I did submit this story some time ago, but it likely won’t be used due to being written in a bit of a frustrated fit. Regardless, I hope you can share my frustration and confusion at this situation.
I was going out for dinner with me, my mom, my paternal uncle, my cousin, her husband and their young son, at a steakhouse-traditional restaurant hybrid. At the start everything pretty smoothly: we got seated and received our drinks rather quickly. Then it was time to order: it’s important for this story that my cousin’s husband ordered a phone-style supplì and ribs; my cousin battered cod and a steak for herself, and an hamburger plus fries for the little one; while I got amatriciana and steak.
The server sounded a bit unsure, but she still took our orders and off she went. The kid was already fairly hungry, so when my amatriciana and the cod arrived, he got a bit overexcited. I decided to let him taste my pasta, and, since he liked it and it was a large portion, I gave him a few more forkfuls.
Soon after almost everything else arrived… except for the fries, and obviously my little cousin was still hungry. The father tried to distract him with the phone and promising all his food was going to arrive when the steaks did. The steaks got served, but neither the fries nor the hamburger were anywhere to be seen: his disappointment was immesurable and started whining about not recieving his food, acting up, with nothing working to get him to settle down and wait. The mother decided to gesture and get a server’s attention, and said “Hey, how’s that burger coming along? The creature’s about to blow up.”
For some reason, the serve got up close to the kid, bent over, and said, in a voice that I’m still not sure if it was an attempt to sing-song or if it was mocking: “Oh, you’re hungry, aren’t you? Don’t worry, your little burger is coming very soon!” and then winking at my cousin after saying this.
Given that it was assumed they just forgot and were going to make them right then and there, we decided to keep on eating, but even after we’re done, there’s no trace of neither the hamburger nor the fries, and the only reason the poor kid didn’t try to devour a cat that passed by was through us giving him a bit of our food each. By the time we are ordering desserts the kid was already half-asleep, so the point of asking how it was coming along was moot, but we figured it was a good idea to ask what happened to the waiter that was taking our dessert orders. Apparently, according to his pager, no fries had been ordered at the table and the waiter had no idea what had happened. Since my mom was offering dinner that night, she also decided to go and ask what had happened exactly for the order to be seemingly lost twice, and I followed her inside. I see that the server that had taken our orders at the beginning was manning the till.
The server said: “Oh hey, was everything to your liking? and my mom answered: “Yes, mostly, but, there was one problem, the little one didn’t get his burgers and fries, despite ordering them twice over. Did something happen in the kitchen?”
At this point, the waiter shrugged and delivered the bombshell.
Server: “Oh, with the size of your orders, I thought you all were ordering burger and fries just to get him to shut up, given that children’t don’t usually eat much…”
Obviously I stared at her quite dumbfounded. With an icy glare my mom asked for the manager, and the server gestured wildly in the kitchen’s general direction, and in a few seconds a man with a big “Manager” sewn on the apron appears and waddles towards us three. The manager asked: “What’s the problem tonight?”, and my mom said: “This waiter over here didn’t take our full order.”
At this point she snapped back: “Lady, had we taken it, I bet you’d be here, complaining about having to pay for food that has been left untouched.”
To be frank, I was quite angry and pretty confused at her reasoning, as was my mom, and seemingly even the manager wasn’t liking her attitude at all, because he said:“Well, [Server], why don’t you come in the kitchen with me?”
The server huffed and crossed her arms while walking inside the kitchen. I’m not quite sure I understand what she was trying to accomplish, but it’s guaranteed that restaurant isn’t on our list of places to go anymore.
