Interesting experience eating out last night that reminded me of this thread. My dad ordered a special that included two meats--like lobster and steak. When it came out, one was fine, but the other was kind of cold. He put the good one on a separate plate and asked the server to warm the cold one up. In terms of textbook hospitality management, I think the restaurant did exactly what they were supposed to (and maybe even more)--the server apologized, the manager came over to apologize, they made my dad a whole new piece of the meat he sent back which was easily twice as large as his original,
and they gave us a free dessert.
Of course, what my dad really would have preferred was that they just zap his original piece of meat in the microwave, and bring it right back out. He finished his other meat and then just sat there with nothing to do while Mom and I ate; and then when they brought his new meat out, we had to sit and wait for him to eat it all. And it was more than he had wanted to eat. And he's trying to lose weight, so he had one or two bites of the dessert and that was it. (Of course my mom and I polished that off for him!) And, we didn't know that they were planning to make him a whole new piece of meat or give us a free dessert--if they had asked, he would've just said to warm up the meat somehow, it's no big deal.
So I'm not saying he was
mad or anything, and I think we were all impressed with the service on a certain level, but it was actually almost
too much for what he perceived as a minor problem that could've had a quick fix. Yeah, they just can't win, can they?
