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I'm writing this one for Allan
So at 6 P.M. this evening I realized "Hey! Ike isn't here. We can go out to a real restaurant!" A quick call to Randy for an invite and we agree to meet at Max's on Saratoga at 7:30.
What a way to end Joe's vacation!
We get there at 7:20, just as they are placing a sign "We are closing at 7:30." Okay, its Labor Day, they want to knock off early. That makes sense.
It takes the normal 5-10 to get us seated, and someone asked for our drink order pretty quickly after. From this point on, the evening sucks! (Except for the company of course!) It took another 20 minutes for our drink orders to show up, the waitress took an additional 15 after to take our dinner order. The person who seated us forgot to give us a childrens menu, and when I placed my order I asked for one. The waitress saunters off. 5-10 minutes pass, she brings me the menu. She wanders off. Another 10 minutes, she takes the order for the girls. Randy's appetizer arrives (Heirloom tomato Napoleon with Goat Cheese, greens and sliced, candied almonds. He let me take a taste. Extremely Yummy!).
Time passes.
A lot of time. I ask to speak to a manager. I complain, justifiably, about the unacceptably slow service. She promises to do something.
More time passes.
Dinner finally shows up at 8:30. The girls are crying and unconsolable, they are starving. But our waitress didn't bring the girls dinner. Time passes and she finally brings the Mac and Cheese I ordered for the girls. They are so upset, they refuse to eat. I finally get a couple of bites down Elli and she starts shaking her head no and pushing my hand aside. Gwen never took a bite from Joe. I get one down her and she spits it out. I taste the M n C. There is no taste. There's obviously a cheese sauce on the elbow mac, but it has absolutely no taste or smell whatsoever. (Must be...Meatcake!) No wonder they aren't eating it.
The waitress comes by and asks how dinner is. I bluntly tell her whats wrong. She says she'll bring a manager by. Different manager comes by, I give her the story. She says she'll see what she can do to rectify the problem.
I manage to get the girls to eat some dinner and they calm down. I ask Joe for one of his Buffalo wings. Even though the taste is good, the chicken is really overcooked. Joe finishes up and I pass him a girl and I finally get to eat. I ordered the Papradalle with Roasted Garlic and Heirloom Tomato, with a grilled chicken breast. Sounds great right? Wrong! The sauce has no flavor, the chicken is overcooked, and the garlic is still partially raw. Bleh!
Second manager comes by and says she took our drinks and the girls dinner off the bill and is giving us dessert for free. While waiting for dessert to show to take home so we can get out of this place, I run to the bathroom and involuntarily toss my cookies! Just great!
The girls are exhausted, its after 9:15 by the time we get out of the restaurant. We say good night to Randy and head home.
Now, I've got a violent case of EBS and heartburn. Once again, I've gotten food poisoning. Needless to say, I'm calling Max's tommorrow to bitch again.
It takes the normal 5-10 to get us seated, and someone asked for our drink order pretty quickly after. From this point on, the evening sucks! (Except for the company of course!) It took another 20 minutes for our drink orders to show up, the waitress took an additional 15 after to take our dinner order. The person who seated us forgot to give us a childrens menu, and when I placed my order I asked for one. The waitress saunters off. 5-10 minutes pass, she brings me the menu. She wanders off. Another 10 minutes, she takes the order for the girls. Randy's appetizer arrives (Heirloom tomato Napoleon with Goat Cheese, greens and sliced, candied almonds. He let me take a taste. Extremely Yummy!).
Time passes.
A lot of time. I ask to speak to a manager. I complain, justifiably, about the unacceptably slow service. She promises to do something.
More time passes.
Dinner finally shows up at 8:30. The girls are crying and unconsolable, they are starving. But our waitress didn't bring the girls dinner. Time passes and she finally brings the Mac and Cheese I ordered for the girls. They are so upset, they refuse to eat. I finally get a couple of bites down Elli and she starts shaking her head no and pushing my hand aside. Gwen never took a bite from Joe. I get one down her and she spits it out. I taste the M n C. There is no taste. There's obviously a cheese sauce on the elbow mac, but it has absolutely no taste or smell whatsoever. (Must be...Meatcake!) No wonder they aren't eating it.
The waitress comes by and asks how dinner is. I bluntly tell her whats wrong. She says she'll bring a manager by. Different manager comes by, I give her the story. She says she'll see what she can do to rectify the problem.
I manage to get the girls to eat some dinner and they calm down. I ask Joe for one of his Buffalo wings. Even though the taste is good, the chicken is really overcooked. Joe finishes up and I pass him a girl and I finally get to eat. I ordered the Papradalle with Roasted Garlic and Heirloom Tomato, with a grilled chicken breast. Sounds great right? Wrong! The sauce has no flavor, the chicken is overcooked, and the garlic is still partially raw. Bleh!
Second manager comes by and says she took our drinks and the girls dinner off the bill and is giving us dessert for free. While waiting for dessert to show to take home so we can get out of this place, I run to the bathroom and involuntarily toss my cookies! Just great!
The girls are exhausted, its after 9:15 by the time we get out of the restaurant. We say good night to Randy and head home.
Now, I've got a violent case of EBS and heartburn. Once again, I've gotten food poisoning. Needless to say, I'm calling Max's tommorrow to bitch again.
What a way to end Joe's vacation!
no subject
DON'T JUST CALL THEM.
Every complaint letter supposedly gets read by the executives. Verbal complaints stop with the individual restaurant's manager.
WRITE A LETTER to their corporate headquarters:
Max's Restaurants
120 East Grand Avenue
South San Francisco, CA 94080
Phone 650.873.6297
Fax 650.873.6461
Also, BE SPECIFIC about the behaviors you found unacceptable. Don't just say "it was shitty service", give them specifics, such as:
"At a Max's Restaurant, it should not take 50 minutes for an order to be prepared when the restaurant is mostly empty."
"At no point until the end of the evening, did any of your staff attempt to manage our expectatations. If they had told us up-front that there was a kitchen problem, we could have either adjusted our order or come back another time."
"At any point in the evening, if a manager had come to our table and explained the situation, we would have happily have come back another time; we've always enjoyed Max's in the past, and having someone be honest and up-front about a problem would have improved our opinion of your restaurants."
Re: DON'T JUST CALL THEM.
I am assuming that Randy gave you his version as well. It was a bad way for Joe to end his vacation.