Common Restaurant Complaint Number 3: “This meal is so expensive!” and similar complaints.

There is a simple concept in economics. It’s called the law of demand. The law of demand says that as price decreases, consumers will buy more of a good or service. Translated, the cheaper things are, the more we buy. It’s called a law for a reason. This law is on display everywhere in American society. How do you think Wal-Mart made 11 billion dollars (profit) in 2006? People LOVE cheap stuff.

This law holds true in restaurants as well. People want more food then they can eat for as little cost as possible. A certain percentage of restaurant customers will always take issue with the cost of their meal because, for whatever reason, it does not align with their expectations. About once a week I would bring a bill to a table only to be called back a few moments later to hear a complaint about the cost. Sometimes the complaints would be valid; most times they would be completely unfounded. Complaints at check time typically fell into a few different categories.

1) The most common complaint came from people who had been burned by less than honest servers in the past. There are jerks in this world and some of them do work in restaurants. I know that some servers intentionally try to overcharge customers because they have dreamed up a way to increase their tip. Most of the time this takes the form of adding items to a guest’s check that was never actually ordered only to remove this item from the bill after the guest has paid. The difference between the falsified bill and the actual cost of the meal is added to the servers tip. The dishonest servers of the world are counting on the customer paying the bill without looking at the actual amount. Most people do not itemize their bill when it comes to the table. They already have an idea of how much it should be and if it’s close, they pay it and leave. This crime, because that’s exactly what it is, works best when the customer pays in cash. This eliminates a paper trail that a credit card would provide. Servers who intentionally cheat their customers make waiting tables a lot harder for the rest of us honest servers. Customers, who have been burned by this bill inflation, are more likely to itemize their bill at the table and, sometimes, falsely accuse innocent servers of overcharging them. I have never intentionally overcharged a guest in my life, but I have been accused of it dozens of times over my seven years in the Steak House. You can’t blame people for being suspicious, but it doesn’t make it any less of a pain in the ass.

2) The second type of complaint comes from people who didn’t actually read the price on the menu or, for whatever reason, thought their meal cost less than it actually did. These complaints usually go one of two ways: the bill arrives and the customer asks to see a menu. At this point the customer realizes he/she is wrong and either: a) owns up to the mistake and pays the bills or b) refuses to believe they made a mistake and throws a fit. This latter situation is never pleasant and usually ends with a manager visit to the table. Sometimes the manager will remove items from the menu to reduce the cost. This is clearly the path of least resistance for the manager because there was nothing wrong with the meal, service, or food and by all rights the customer should have paid the full amount. In these situations, the manager is worried about a customer call to corporate. Sometimes, if the customer is abrasive enough, the manger will politely explain that, if the meal was satisfactory, the bill needs to be paid. Sometimes it’s not so polite. Personally I think this is just about the most obnoxious thing a customer can do. The customer ordered, ate, and enjoyed a meal. Pay the bill and stop complaining.

3) The third complaint isn’t really a complaint and, to me, is more sad than anything else. We are all driven by the American dream. Everyone wants a nice house, car, and the occasional night out at an expensive restaurant. Of course, those expectations are all relative. For many people, the Steak House was an “expensive restaurant”. Sometimes people, who probably should not be spending their money on disposable activities, would order more food than they could pay for. When this occurred it would be reflected in an extremely poor tip or a declined credit card. Either way, it was uncomfortable for all parties. The customer would, more than likely, leave a good tip if they could afford it. On the other hand, I can assure you that servers don’t like telling customers their credit card company won’t let them spend any more money and getting screwed on a tip isn’t fun either. All in all, I wish these people would just stay home and spend their money on their kids or something to improve their financial situation (like paying down their credit cards).

No matter the form the complaint takes, the most obvious representative of the restaurant is the server and as a result, we tend to feel the brunt of these complaints. I say unfortunately, because servers have absolutely nothing to do with the cost of the meal. None whatsoever. We did not set the menu prices and we certainly don’t have the power to change them. You, as a customer, enter into an unspoken agreement when you enter a restaurant. You, the customer, agree to pay the prices the menu asks and we, the servers, agree to provide the best experience we can provide. Please keep this in mind the next time you don’t like the price of your meal and take it out on your server.

Common Restaurant Complaint Number 4: “I asked for medium well!!”

Most Americans love a good steak. Personally, I love a well cooked sirloin. Filets are nice, but there is something, for me, about the texture and make up of a sirloin. As a server who worked in a Steak House for several years, I had to become very familiar with all types of beef products: sirloins, filets, t-bones, chop steak, rib eyes, prime rib, hamburgers, etc. Perhaps more importantly, I had to become an expert on how these steaks are prepared. Steaks in the restaurant I worked in ranged in price from $10 for a chop steak to $24 for a T-Bone. $24 is a lot of money to most people and those who order steak usually have expectations of their meal, as they should.

I can’t tell you how many times, in my seven years as a server, the following transpired at my tables:

A table in my section would a steak and I would ask them how they would like it cooked. I would repeat back to the customer exactly what they said to confirm how they wanted their steak. Twenty minutes later, the steak would arrive at the table. I would ask the customers to cut into the steak to confirm it was the temperature they ordered. The customer would cut into the steak and say “This is not how I like it!”

Whose fault is this? It’s very easy to blame the server or the kitchen or even the restaurant. Let’s face the facts: assuming the server can write down what you said and the cooks can read what the server wrote, there is a good chance that the server/kitchen combination is not at fault. Of course, there are moments when a cook totally under or over cooks a steak. It definitely happens. However, I would say that well over 85% of the time, you, the customer, did not communicate your expectations to the server properly. Ordering beef at a restaurant is something that customers need to do a better job at. You are paying a lot of money for steak and you owe it to yourself to be more precise with your order.

The restaurant I worked in had the following steak temperatures:

Rare: A Cool Bloody Center

Medium Rare: A Warm Bloody Center

Medium: A Hot Pink Center

Medium Well: Cooked Throughout

Well: Burned

Across the street, a different restaurant had a completely different set of steak temperatures customers ordered from. To this restaurant, “well” meant cooked throughout and not burned as it did in my restaurant. You see what I’m getting at here? Each restaurant is going to be different and what is “medium well” in my restaurant would not necessarily be the same in every other restaurant you might visit.

As a customer, who is paying a lot of money for their dinner, you should order your steak as you want it to look. You should tell the server “I want my beef to be hot and pink in the center”. Let the server figure out what to tell the cooks. Never say something like “I want my steak medium rare” because I promise you, your steak will not live up to your expensive expectations.

Common Restaurant Complaint Number 5: “I want this, this, and this on the side!”

The Top 10 Complaints Heard in Restaurants and the Reason They Aren't as Bad as You Think

Everyone has their own little quirks. Some people are lazy. Some people are perfectionists. Some people work every moment of every day. Others can’t wait for their next vacation. Some people think Star Wars is better than Lord of the Rings. We are all entitled to our own little idiosyncrasies. As with personality traits, everyone has their own culinary tastes and preferences. Personally, I hate blue cheese and mayonnaise. I detest both and will not order anything off any restaurant menu that contains either of these products. I don’t begrudge people their taste preferences. I must admit, however, that customers with numerous special requests drive me up a wall.

If you, occasionally, ask for your salad dressing on the side or an extra ramekin of barbeque sauce, this article is not necessarily directed at you. Common restaurant complaint 5 is directed to those of you who feel the need to create your own menu when you go out to eat. As with everything in life, this issue is not a simple black and white issue. There seems to be an escalating scale of customer requests.

The first level involves asking for one or two things of your order on the side or removed completely. Generally speaking this is not a big deal and the server is happy to accommodate. A happy customer tips better.

The second level is slightly more involved. This usually involves putting several items on the side or bringing an extreme amount of extra salad dressing, blue cheese, etc to the table. At the Steak House we had a family that regularly visited us eat half a gallon of ranch with every meal. Seriously. These types of requests boarder on annoying but are more interesting than anything else. I always found it fascinating to see how much blue cheese, for example, one person can eat.

The third level is simply annoying. There is no polite way to say it. This usually involves creating some special request side dish for the customer. For example, asking for “carrots only” out of a vegetable medley or asking for cocktail sauce when the restaurant doesn’t offer seafood on the menu. Another level three request involves heating water for a baby’s bottle. This always drove me nuts. I’ve actually had mothers ask me to heat a bottle of formula for their babies. First of all, as a father of twin girls, I would never let a complete stranger touch, let alone prepare, a bottle. Secondly, my wife and I never go out to eat when we know the babies will need a bottle of formula. The last thing we want are hungry and fussy babies in a restaurant full of people trying to enjoy a meal. When you have kids, you need to stay home sometimes and do what’s right for the baby. At any rate, level three requests involve significant work for the server and tends to really put them behind with the rest of their tables.

Level four customers are simply inhuman. These are the types of people who clearly have huge insecurities in their own lives and bossing servers around makes them feel superior. Let me give you an example of this practice. At the Steak House one of our regular customers had the following order for every meal:

Drink: Diet Coke, no ice, three (no more or less) lemons

Appetizer: Three (minimum) loafs of break with four ounces of butter.

Meal: This particular guest always ordered a grilled chicken salad. Rather than have the normal, fresh cut, iceberg lettuce mix, this particular customer demanded a head of lettuce chopped into fours. This meant that whomever served this guest had to cut the salad fresh. The lettuce mix was less than an hour old when she ordered it during the lunch shift. As restaurants go, this is extremely fresh. Why she had to have the head of lettuce, I’ll never know. The chicken for the salad had to be grilled on a “flat top” range rather than on a chargrill (as was corporate policy). There is a reason that chicken at the Steak House was cooked on the chargrill. The “flat top” range was extremely hot and burned chicken very quickly. The cooks had to watch this customers chicken like a hawk or face her wrath if it didn’t exactly meet her “char expectations”. The chicken breast could not be chopped into strips, as the menu specified. The salad/chicken combination could not have any tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, croutons, cabbage, cheese, or eggs. Again, all things the salad was supposed to come with. The customer ordered four extra ounces of bacon and salad dressing.

I could go on but I’m sure you get my point. Taking this order, as a server, is a colossal pain in the ass. This customer would also say absolutely miserable things to the server like “What’s wrong with you!” or “I don’t like you, send me someone else to take my order!” This particular customer was extreme, but not uncommon. Level fours’ eat in busy restaurants every day.

To people, like the customer I just detailed, I say this: If you don’t like the menu, don’t eat there. Go someplace else where the menu is more to your liking. Better yet, don’t go out to eat at all. Stay at home and make your own food. That way, you can never get pissed at the server for forgetting one of your countless special requests. We will all be better off that way. Being one of these people is, without a doubt, one of the easiest ways to get your food spit in.

Common Restaurant Complaint Number 6: “I don’t like this table! Can I have a booth!” or “Is there anything by the fireplace/window/talking animal?”

When you go out to eat, you want everything to be perfect. I was a server for seven years at the Steak House and I worked very hard to make sure every customer I waited on had as close to a perfect experience as I could provide. It was in my best interest to. The better I did, the better my tip was. Honestly, this should be the goal of every server. Did this always happen in my case? Was I always “perfect”? Definitely not. Part of that is my fault. I am human and I make mistakes. Part of that is the restaurant’s fault because, lord knows, management wasn’t perfect. Some blame belongs to the corporation for inconsistent policies. Sometimes the people I worked with would makes mistakes (read: kitchen staff, hosts, bartenders, runners, etc.).

For most people, a perfect experience means your food should be prepared well, the server should be attentive and polite, and you shouldn’t have to wait to long for anything. These are completely reasonable demands. Common restaurant complaint number 6 addresses one of the first warning sign for restaurant staff that a guest with unrealistic expectations is dining in their establishment. The staff at the Steak House referred to these particular types of unreasonable people as the “Table Choosers”. Complaint 6 revolves around table selections.

A typical dining experience begins with a host saying hello and taking you a table. For most people, this is a simple matter. Unfortunately, there is a select group that will not be happy with any table the host brings them too. These people usually fall into three categories:

1) The upfront and honest types.

For me, the upfront and honest types are the most annoying. These customers, when brought to a table they don’t like, immediately start to complain about it. For example: “This is too close to the kitchen!” “This table is too dark!” “We are too far from the kitchen!” and of course “We want a booth, not a table”. This many not sound like a huge deal to someone who never worked in a restaurant. A table is a table right? Wrong. In the Steak House, each table was assigned to a server. The host usually has a rotation that fairly distributes customers to each server so everyone working can make money. Sometimes, when the restaurant isn’t fully staffed on a slow day, some of the tables in the restaurant will not be assigned to any particular server. In other words, hosts seat customers in certain locations for a reason. Usually the upfront and honest types will immediately asked to be moved if they don’t like their table. These same customers never seem to understand why it takes the hosts a minute to figure out where to put them. While seating a restaurant is not the hardest job in the world, there are a few things hosts should try to avoid doing. One of the cardinal rules of hosting is: don’t “triple seat” a server. Being “triple sat” sucks. That means three tables are sat in your section at the same exact time. As you can imagine, this makes servers insanely busy. Being triple sat takes years off your life. Obviously, when a server gets triple sat, it affects service for all the server’s tables. Again, this many not sound like a big deal to some, but I can feel my blood pressure rising as I write this. I still have nightmares about being triple sat. Usually the upfront types start pointing to tables they want to sit in and saying things like “I don’t understand what the big deal is! I’m the customer and I want to sit THERE!” The big deal is, by selecting your table, you may force the hosts to triple seat a server and your dining experience is going to suck because your server will be too busy to give you proper service… THAT is the big deal.

2) The silent but deadly types.

The silent but deadly types are just plain weird. Unlike the upfront and honest guests, the silent but deadly customers will sit in the table they are brought too, but will suddenly disappear only to reappear in a table of their choosing. The silent but deadly types are apparently too shy to complain and take a passive aggressive approach to their seating arrangements. These customers can lead to all types of problems. First of all, there is a good chance, on a slow day, they will seat themselves somewhere in the restaurant where no server is assigned to work. As a result, they sit in their chosen table for a LONG time fuming at the server who should be waiting on them (who doesn’t actually exist) before someone notices them and takes their order. Silent but deadly customers can also seat themselves into a section where the server is extremely busy. Again, these customers will sit, waiting for service, and generally get pissed at the slow waiters in the restaurant.

3) The driven by shiny objects and pretty things types.

Most of the time, these types of customers are driven by love: as in love of their children. At the Steak House, we had several “talking” animal puppets attached to the wall. I know. Don’t ask. The kids loved these animals and wanted to sit by them at ALL COSTS. It was not uncommon for these types of customers to be sat at a table only to ask for a different table “closer to the animals”. Also in this category are the customers who want to sit near windows or fireplaces. At the Steak House we had a very scenic view of a parking lot. Occasionally, we would have customers ask to be sat near a particular painting or photograph on the wall. It’s not like there was an ocean or something out those windows. We didn’t exactly have Ansel Adams’ hanging on our walls. But, inevitability, customers wanted to sit where they wanted to sit.

Sadly, the easiest way to deal with all three of these types of customers was to give them what they want and apologize, in advance, to whomever is forced to wait on them. You can forgive the parents who are just trying to make their kids happy. There is some nobility in that. Does that mean that I loved waiting on other people’s kids? God no, but that is a different story for a different day. The bottom line is, don’t be one of these people. The hosts are sitting you in specific areas for specific reasons. If you must change tables, be polite and patient. It will go a long way in avoiding spit in your food.

Common Restaurant Complaint Number 7: “We had a party of 10 and it took forever to get us a table!” and other waiting complaints.

Top 10 Complaints Heard in Restaurants and the Reason They Aren't as Bad as You Think

Imagine this: You are starving and go to your favorite restaurant only to be told by the bitchy host there is a 30 minute wait for a table. By definition a wait, usually, means that there are not enough tables in the restaurant to seat all the people coming in the door. In those situations, the restaurant is forced to stop seating people because, literally, there is no table for them in the dining room.

Waits in a corporate restaurant is an unfortunate reality. It has to happen occasionally, especially on busy weekend nights. As a consumer, being waitlisted is disappointing and frustrating. Suddenly it feels like you’re back in elementary school patiently waiting your turn in the milk line. To grown adults, this reversion is not a welcomed one. Restaurant patrons are typically starving, so waiting an additional 30 (or more) minutes to get to the point when you can actually order your food seems like an eternity. What to do? In my experience, most people wait the thirty minutes, begrudgingly. To the millions of people who patiently wait for a table, I thank you. I know it’s hard and probably the last thing you want to do on an empty stomach. Number 7 of the top 10 complaints heard at a restaurant (and the reason they aren't as bad as you think) is dedicated to the select few who never really learned how to wait patiently.

In the interest of fairness, there are moments when the restaurant is to blame for a wait. People screw up and the majority of hosts (or the people who seat the tables), especially in corporate restaurants, are college age girls. For many hosts at the Steak House, hosting was there first job EVER. What always killed me about this was the fact that hosting is one of the most important jobs in the restaurant business and management decides to allocate the least experienced worker they can find to fill these roles. Why is hosting so important? Without getting into the specifics of the job, think about what I said in reason 8. The corporation wants to control all the environmental elements it can in the “dining experience”. The temperature, music, etc. are all micromanaged by the parent corporation. How can a business put this much thought into the “environment” of the restaurant and then put total incompetence at the front door? I have no idea. The first thing a guest sees is the host! If the host screws up, I promise most patrons will never return. So, what deserves more attention? The hiring practices of hosts or the music volume in a restaurant? But I digress.

Having said that about the hosts, most of the time they are simply doing their job when they tell you there will be a wait for your table. Here are three tips if you find yourself in this situation.

1) Look at the time. If a host tells you that your table will be ready in thirty minutes, be ready to be sat in 15. Don’t go anywhere. Have a drink at the bar or find somewhere to relax (if possible). Check out the menu and get your order ready. Waits sometimes move a lot quicker than the hosts might think. It is extremely difficult to gauge how long people take to eat their meals. This is, truly, what you are waiting for when your name is placed on a wait. You are waiting for another table to get up and get cleaned by a busser so you can sit down and order your food. Simply stated, relax! You are at a restaurant to enjoy yourself! You could get stress at home.

2) Understand that if your party is larger than three of four people, the wait might be (a lot) longer. 70% - 80% of tables in many restaurants are three or four “tops”. In other words, most restaurants are geared to handle a large volume of three or four person families. Five, six, and up sized parties require larger tables which are not as readily available in most restaurants.

3) Finally, remember that, just because you see an open table, doesn’t mean the wait isn’t justified. One of the biggest complaints hosts receive revolves around this scenario: A hungry customer walks into a restaurant and is told by a frazzled host there is an hour wait. The customer looks around the restaurant and sees a few open tables. The customer proceeds to say something like “I see open tables … why can’t we sit there??!” While this question drives hosts and servers crazy, on some level it is a logical query.

Here is the answer why you “can’t sit there”.

First, let me say this situation never occurs on a Friday or Saturday. Typically, the Steak House was insanely busy on these days and there were never open tables to be pointed to by an angry, hungry customer. Also, the restaurant was adequately staffed to handle a large volume of customers on the weekend. This problem usually reared its head during “slow” times like mid-week lunch shifts for example. To fully staff the Steak House, you needed to have twenty-two servers on the “floor” with three or four tables each. Good business sense tells you there is no way the restaurant will bring twenty plus servers to work a Tuesday lunch which is traditionally a slow time without a lot of business. On such occasions, when a lunch shift is much busier than expected, it is very possible that a restaurant and its staff will get overwhelmed. A handful of servers can be working as hard as they possibly can, waiting on five and six tables each, but 50% of the restaurant’s tables will sit empty. It is in these moments that hosts are forced to start a wait, despite the fact that there are empty tables. Empty is the not same thing as available. The restaurant simply does not have the personal to handle your order at that moment.

You, as a customer, can blame management for not staffing properly, the hosts/servers for not working hard enough, or the corporation for not having a better way of dealing with these situations. Your anger in these moments says a few things about you. You are hungry, you want your food as soon as possible, and you know nothing about the restaurant industry. My advice? Go someplace else and try the restaurant on a different day. The hosts would love to seat you, they just can’t at that moment. Don’t take it personally. It is not a conspiracy against you and your lunch. Restaurants in these moments are running on the brink of disaster with angry servers and stressed out hosts. That is a recipe for getting your food spit in. Take your business elsewhere and save everyone (including you) the stress.

Common Restaurant Complaint Number 8: “It’s too dark/too loud/too bright/too cold/too hot/too busy in this restaurant!”

Moving away from alcohol (complaint 10 and 9), we dive into another common complaint heard in my Steak House. Generally, this revolves around the atmosphere in the restaurant itself. Corporate restaurant have convinced themselves that every “dining experience” for every customer in their establishment must be just that: an “experience”. The corporate way of thinking does not allow for any variables that could potentially be negative and damage this “experience”. This idea is carried into the very dining room environment. I’m not referring to the actual decorations on the walls necessarily. Corporate restaurants try to control the “dining experience” down to the temperature of the room, the volume of the music in the background, and the general brightness of the restaurant.

What follows could be plucked from any corporate regional manger’s stream of consciousness:

“Servers must greet the table in X amount of time, bring the food in Y time, and bring the bill in Z time. The guest must hear music, but only in the background, while seeing their menu in light that is not brighter than 5 candles in a room that is 72 degrees.”

Is this insane, unnecessary, controlling, etc? YES! OF COURSE IT IS. Corporations are all about what looks good on paper, not about what works in the real world. There is a serious disconnect between the board room and dining room in virtually every corporate restaurant. When you specifically (and arbitrarily) decide for everyone who will ever eat in your restaurant the proper temperature of the room, volume of the music, and brightness at their table, you will have, every day, complaints about one or all three. Is everyone going to complain? Definitely not. However, there were demographics of people who, in my experience, would complain consistently about all three environmental variables. Typically, elderly people who would have a hard time hearing each other over the music, reading the menu in the dim light, or freezing to death would complain, with vigor, to their server.

When I was, repeatedly, confronted with this situation, I would do one of two things. I would either politely explain that the lighting/temperature/music was unadjustable or I would lie and tell my customers “I’ll talk to the manger about that and see if we can fix…” whatever their complaint was. Talking to the management about the problem was, typically, an exercise in futility. The management didn’t want to be reprimanded from the corporate offices if they adjusted any of the “experience” variables in the restaurant like lighting, heating, or music volume.

You might be asking yourself why the corporate front office would micromanage the Steak House to this level. If you think about it, a restaurant management team should be able to control the heat, lights, and music without a corporate directive on the matter. One would hope that corporate hiring practices were advanced enough to ensure management teams in individual Steak Houses could be trusted to handle the environmental controls of the restaurant. Unfortunately, the corporate mind set is to always assume that the people who work in the restaurant are complete idiots who have no idea what a comfortable temperature / proper lighting / reasonable music volume might be. Corporations also get so caught up in setting a “mood” or creating an “environment” they can lose sight of reality. People like to be able to hear who they are talking to, see their menu, and be comfortable indoors.

So, when you ask your server to turn up/down the heat, brighten the room, turn down the music, etc. understand that the parent corporation has specifically controlled all the environmental variables for you, the customer. This includes heat, music, and lightning. The restaurant staff (especially the management) has nothing to do with these decisions and, if they want to stay in the good graces of the corporation, will do nothing about your complaint. Corporate would rather control the variables than listen to you.

Common Complaint Number 9: “What do you mean I’m cut off??!”

Have you ever had to give a good friend bad news? Most of us have all been in a situation like this. For example: “I think I saw your wife cheating on you”. “You were so drunk last night you ­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________". "I'm not sure how you did it, but you ate the entire goldfish in one swallow". That kind of thing. To say the least, it can be awkward and uncomfortable. Sometimes it doesn’t work out very well for you, especially if your friend is looking for a place to vent his or her anger/embarrassment. The only thing thats worse than breaking bad news to a friend is breaking bad news to your boss. That can have unfortunate results for you and your future employment.

This is a situation that servers, at a corporate restaurant, are forced to deal with on a regular basis. Although servers are technically hired, fired, and critiqued by the corporation and management team, they really work for the customers who patronize the restaurant. A server who has a hard time keeping up with the management’s expectations but is loved by his/her guests will never get fired. Management will reward servers who keep their customers happy. Several friends of mind who worked at the Steak House were summarily fired because a customer called a comment line to complain. These friends weren’t particularly bad servers. However, when the customer speaks in a chain restaurant, management almost always listens.

It is this aspect of the job that makes the serving of alcohol stressful. As I mentioned in complaint 10, it is not uncommon for customers to forget their proof of age or drivers license. If the customer orders an alcoholic drink, without proof of age, it places the server in a tenuous position: serve the drink and hope the customer is old enough (and not a cop) or deny service and deal with the ramifications.

Complaint 9 is an offshoot of 10. Say a customer orders an alcoholic drink and has proof of age. However, the customer wants two beers or a “double”. A “double” means, literally, double the amount of alcohol (vodka in a screwdriver, gin in a gin and tonic, etc) in the same glass for double the price. In a corporate restaurant, this again puts the server in an uncomfortable position of telling their real boss “no”. The Steak House corporate policy was not to allow anyone to have one than 23 ounces of beer, one glass of wine, or two ounces of hard liquor at any one time. Also, we could not allow a customer to drink if their express purpose was to get drunk.

Why, you might ask, would the restaurant care? There are two reasons. The first is because the Steak House saw itself as a family establishment and not a bar. At the Steak House, alcohol was a “garnish” to be provided sparingly. The second reason, as many things do in a restaurant, comes back to liability. Restaurants, at least corporate ones, are scared to death of lawsuits and legal culpability. When you work at a corporate restaurant you will, eventually, be subjected to an alcohol training session that “teaches” the staff what a drunk person looks like. The ironic element to these training sessions is that they were usually held on a Saturday morning when most of the participations were horribly hung over from the previous night’s libations. The sessions used a color code to help us identify the stages of “drunkness”. Essentially, the breakdown was as follows: green = sober, yellow = too drunk to drive, red = too drunk to stand. We, as servers were to avoid serving a customer into the “red”. The penalty, to the server, for serving people into the red could be termination.

Restaurants are held to some pretty high standards in regards to serving alcohol. Beyond the requirements restaurants must meet to actually receive a liquor license, there is serious liability issues for a bar or a waiter who serves a customer into the “red”. If a restaurant serves a drink to a person who, later in the day/evening, crashes their car into some poor unsuspecting motorist, the restaurant will have some measure of liability in the accident resolution. Translated, the restaurant could get sued and the server who sold the drink to the jerk drunk driver, could go to jail.

Inevitably this corporate policy would cause a complaint once or twice a month in my restaurant. Typically, corporate would back the restaurant up on these matters (unlike 99% of other customer service “issues”) obviously because it was their policy that caused the complaint to begin with. So now you know. If I could allow you to drink yourself into oblivion, I would. Unfortunately, I can’t and I won’t. You can’t have a double. If you look drunk, you’re getting soda. Your beer is not worth my job. Deal with it. It’s not my fault. Feel free to take it out on me with words, complaints, or a lower tip but that won’t change a thing. If you want to drink, go to a bar, not a chain restaurant.

Top 10 Complaints Heard in Restaurants and the Reason They Aren't as Bad as You Think

The point of this list is not to apologize for bad service, bad servers, or a poorly run restaurant. I am not a restaurant apologist. Far from it. I hope I can bring come clarity for you, the restaurant consumer, to situations that might seem unreasonable or inexplicable. At the very minimum, I hope to help you focus your anger in the proper direction when you encounter the situations listed in this top ten list I’ve complied over my seven plus years of waiting tables in a corporate chain restaurant.

Number 10 Complaint: “You need my I.D.? Why? I’m like 34?!!!”

Lets start with a question: How many jobs do you know of that, in the course of normal day, can land you in prison? You might be minding your own business, doing the job as you’ve been trained to do it, and then, with one mistake in judgment, go to jail? As in JAIL. I know one! It’s called waiting tables. Why? Because you didn’t ask the right question to the wrong customer.

At the restaurant I worked in, it was not uncommon to have undercover police officers “sting” our establishment once a month. A “sting” involved the police employing an underage person (usually girl) to order an alcoholic beverage from a bartender or server. If the underage girl wasn’t asked for proof of age the server was arrested, slapped with a large fine (thousands of dollars), and fired from the restaurant. As an added bonus, the guilty party would have extreme difficulty finding another serving job in any restaurant. A very good friend of mine had this happen to him one night. He was one of the hardest workers in the restaurant and made one mistake. He left the restaurant in cuffs. Nice huh? Thank god that’s not the case in your job eh?

These types of operations are common in the business. I’m not a lawyer so I can’t intelligently argue if this type of police action constitutes entrapment. I do have a problem with police intentionally promoting illicit, illegal activities to catch someone committing a crime they weren’t really attempting to commit in the first place. The legality of this action is irrelevant to my top ten list however. As a result, of these practices, there is a significant chilling effect throughout the restaurant industry. I’m here to tell you, there is NO WAY I am going to jail. I card ANYONE who orders an alcoholic beverage. I’ve carded 60 year old women. I’m not kidding. I don’t know why States don’t just mandate that you need a drivers license to drink in public. It would save a whole lot of trouble for everyone involved.

At any rate, producing proof of age is almost never a problem for most people. Most people, who have proof of age, are flattered by the request. It makes them feel younger. However, things get interesting when I card someone who doesn’t have the “card”. In other words, they left their drivers license at home. This happens more often than you might think. The conversation usually goes like this:

Me: What can I get you to drink?

Customer: I’ll have a beer.

Me: Great. Can I see your I.D.?

Customer: Oh, I forgot it in the car…..

Me: I’m sorry. Can I bring you a soda?

Customer: I don’t look 21?!!

Me: Yeah, well I’m sorry. I can’t serve you without I.D….

This is usually where it could go one of two ways. About 50% of the time, people are disappointed but they understand and order a non-alcoholic drink. Typically, it will affect my tips by about 5% but I can live with that. It’s better than jail.

The other 50% of the time is not so pleasant. I’ve had people become irate, ask for my manager, demand I be fired, leave the restaurant, and in the extreme cases, threaten violence if I didn’t produce their beer. On one occasion one “gentleman” did all of the above. The manager eventually caved and forced me serve him his beer. It was awful. This is a classic example of how to get your food spit in. I want to go on record, if that individual is reading this, that I did not spit in their food. But, by all practical judgments, I was entitled.

We don’t ask for your I.D. because we are jerks, hate you, want to make your life miserable, or don’t want you to get drunk. We know you are probably 21. We really do. We also wish we didn’t need to card you at all. But think about it for a moment…. what would you do? We can go to JAIL if we GUESS wrong about your age. That’s really what it amounts too if you don’t have your proof of age. That’s no fun. I won’t do it and that why, if you are in my section, you need your I.D. to drink.

Do we take responsibility for anything anymore?

Chuck E. Cheese… where a kid can be a kid?

When I was young my birthday meant one thing: Chuck E. Cheese. My parents would drive the forty miles to the nearest Chuck E. Cheese, order some pizza, buy us a metric ton of video game tokens and turn us loose. It was AWESOME. A video arcade (the biggest I had ever seen), a talking mouse, and pizza. What more could a kid ask for? It was a once a year thing. It was great.

Fast forward about twenty years. Chuck E. Cheese is no longer the place where a kid can be a kid. Check E. Cheese has suddenly become the place where kids get lazy and obese. The Nations Restaurant News is reporting that CEC Entertainment (or Chuck E. Cheese’s parent company) will voluntarily limit their advertising to children. The impetus for this self regulation was a letter to the company written by U.S. Representative Edward J. Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts.

CEC chairman and chief executive Richard M. Frank said that their advertising would now:

“… promote physical activity and play; limit products shown in interactive games to healthy dietary choices or incorporate healthy-lifestyle messages in the game and not advertise food or beverages in elementary schools…”

I suppose there is some good that can come from this self regulation but, and correct me if I’m wrong, is there anything about Chuck E. Cheese that could possibly be healthy? I’m no nutritionist, but pizza, soda, and video games are not going to be healthy no matter how you market it. Kids are influenced by advertisement, there is no denying that reality. However, they are even more influenced by their parents. Kids aren’t fat if their parents teach them proper eating habits, expose them to a variety of foods that are high in fat and sugar, and tell them no once and a while. Do we take responsibility for anything anymore?

What is wrong with Ruby Tuesday? UPDATE

It was reported today in the Nations Restaurant News that Ruby Tuesday Inc. has paid one million dollars to purchase a controlling interest in a “fast casual” restaurant called Wok Hay Fresh Asian Diner. The single unit restaurant is located near Ruby Tuesday Inc. in Knoxville, Tenn. As I previously wrote about, Ruby’s is in the middle of a $100 million mistake… er…. transformation of their 900+ location chain into a more upscale establishment that serves Quiche and Pot Pies.

Ruby Tuesday Inc. vice president Rich Johnson said “We liked the menu and the segment of the industry it represents”.

Given Ruby Tuesday’s constant menu tinkering/lobotomizing, this recent acquisition makes me wonder if Rick passed this place on his way into work one morning and said to himself “Hey! That might be a good place to steal our next new menu from”. Did they buy this place because it was close to their headquarters? Is there any vision at all in the acquisition?

As Sarah Lockyer points out in her column,

“P.F. Chang’s, a competitor of the Ruby Tuesday chain, operates a chain of fast-casual restaurants called Pei Wei Asian Diner. The Cheesecake Factory, another upscale casual-dining brand, is gearing up to launch a new concept called Rock Sugar Pan Asian Kitchen.”

Now, I’ve never eaten at Wok Hay Fresh Asian Diner and I’m certain that the owner is much richer than I am, but I must ask, again, what is Ruby’s thinking? Is there any room in the market for another Asian diner theme? Does America really need 900+ restaurants that serve Quiche? What do I know, but I’m glad I don’t own any Ruby Tuesday Inc. stock.

Never Close the Doors. NEVER….

Or so the mantra goes. Corporate restaurants never want to turn business away. EVER. On the surface, this may appear to be logical. Restaurants are a business and businesses want to make as much money as possible. However, corporations take things to a whole different level. Our restaurant could get to the point where all we have left to serve was oyster crackers and barbecue sauce and we wouldn’t shut the doors. I’m not being outrageous to make a point. That really happened at the Steak House. More than once.

How do you get to that point you might ask? When a restaurant runs out of something, it’s usually because a) a manager forgot to order critical ingredients for the dish, or b) the customer volume was higher than expected. Either way, it comes down to a manger and, consequently, the restaurant not being prepared.

Corporate front offices HATE this.

A regional corporate manager would rather keep the restaurant open in the direst of situations then close the doors early. The logic goes something like this:

A customer in a restaurant spends money. A closed restaurant makes no money. Therefore it is better to have a customer in a restaurant than be closed.

This, of course, leaves out the fact that if a restaurant is out of steak, for example, the customer is going to be angry (“how can a steak house be out of prime rib!”), try something they wouldn’t have normally tried, be disappointed in the substitute meal, and leave disappointed… possibly never coming back again. This is not that far fetched. I have seen it happen repeatedly.

So, what does more damage to a restaurants image? Closing early because you can not maintain the level of quality your business model calls for or pissing off the unsuspecting customers who inadvertently walked into crashing restaurant without the food advertised on the menu? In my opinion, hands down, keeping the door open at all costs is a terrible idea.

You want an example of how this policy can damage a restaurant? Fine. Here you go.

I will never forget this night as long as I live. It was a Friday night in the middle of the Christmas holiday rush. Because the Steak House was situation so close to a mall, we were always insanely busy when the mall was. Logical right? Well, inevitably, there were nights when we simply could not handle the volume we were receiving. Refer to my statement above. The management refused to admit they did not have the proper number of staff both in the front of the house (servers) and in the back of the house (cooks). They would not close the doors when it became obvious we could not handle the business we already had in the seats or on the two hour wait. TWO HOURS. The severing staff was feeling the stress. The managers were all over us to get people in and out as quickly as possible.

On top of this, the cooks in the kitchen were pushed to the brink by the constant “waves” of food orders. A “wave” is the worst word in a cook’s vocabulary. When a cook says “you waved us” what he’s really saying is “you sat too many people at the same time and now all the food in the restaurant is going to come out slower and at a lower quality”. A “wave” is a very bad thing and it can bring a restaurant to its knees. Traditionally, cooks would rather have a steady flow of meal tickets into the kitchen as opposed to a huge deluge of tickets all at the same time. Even on the busiest of nights, a kitchen can keep up with a steady flow of orders. If you wave, even an experienced kitchen, you might not recover until you stop seating guests. On this particular night, the host staff (the people who seat the restaurant) waved the kitchen very badly early in the shift when a large number of six and seven people groups appeared out of nowhere. Dinners were taking upwards of an hour to cook. This was forty minutes longer than normal for our restaurant. As you can imagine, customers were not happy.

What I’m trying to say here is that the servers, the kitchen, and the hosts were all failing miserably. It was brutal. This is one of those moments when leadership is needed. The management staff should have cut it losses, closed the restaurant, and concentrated on taking care of the people eating their meals and digging out the kitchen. Instead the management ordered the hosts to keep seating the restaurant at a furious pace.

At this point, a good friend of mine was having a world of trouble at one of his tables. The customers were angry at a number of things. First, they waited two hours for the opportunity to order their food. Second, the restaurant was out of the steak they wanted to order. Third, my friend, who was out of his mind busy with other tables sat at a cruel pace by the hosts, wasn’t moving quickly enough for them.

My friend repeatedly mentioned to the management staff how upset his customers were. The management never visited the table, refused to buy them a drink, and basically hid from this situation. Why you might ask? Because 50% (or more) of the customers in the restaurant at that moment had the exact same complaints. The restaurant was as busy as I’ve seen in it four years. As you might imagine the restaurant made a lot of money that night. But, at what cost?

We quickly found out. Many customers left unhappy that night. It was no surprise that a number of complaints were filed with our corporate offices about that night from unhappy customers. Many people said they would never come back to our restaurant. One complaint was about my friend.

He was fired as a result.

It didn’t matter that he did everything he could to bring this problem to the management staff’s attention. It wasn’t his fault that the restaurant wasn’t sat properly by the hosts and the kitchen was perpetually behind due to wave after wave of food orders. It certainly wasn’t my friend’s fault that we ran out of steaks. The server is the most visible representative of the restaurant and takes most of the blame for any problem.

So there you have it. I contend that corporate policies forcing restaurants keep their doors open at all costs regularly costs guests and, in some cases gets people fired. Am I the only one who sees this?

What is wrong with Ruby Tuesday? or How I hate QUICHE.

I’ve never worked at Ruby Tuesdays but I have eaten there more times then I care to admit. What follows are my opinions about the insanity that exists in the Ruby Tuesday front office.

Years ago, Ruby Tuesday was a restaurant I liked to visit. I don’t mean every week or even every month. But, for casual dining, it was well above adequate. It had a nice salad bar and the menu selection was what you would expect from a place specializing in $10 to $12 meals. You even could get fresh potato chips, as in fried to order, with your meal. How cool is that? I’m not a Ruby’s aficionado or anything, but it was fun once and a while.

About five years ago my wife and I visited our local Ruby’s to find the entire menu had changed. Completely. The corporate minds at Ruby’s decided to ride of the wave of the Atkins diet and “carb free living”. EVERYTHING about the menu had changed. Sadly, no more fresh potato chips. Instead, the menu had transformed into a low carb/reduced calorie disaster. Are Americans really looking for health food at Ruby Tuesday? I would say no. I don’t need a corporate board room filled with high priced market research to tell me that.

It was a harbinger of what was to come.

Despite the fact that our favorite meals had vanished from the menu, my wife and I would visit our local Ruby’s a few times a year. Each subsequent visit was less satisfactory than the last. It really wasn’t the service. On average the service was fine. What bothered me was the revolving door of menu items and gimmicks. It’s felt like the Ruby’s executives in Maryville, Tennessee spun a “Price is Right” type wheel with various ways they could change their business model ever fiscal quarter. It was very hard to have a favorite dish at Ruby’s because the next time you visited the restaurant for a meal the menu would have latched onto the next American culinary fad like a barnacle.

Fast forward several years.

I walked past our local Ruby’s yesterday and, surprise, surprise, things had changed again. However, this is different. Ruby’s has pulled out all the stops. Similarly to several corporate chains completing for the $10 - $12 meal demographic, Ruby’s had the shotgun decorum approach. They glue, nail, and staple just about anything that might appeal, in some novel way, to their customers. My local Ruby’s had movie posters from about fifty years ago in one corner and sports memorabilia in another. Americana can only go so far guys. However, Ruby’s new “theme” appears to be a huge departure from their past. Their new style is called “Simple Fresh American Dining”.

(From RubyTuesday.com)

I love it when corporations throw “American” into a title for no particular reason. It makes me feel all patriotic when I’m eating my “freedom fries”. The shotgun decorum is gone. The red color scheme appears to have been abandoned and, in its place, is a mustard yellow. MUSTARD. Now, walking past Ruby’s is like watching a rerun of ABC Sports from the 1970’s (yellow blazers anyone?).

(SI.com)

Just out of curiosity, I looked at the new menu that (obviously) went along with the new paint job. To call this a menu change isn’t fair. It’s a complete lobotomy. For the seafood lover, Ruby’s is proud to offer Salmon, Tilapia, Shrimp, and Crab Cakes. Also on the menu are Gourmet Pot Pies, Chicken Fresco, “Handcrafted Burgers”, and… wait for it…. Quiche. I don’t even know where to start. QUICHE for god sakes!!!!! Somewhere, some corporate executive thought this was a really good idea. Sure, it might be nice to visit a restaurant that specializes in fresh, well prepared seafood and other specialty chicken/beef dishes. Is that place going to be RUBY TUESDAYS? How many of you are going to run down to your local Ruby’s for QUICHE. If I was dying of hunger and was only offered two things to eat to save my existence: my own arm or quiche, I would eat my arm. Something about the phrase “handcrafted” bothers me when you refer to food. Don’t remind me that your $10 an hour (if they are lucky) line cooks have their hands all over my food. And, POT PIES? Seriously?

The justification on the corporation’s website offers an explanation (apology) for their new look.

“It's colorful, comfortable, warm and inviting. And we're pleased to say you'll be seeing it for yourself in the months to come, as Ruby Tuesdays across America get a fresh new look, inside and out.

The moment you pull into the parking lot, you'll know it's a whole new Ruby Tuesday. Inside, the pleasing, inviting atmosphere is inspired by the fresh, high-quality food we're bringing you every day, from handcrafted burgers made with the finest ingredients to our unrivaled Fresh Garden Bar.

Most important, every last detail of the new design - every knife and fork, painting and plate - is our way of showing and sharing the quality, passion and pride that inspires us to be your gracious hosts.”

I love when corporate minds get together. One of my favorite “de-motivational” sayings is “Meetings: One of us isn’t as dumb as all of us”. That appears to be what has happened to Ruby’s. This change represents the kind of soulless dining we all come to expect from a corporate chain with over 950 locations. This is clearly a company that has changed management or ownership and wants a “fresh start”. Once upon a time, Ruby Tuesday’s stock traded around $30 dollars a share. The stock (at this writing) has dipped below $20 and I have to wonder if this is a last ditch effort in a difficult economic climate for soulless restaurants.

Sandy Beall, CEO of the company, recently commented that “…subtle changes in the brand, including new upgraded serving plates, silverware, and uniforms will help us continue to position ourselves as a high quality casual dining concept focused on simple, fresh American dining”. Someone might want to let Sandy know that NO ONE in America (or the world for that matter) thinks Ruby’s a “high quality restaurant”. No restaurant that delivers entrees in 15 minutes (or less) should dare call itself high quality. No one cares about silverware or plates (as long as you don’t run out of them on a busy night). People care about service and good food. IT’S THAT SIMPLE.

You may be saying “You are missing the point; Ruby’s isn’t looking for your business”. That may be true but, they had my business. They have now lost my business with this constant tinkering of their business model. The world moves fast today with digital technology, the Internet, and mobile devices. The last time I checked, most people still like to eat hamburgers, wings, and potato chips. That isn’t going to change. Despite the changes in the way we communicate and receive information, we are still creatures of habit. We spend money in places that are comfortable, tasty, and consistent. Consistent service, decorum, and food are critical if you want to keep a customer base. Someone might want to tell that to the corporate executives at Ruby Tuesday. Who gave these people the keys to 950 restaurants anyway?

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The anatomy of Romper Room: Serving children and their parents

Kids are great, when they are your kids. When I told some of my co-workers I was writing a book about the restaurant business, they flooded me with ideas about a variety of topics. Children and the horrible situations they create was topic number one. In all my time as a restaurant employee, children have never failed to put me in complicated situations. To be fair, it’s not really the children that cause these difficult scenarios. It’s either the unsupervised child or the supervised child with a parent who clearly should have their breeding privileges revoked that creates the situation. In either case the common denominator is a bad parent. I know when I was young if I so much as spoke out of turn in public my parents would take me out of the restaurant. The first time my mom sat with me in the car while my brother and father finished their meal was the last time. Does that sound a bit strict? Sure. But a misbehaving child in a busy restaurant can ruin a meal for dozens of people and directly affect the income of all the servers around the domestic disturbance. The Dead Animal Steak House, where I worked, was a business plan in paradox. The restaurant was loaded with interesting and occasionally terrifying things for children to look at. The walls have a ton of dead stuffed animals: some animals are puppets that talk, some animals actually sing. The corporation wants children in the restaurant. However, the cuisine at the Steak House was not pizza and other simple fried food that you might expect for a restaurant catering to children. The Steak House specialized, or so they would have like to believe, in steaks, seafood, and other high priced items. A Guest Visit Average is a fancy corporate way of saying, “how much each adult will spend when they walk through the door”. The Dead Animal Steak House’s Guest Visit Average for adults was over $15.00. Typically that meant that a family of two adults and two children wouldn’t get out of the Steak House for less then $40.00. If each adult has a moderately priced entrée of $13.00 and a $2.00 soda, that’s a $30.00 bill before the children order their $3 to $4 dollar meal and .99-cent drink. Add the tip and your pushing $50.00 for dinner. I know several restaurants that compete with the Dead Animal Steak House and for $50 their menu will feed a family of 6 or 7. Pizza Hut comes to mind. The point is that the corporate business plan of my restaurant put children looking for a good, loud time in the same place as people looking for a good, expensive steak. Our more expensive selections usually involved a filet and topped out at around $22 or $23 dollars. It was not uncommon for a couple to spend $50 dollar for dinner at the Steak House. You ever stop to think about how many children orientated restaurants there are? How many can you name in your area? I mean, places that really advertises as a “place for kids”. How many of those places would adults actually be able to order a great dinner while the kids eat their greasy fried delicacies? The answer is not very many.

Most restaurant entrepreneurs realize that children and expensive food do not mix practically well. Children are usually segregated into places like Chuck-E- Cheese and other “where a kid can be a kid” type restaurants. They are simply tolerated in more formal settings. The Dead Animal Steak House wanted to break that mold. The thought process was something like this: Give the kids lots to look at and generally keep them occupied. While the children were occupied with a singing Buffalo or coloring book, the parents can enjoy at $22 steak and an $18 bottle of wine. That might sound like a great idea, but the sad reality is most children have an attention span about as long as one segment in a televised sitcom. After about ten minutes, the kids need a commercial break. You can only watch a Moose singing on a wall so many times. The average meal at the Dead Animal Steak House for dinner is about one hour. A lot can happen in an hour with young children and often times does. (continued…)

Note: This excerpt is from the upcoming book: “How to Get Your Food Spit In”.

The Money

Why would so many people willingly submit themselves to the pressures of the restaurant industry?

In my 29 years I’ve been employed as a tour guide, an Auto Cad designer, a delivery boy, a shift manager, an office assistant, an assistant manager, a general manager, a teaching assistant, and a public school teacher. I’ve been the boss; hiring, firing, scheduling, and responsible for all aspects of the store’s business model. I’ve been the $4.75 an hour teenager walking people through a subterranean tourist attraction. I’ve worked in the House of Representatives and seen how major pieces of legislation are constructed and eventually passed. I’ve also cleaned toilets and vomit. Why is it that I’ve been a server for the past seven years of my life?

Without question people work in the business for one simple reason: the money. No job pays the unskilled, uneducated, slightly educated, or the educated who are unemployable better than waiting tables. You can walk into a restaurant knowing only how to smile and make somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 to $20 dollars an hour. People who have no marketable skill other than their personality can make comparable money to people with extensive college education in a restaurant. Students who haven’t graduated from college can find good paying work in the restaurant business to help pay for bills and books. Recent college graduates can use a restaurant job to make ends meet while searching for their first “real job”. It all comes back to the amount of money available to people who would never be considered for other typically high paying jobs. To make money in a restaurant you have to be efficient, presentable, and not offensive to the guest. To make good money you have to be friendly, accommodating, and slightly superhuman.

Approximately 12 million people work in the restaurant industry.Females make up over 55 percent of restaurant employees. Over 50 percent of restaurant workers are under the age of 30 and 67 percent are single. The only other enterprise that employs that many people in this country is the government. Of these 12 million people, 71 percent have a high school education or less. I don’t want to get too statistical here, but think about these figures for a moment. Well over half the people working in a restaurant are female and under 30 years of age. Nearly two thirds of us are single and have a high school diploma or less. How many jobs are available to women, under 30, who have a high school diploma or less in this country? How many of those jobs involve cleaning floors and toilets? The only jobs women of this demographic can get that pay high enough to keep them above the poverty line is in the restaurant industry. The unskilled and uneducated rely very heavily on your tips to make their rent and pay for their children’s heath care.

Note: This excerpt is from the upcoming book: “How to Get Your Food Spit In”.