imported_Tomato
Diamond Member
Last night, I went out to dinner with my boss, my boss's boss, my coworker, and the finance manager of our department to celebrate making our numbers and all that good stuff. We went to a place called Rockenwagner, which was supposedly better than Cafe Del Rey, where we had originally planned to go.
High/lowlight of the evening: My coworker found a freakin' 1-inch shard of jagged glass in his mashed potatoes. As he was eating them, he suddenly had a strange look on his face, reached into his mouth, and pulled it out. All of us gawked at it, and I scraped it on the table (cutting the tablecloth) to make sure it was indeed glass. Had he chomped down on it, he would have cut up the roof of his mouth and his tongue. We called over the waiter, who looked at us with a blank stare as we presented him with the glass. "I don't know how it got in there, I'm just the watier." He brought my coworker a new plate of filet mignon with french fries, and at the end of the meal, we looked at the bill and saw that only his meal had been comped.
Now, if I were a restaurant owner and one of my patrons found a piece of GLASS in his meal, I would've been on my knees apologizing, and comped the whole table and then some. My boss's boss and my boss (both very aggressive, speak-your-mind, independent women... those easily intimidated might even think of a word that rhymes with "witch") couldn't believe it, and called over the owner. They thought more should have been comped (out of principle, not payment, which wasn't an issue), explained the situation, and the owner said, "I was told it was a piece of plastic."
Um, no. It was freakin' GLASS.
The owner turned to my coworker and asked, "Well, are you hurt?"
My coworker said, "Well, no, but I don't think that's the point here."
The owner said, "If you're not hurt, then what's the problem?"
O_O
All of us were incredulous. There were more words exchanged, including this quote by the owner: "I don't tell you how to run your business, so don't tell me how to run mine."
The owner of Rockenwagner handled the situation EXTREMELY poorly, with no regard for customer satisfaction or even basic decency/politeness. I was in shock the whole time... I couldn't believe the owner was actually on the DEFENSIVE, when it was his restaurant's bad. We finally said, "Just give us the bill and we'll go"... and we did.
So... moral of the story is, NEVER eat at the Rockenwagner Restaurant in Santa Monica. Unless you like shards of glass in your food.
Feel free to post your own restaurant horror stories (or recommendations, if you've had particularly positive experiences).
Cliff's Notes: Don't eat at the Rockenwagner Restaurant in Santa Monica... coworker found a piece of glass in his food, owner of the restaurant was indignant with an "If you weren't hurt by it, what's the problem" attitude.
High/lowlight of the evening: My coworker found a freakin' 1-inch shard of jagged glass in his mashed potatoes. As he was eating them, he suddenly had a strange look on his face, reached into his mouth, and pulled it out. All of us gawked at it, and I scraped it on the table (cutting the tablecloth) to make sure it was indeed glass. Had he chomped down on it, he would have cut up the roof of his mouth and his tongue. We called over the waiter, who looked at us with a blank stare as we presented him with the glass. "I don't know how it got in there, I'm just the watier." He brought my coworker a new plate of filet mignon with french fries, and at the end of the meal, we looked at the bill and saw that only his meal had been comped.
Now, if I were a restaurant owner and one of my patrons found a piece of GLASS in his meal, I would've been on my knees apologizing, and comped the whole table and then some. My boss's boss and my boss (both very aggressive, speak-your-mind, independent women... those easily intimidated might even think of a word that rhymes with "witch") couldn't believe it, and called over the owner. They thought more should have been comped (out of principle, not payment, which wasn't an issue), explained the situation, and the owner said, "I was told it was a piece of plastic."
Um, no. It was freakin' GLASS.
The owner turned to my coworker and asked, "Well, are you hurt?"
My coworker said, "Well, no, but I don't think that's the point here."
The owner said, "If you're not hurt, then what's the problem?"
O_O
All of us were incredulous. There were more words exchanged, including this quote by the owner: "I don't tell you how to run your business, so don't tell me how to run mine."
The owner of Rockenwagner handled the situation EXTREMELY poorly, with no regard for customer satisfaction or even basic decency/politeness. I was in shock the whole time... I couldn't believe the owner was actually on the DEFENSIVE, when it was his restaurant's bad. We finally said, "Just give us the bill and we'll go"... and we did.
So... moral of the story is, NEVER eat at the Rockenwagner Restaurant in Santa Monica. Unless you like shards of glass in your food.
Feel free to post your own restaurant horror stories (or recommendations, if you've had particularly positive experiences).
Cliff's Notes: Don't eat at the Rockenwagner Restaurant in Santa Monica... coworker found a piece of glass in his food, owner of the restaurant was indignant with an "If you weren't hurt by it, what's the problem" attitude.
