Message: | The recent spirited thread on tipping caused the Old Dirty Grubman to ponder: What bugs me during the dining experience enough to complain to the manager, consider reducing the server’s tip, or decide to never return to the restaurant?
Tho a “general topic,” some complaints will undoubtedly be LA-specific. Let’s see – noise, cell phone boors, star-*ing hosts? What are your primo annoyances?
For the Grubs, it is the compound annoyance of a wait crew that insistently asks “Are you through?” or clears prematurely. Happens most times before one of us (that would be La Bella Gruba) is finished with a course. Sometimes they actually grab a plate without or before asking. Always snag our bread before the last lovely slug of wine is quaffed.
Case in point. Last dinner at Alto Palato (formerly a Grub favorite), this sense of bum’s rush became so intense that the Obergrupen Grub actually stood up to look one of the servers in the eye to say sweetly, “Please don’t take our bread before we are finished with our wine.” Not surprisingly, the server not only did not attempt to take the bread again, but he never again returned to the table – even to deliver the check.
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