Restaurants

I love eating out! I like the whole idea of it. Not having to think about what to cook at home. Getting to pick whatever your little heart desires off the menu. Just relaxing while it is cooking and best part of all, No Clean Up! I also like eating at all different types of restaurants. I like BYB and I also like Folks Folly's. I love eating Mexican and I love steakhouses. Heck, I enjoy a good old double cheeseburger from Mickey D's. I have over the years come up with some good Restaurant Tips that I would like to share. Maybe it is because I grew up in a restaurant or I just have alot of friends who work in restaurants or that I just frequent them enough, but here you go. Hopefully these will make your dining experience even better.

• Assume the worst service no matter where you go, except of course really fine dining and you won't be disappointed. If you except the wait at the door to be long, and your server to be young and inexperienced, and the food to take forever, etc. etc. then when it doesn't turn out that way, you will be pleasantly surprised! This way it won't bug me when I am seated at the same time as the table next to me and they get to eat before our waiter even discovers someone is sitting in their section. So, when it does turn out to be us with the good server I am over the moon. I know you are saying to yourself, it shouldn't be that way. You should get great service and great food everytime, yeah right, dream on. This is 2009, my next waiter might be a disgruntled mortgage broker that just lost his job.
• Don't order the Special of the day. This could be one of two things. Something the kitchen wants to unload or something that the chef is experimenting with and wants to charge you double for what it would normally charge if it were on the menu. I mean if it sounds good, it might be just don't be surprised when you get the bill and everyone elses was $15 and yours was $35. Choose wisely Indiana Jones.
• Don't send your food back, EVER! Listen, I know you like your steak extra well done with ketchup and it has a tinge of pink, just don't eat that part, okay. So you ordered fries and they sent you a baked potato, let it go... Don't be snobby to the waitress, don't raise your voice or be rude. Because of one simple reason. They will mess with it! Unless you are the GM (General Manager) or Head chef, these folks are making a meager hourly salary and they have no time for your hijinks. Don't think they won't spit in your burrito, drop your steak on the floor, or pee in your cup. I have heard it all.
• Tip Well. Come on, if you get good service, give 20 %. The best tippers are people who have been in those positions. Servers do not get paid that well, and the tip is a huge part of their salary. Even if the service was the crappiest ever, I have never stiffed anyone. They might have just gotten a dollar or two but still. There is that bad karma out there about stiffing the tipping.
• Lastly, for my sanity sake, keep up with what you ordered. There is nothing that grates on my nerves worse than when the server comes back to the table and shouts out, who had the steak and potato and half of the table is in LaLa Land. Granted this does not happen in a fine dining establishment. They will know exactly what you ordered and set it exactly in front of you. However, the majority of the restaurants that I frequent have this lazy policy of not really caring who ordered what. So pay attention and remember what it was. Don't grab my plate and take three bites and realize you didn't order green beans. Come on, how hard can it be... At this point, I usually have half the table memorized and I will help the waitress out, oh, the meat loaf special goes to the lady on the end with the dazed look in her eye.

So, I hope I have helped a little bit. If not given you a chuckle for the day. Enjoy going out to eat the next time you are at a restaurant and please pass on these tidbits of info. I don't want to hear that you were the person who took a bite of your sandwich and found a finger in it.