“What was the steak special again?” the birdish uptight lady on table twelve asks.
“It’s a sixteen ounce ribeye steak in a cognac peppercorn cream sauce,” I reply.
“Can I get the steak without the sauce?”
“Of course Madam.”
“And how much is the ribeye?”
“Thirty-three dollars.”
“If I don’t get the sauce will it be cheaper?”
I successfully resist the urge to roll my eyes. “No Madam,” I reply. “The price will remain the same.”
“Why won’t you lower the price?” the woman asks sharply. I give her my politest shrug.
“Now that I think about,” the woman says, after a long awkward pause, “I’ll have a chicken caesar salad instead.”
“Very good Madam.”
I escape from the table before the woman tries haggling over her $15.95 salad. Man, you can’t make this stuff up.
AWESOME… ( I mean “awesome writing” not “awesome real life event”.)
She coulda had TWO salads and still saved money. Of course, from the chicken’s point-of-view, that would be a bad choice.
I totally feel your pain. I work at one of those family steakhouses and we “garlic mashers” as one of the sides. I can’t tell you how many times a shift people ask me, “garlic mashers? what are those?” Um… mashed potatoes with garlic. To add insult to injury, it is listed with all the potato sides, and with a description on the main side listing. It’s like asking someone “chocolate milk? what is that?” Ugh. Shoot me.
LOL, my restaurant once had a special on a 3 piece “fish & chips” dinner (the fish was breaded and fried haddock) for 11.95. This woman asked me if she could substitute our roasted salmon steak (which goes for 16.95) instead of the haddock. I told her no, but that if she wished to order the salmon (for 16.95, of course) she was free to substitute the fries for the rice pilaf the salmon was supposed to come with. She got angry and asked to speak to the manager, because she believed that she should be able to sub the much more expensive salmon for a cheaper fish like haddock. Boy was it fun to inform her that I was, in fact, the manager. Wench.
You should’ve told her that the sauce was actually complimentary, and that the price was for the steak alone. Of course, then she probably would have come back and ordered a cup of sauce, expecting to get it on the house.
What an asshat.
Our menu lists “Baked Red Potatoes” as a choice. I cannot count the time I’ve been asked “What’s a Baked Red Potato?”… UMMM it’s a red potato & it’s baked? They still look confused.
This happens in heaps of places 🙂 I worked my way through university at a hairdresser’s. Most hairdressers charge a flat rate for a wash, cut and blow-dry. Almost every day, some git would try to get a discount on the basis of not wanting a wash. Try explaining all you want that this is a complimentary service. It falls on deaf ears a lot. Usually then, they threaten to “find somewhere reasonable”, before calling every other hairdresser in the area, then crawling back meekly after realising that nowhere is going to give you a discount for refusing something complimentary.
Jess, to be fair, mashed potatoes with garlic might be a more apt description. “Garlic masher” seems like a unitasker for mashing garlic cloves.
When I eat out I do not question prices at all. I hate when people do because you know your going to get a shitty tip. Eating out is a special occasion and you should spend freely and tip excellent cause if you do that’s good Karma coming your way. Most of these people must eat out all the time like they are in their own dining room at a restaurant since they’re so paranoid and stingy.
I had woman the other night order shrimp and grits. She then asked me if she could substitute the shrimp for chicken wings…
at the restaurant i work at, we have a combo chow mein with beef, chicken, pork, and shrimp. a customer once asked me for the combo chow mein but without the pork, shrimp, and a whole array of other ingredients from this dish that i suppose don’t like to play with her palette. hoping to not piss off the chefs, i suggested just getting the chicken chow mein and adding beef for a small price, since its just veggies and chicken. she responded that she calculated, and its cheaper the other way. im all up for saving cash, but the modification text box under the order just has so much room.
might i also add that she was beaming of pride from discovering this loophole in the system…