I understand the need to save money in the current economic crisis. Or whatever you want to call the situation we’re all in. But there are certain times when cost cutting measures come to my attention and just…piss me off. One is splitting a dish at a restaurant, the other is asking for all the freebies your table can handle.
I’m not against splitting a meal, especially as most restaurants serve portions rightfully designed for two or three people. And it is a great cost cutting measure if you and your dinner partner would like to enjoy an appetizer, entrée and dessert. Most of us don’t have the stomach capacity to handle that much food. But if you’re out there splitting an appetizer, then splitting a bowl of mac n cheese, you need to assess your ability to dine out that evening.
It would be fantastic to be able to afford to eat out at least once every week, but when budgets get tight you need to adjust. If a $3 bowl of pasta and cheese is going to break you, then turn around and go home. For the same price you can make a huge bowl of mac n cheese to eat for not only dinner, but lunch the next few days. And while no restaurant will give you grief about splitting an item I can tell you that it can annoy the cooks to no end. Especially when it’s a busy night and you’re asking to have your $5 appetizer put on 4 different plates.
But what really gets to me are the freebies, such as sauces or drink refills. I’m not sure what motivates people to ask for a bowl of ketchup, but I can assure you they are what I would term “assholes.” Yes, I said it. The customers who came in the other day and ordered 2 burgers for their table – which meant 2 orders of fries – wanted a soup bowl full of ketchup and those people are assholes. There was no reason for it other than they knew ketchup was free, so they got as much as possible. Did they eat the entire bowl of ketchup? I doubt it.
And that’s the other thing that gets my knickers in a twist about the people asking for freebies; I’ll watch as the servers return to the kitchen with ramekins nearly full of the sauces I had just sent out because the customer just had to have cocktail sauce and tartar sauce for their shrimp. Meanwhile the dish they ordered only included 6 shrimp in total, making it completely unnecessary to have 4 oz of sauces.
If you want to know whether chefs get annoyed by special requests to have sauce on the side, or have a dish prepared a different way, the answer is yes. Usually. It’s not really a burden and we do a job that is designed to make you enjoy your dining experience. I want you to enjoy every moment, but don’t think I’m stupid when you start asking for extras constantly. I see it, I know the server and table I’m dealing with, and I judge you. I judge you for being a cheapskate. I judge you for making your server have to run around getting extra items from cooks who are fed up with the shenanigans. And I do indeed judge you for leaving that abysmal tip. I don’t see any tip money, but I know when you leave a horrible tip. Ironically it’s the people asking for freebies that leave the worst tips.
Most of us with etiquette and standards will make adjustments to our tip giving ways when we start asking for extra items. If I were at a table that asked for a bowl of ketchup you can be sure I’d up the tip by a few bucks. Why? Because despite being an asshole most of my waking life, when I’m in a restaurant I treat the people who are serving me with a little respect.
