfortable_ but thank goodness they didn't sell hamburgers because we could honestly say that to the waitress. She was lovely about it, and actually recommended a takeaway food joint down the street. Cost us 1/4 and ended up being much more kid friendly.
Competition only works if a business knows what it's doing wrong. If a restaurant is too expensive just go ahead and tell them you've decided to go elsewhere because their prices seem too high. I also only tip if the service is reasonably good - but that's standard in Australian (wait staff here get a minimum hourly rate of $13.92, or about $30K pa working full-time, which is more than enough for poor service).
Becca | Aug 24, 2007
Yes, we've done that. My partner is vegan and sometimes restaurants seem like they'll be fine, but then don't have anything on the menu he can eat.
Allese | Aug 24, 2007
Ok. I spent over five years waitressing at casual to fine dinning restaurants and let me assure you (if the plethora of agreements didn't already)... it happens all the time.
If its busy, the waiter usually doesn't notice. If its slow they're dissapointed because waiters make their $$ on tips-- no tables no tips.
However if you talk to the waiter/hostess and (I wouldn't go with the less expensive excuse- they'll probably get snobby and wonder why dared to come into their elite establishment to begin with) ask about somewhere a bit quicker, more of a cafe style/burger place, they will probably hand out some great suggestions.
In ending-- menu first, menu before seated, menu first
Aaron | Sep 9, 2007
In Quebec and France, it's a law that restaurants must have menus posted out front.
You described the feeling perfectly! In my area, none of the restaurants post a menu outside, so this has happened to me more than once. It can be difficult to leave. I don't mind being frugal, but I hate feeling poor. I know it sounds strange (especially since I would never see that waitress again), but it would embarrass me terribly to say that we left because we couldn't afford the place.
Catherine | Aug 13, 2007
Yes, I have definitely done that. In fact, I've done that after drinks were brought. We left the cash on the table for the sodas and left. It was just not what we could afford and we has a time constraint or we would have asked for the check with just the drinks on it.
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