Thursday, April 21, 2011

"Well the Menu Says..."

Let me just tell you right now, it doesn't.  The menu doesn't say, bread included, or bread would be on your plate now wouldn't it?  Still, you would think I had absolutely no idea what the menu says because I get this question at least once a night. 
My favorite occurence of this was one evening, a father at a table of four ordered a pasta dish with bruschetta on top.  Now folks, bruschetta is a blend of diced tomatoes and basil that is often placed upon toast and consumed as an appetizer.  For this entree, the tomato blend is rather placed on top of the pasta, 86 toast.  [For the non-server community 86 is a term servers use to remove something from an entree]  However, this table was under the impression that bruschetta was toast, and upon not recieving their 'toast' with their meal, proceeded to argue with me that toast was included in their meal. 
Now here is where the table really went wrong:  "Well the menu says bruschetta is included".  STOP.  Rewind.  Would you like me to not only tell you verbatim what the menu says, but also tell you what other entrees are listed on that page, what they each include, list all of our side items from memory, and then tell you exactly how your order is made, from morning prep to it being brought out of the kitchen?  Because I can.  I know you may think I am unintelligent because I am only a server, but I have worked here for two and a half years, been asked every question in the book, and worked preparing the food in the kitchen.  I am pretty sure I know what I am talking about, yet this family was positive I didn't.
First, I informed them bruschetta was the tomato blend on top of their pasta, so they had received their bruschetta.  Second, I retrieved a menu, pointed to the item in the menu [and here comes my favorite part], where it did not in fact state that toast was included in their meal.  But of course, my restaurant's policy is the customer is always right and "Every Guest Leaves Happy", so, after proving my point, I walk to the back, get them their basket of toast that they so desperately needed, and apologize for the confusion, maybe I should clarify next time.

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