What is your worst restaurant experience?

My worst was IHOP. Biscuits that could have caused a head injury and gravy that tasted like it was left over from WWII.

I haven't stepped inside an IHOP since.

It's because parents decide to take their screaming fucking kid(s) to the restaurant and the fucking kid(s) doesn't ever shut the hell up and the parents just sit there and let the demon spawn keep screaming and screaming...

:grr: :grr: :grr:

I've only had that happen a few times. When I took my fucking kids to the restaurant they were always on their best behavior. We don't do demon spawn. :)

but a lot do.

If the "offending" family complains, just tell them you're only trying to compete in the kid's obvious screaming contest, as that could be the only legitimate reason he's screaming his head off nonstop and they aren't doing anything about it

:)

Everybody there was having a great time, and the food was awesome--buffet-style country food. Then this cranky, self-absorbed asshole had to start loudly bitching about other peoples' kids. Apparently, some people can't read--or perhaps were too stupid to comprehend that the "Evers Family Restaurant" name probably meant that children would be present. Honestly, the kids weren't even being bad! There was one cranky, teething youngster who fussed twice before getting distracted again by food, but that was it.

Man, I hate sanctimonious assholes like that. It's like going into a cigar bar and then bitching about the smoke.

:crazy:

Two separate bad experiences made me swear never to go back.

First: Slow service, but not terribly so. However, finding an inch-long, very sharp, very solid fish bone in my stew by nearly choking on it was not at all pleasant.

Second: I've seen glaciers move faster than the so-called service that night. The server completely ignored us -- hell, for all I know, the hostess forgot to inform him we were there. When it's been 30 minutes since we sat down, and nobody's so much as taken our drink order, AND people who were seated after us are being served, something's very wrong. Walked out and never returned.

at a Vietnamese place, someone was seated down opposite me in the same booth I was sitting at, before I finished! They thought by the looks of it that I was about done eating and I would be leaving soon. They sat down another guy right there, facing me! Needless to say I finished very quickly and got the hell out of there - never to return.

Its a regional chain specializing in 'char-burgers.' In 1967 they made the best burger I'd ever had, and from that period it became my mom's favorite eating place. So in 2002 or so I load up mom, wife, our daughter and head to Goldies for Sat. evening dinner. Its middle of summer and things are slow in a college town. We are seated and promptly given our drinks and our order taken. After 25 minutes we had not seen our waitress or any other employee other than a manager and cashier yakking it up at the register. We get up, and I walk up to the manager, "What do I owe you for 2 waters and 2 cokes?" He says, "What's the problem?" I said, "We ordered 25 minutes ago and never got our food." So in his highest ability of customer services says, "$2.50 plus tax" and I tossed $3 bucks and walked out.

I tell this story to every person who ever, EVER mentions Goldies. There was no, "Your dinner's on me," or "No, charge, sorry."

BTW, I KNOW it was 25 minutes because I check my watch.

shame it went downhill like that.

Whole, hiding under the fried rice.

for Valentine's day a number of years back and still had to wait ALMOST TWO HOURS to get a seat. It's in the middle of nowhere so there is no alternative. When they did seat us, it was next to the most obnoxious, loud, drunken, idiots you could possibly think of with no consideration about anything around them.

Food was great, but the evening sucked...

"The Yearling?"

Did they serve deer? :scared:

Where Marjorie Rawlings books were written...

I'll never forget it. My brother and I had no idea what to do.

My fiance and I took my parents out to dinner.

We made reservations and everything. All proper.

Well, the restaurant was down a chef that night. We sat there from about 7 - 11:30.

Worst restaurant night of my life. :P

Dear GOD, I hated that place.

I ate there...once...back in the days before "smoking sections" were in vogue, let alone "no smoking" rules in restaurants. In walks a couple, real Cletus & Brandine or Britney & K-Fed types...and they were both chain smokers. I remember an Asian guy flipping food in the air while my girlfriend and I choked on second-hand smoke. That was my Benihana adventure.

:grr:

After I was nearly finished. :puke:

A friend and I went there to try our hands at liking sushi. My friend was a fan and I was not, but we were thinking about traveling to Japan together to teach English, so we decided we'd get a jump start on liking the cuisine and all that. So we went to Japango, where they have a $27 all-you-can-eat deal for sushi.

So, we ate the sushi. I can't judge in terms of quality because I don't like sushi, but the stuff I liked was pretty good. Our server was good in terms of bringing out dishes, but not in terms of refilling our water. Seeing as I wasn't really fond of the sushi, I was drinking water, and the guy serving us never refilled my glass, so I had to resort to eating the ice.

*CRUNCH*

I bit right down onto a piece of broken glass that was sitting at the bottom of my glass, blended in with the ice. Thankfully I didn't cut myself, though I'm sure it was a matter of centimeters. I spit out the ice and brought it to the attention of the waiter when he finally returned. I didn't get mad or upset, though I was certainly within my right to do so. I told him to check their pitchers because I had bitten down on a chunk of broken glass.

The guy didn't even apologize. He didn't even get me a new glass of water. He didn't even fill up my empty glass!

Never again will I go back there. Mostly because of the sushi thing, but also because of the whole "I chomped down on a piece of broken glass and your server couldn't be bothered to apologize" thing.

and I knew there was a pasta restaurant right near the auditorium.

I went in and was seated immediately in the full restaurant with 75 minutes to go before the beginning of the performance. I ordered a glass of wine, which came immediately, and pasta with pesto. After I had sipped my wine down to the bottom of the glass, I looked around and noticed that only three of the people who had been there when I arrived had their food yet.

Forty-five minutes before the performance, I look at the far end of the restaurant to the open kitchen, which I saw, to my horror, was populated by sleepwalking zombies. No, not really, they just moved like sleepwalking zombies.

Pasta with pesto should be easy. I used to frequent a restaurant in Portland that specialized in quick and easy pasta meals. It had several sauces ready and kept hot, and when you ordered something, the cooks behind the counter tossed pasta of the required shape into hot water, and when it was done, they drained it, put the appropriate sauce on it, and added salad and bread. Elapsed time: ten minutes max.

But the sleepwalking zombies were not nearly as efficient. Oh no. The two (count'em, two!) cooks leisurely made each sauce from scratch, even though they served only three kinds: pesto, marinara, and alfredo.

Finally, my pasta with pesto came--twenty minutes before the beginning of the performance. (Oh, did I mention that they had one waitress for about twenty tables?) It took ten minutes to walk to the auditorium, so I gulped down my pasta and just made it to my seat as the curtain rose.

I was not surprised when this abysmally managed restaurant closed after a couple of months.

Mexican food where the beans were BURNED. The whole thing was inedible, and I sent it back to the kitchen.

That's the only time I've ever done that.

easily wins the honor of "worst hot sandwich in the world." I took two bites, pushed it aside, and threw up all over the floor less than five minutes later after an agonizing attempt to hold it in. I couldn't even make it to the bathroom, it hit so hard.

Before anyone asks, I was only on my first beer at the time, so it wasn't booze that made me puke - but that's the way the assholes who ran the place treated me.

The first one was the whipped cream seasoned with salt instead of sugar.
The second one was the rotten steamed crab. It was years before I would eat whole crab in a restaurant again....

but the whipped cream with salt reminds me of a story my pastry teacher once told, to emphasize to us about checking your ingredients before using them.

He had been invited to do the pastries and deserts at a 5-star restaurant here in Houston (La Colombe d'Or, for those that know of it.) One thing that is common in both restaurants that do their own deserts as well as bakeries is the use of these big plastic roll-around bins for sugar, flours, and salt. He made the mistake of not checking his ingredients and went ahead to make up his cakes, his recipe calling for two pounds of sugar. Only they came out almost flat, no rising. When he tasted one, he knew he had mistaken the salt bin for the sugar bin (neither was marked.)

He at least caught it with time to correct his mistake, but I'm surprised any chef making anything would not be tasting the final product in some way before it went out. There's no excuse for that.

on the tip of my tongue...a sharp metallic taste...and realizing this ain't sugar.

given it wasn't the best day of my life as I had just found out that I had to repeat a course over the summer and my parents stormed out...so I go out to dinner alone. The restaurant was nearly empty. I order a $20 entree and the waiter grimaces at me. I get my beverage and the waiter slams it down on the table. I ask for more water and he fills it wordlessly. My food arrives and he just about tosses it onto the table. Clearly, he was just thrilled to be serving me.

I go out of my way to make serving me a pleasure...I've worked in restaurants and food-service since I was 15. I bend over backwards to be accommodating and pleasant to servers. I left the fuckwit a $4 tip on a $40 tab. I should have made it $2 but I knew from having friends who worked in that restaurant that the busboys get tipped-out by the waitstaff and the busser was a joy. He fetched me gin and tonics for an hour and only put 2 beverages on the tab.

Story has a happy ending, the busboy is now the manager after working there for about 15 years.

and good on the busboy for understanding the business :D

A twenty dollar entree.........and he's pissed? Was that the cheapest thing there?

I think he just wanted to slack off and I was interfering with his slackness. That makes no sense to me...server's wage in DC at that time was something like $4/hr. (This was back in 2002.) so if he wasn't waiting on me (and the 3 or 4 families in there) he'd have made nothing all shift. He still did make almost nothing off serving me, but that was his fault.

...somewhat hip/bohemian, but it was downright nasty. When my brother and I went there for lunch, there were winged termites everywhere. At the time, I ate meat, and there were termites in my chili dog I ordered, with wings still flapping. I informed my waitress that my food was moving, but she really didn't care. We walked out - without paying for or eating our food - and as we passed the kitchen, they were spraying openly for termites around all the food they were cooking.

If you ever come to Nashville, and think it's "cool" to go to Brown's Diner, just remember to not eat the food.

I've had nothing but good experiences at Brown's, but I would definitely hold a grudge after one like that.



Rotier's is definitely the place to go if you want that kind of atmosphere, and better food.

...reputation. I could go on.

Rotier's is definitely a good place for those who desire that type of food. I'm friends with the family who owns it, and it is rare that a place like that stays in the family. But it has.

We had to wait a long time to get seated even though the place wasn't crowded because no one was paying attention to the front entrance. They got my friend's order wrong. Twice!
My food was horrible. The waiter spilled a drink all over the table that got on both of us. Some kids were screaming at another table. Everything that could go wrong happened in one night.

OMG... that place used to be great but I went there last year. Ordered the carnitas plate. Not only was it served cold, but when they brought it back reheated, it tasted like I was eating shredded newspaper. I knew it was going to be bad when I saw banners outside that said "under new management".

I was so sick I wanted to die.

I was traveling with a group of friends from the DC area to Detroit for a comic collector's convention, and as we got to Pittsburgh, someone suggested stopping for lunch. The Kings restaurant was at the next exit, and one of the group mentioned that the food was good, so we stopped.

There were 6 of us (including my then 3 yr old daughter)--4 girls, 1 guy, and a pre-schooler--all dressed in assorted leather jackets and comic-hero t-shirts and such, but nothing outlandish or scary. The host, however, decided to seat us as far from the rest of civilization as he could by putting our group into the enclosed-on-3-sides 'party room'. I asked for a booster seat for my little one as he was ushering us in, but i never saw him again after that.

10 minutes later, i walked to the front of the place, acquired my own booster for her, and flagged down a waitress to inquire when someone would be with us. She shrugged and said that she'd tell the server who's section that was. We waited for almost 10 minutes longer before a server appeared to take our orders and get our beverages. She was clearly annoyed to have drawn the short straw and be stuck with us.

5 minutes later, we finally get our drinks, but it takes another half-hour to get our meals--nothing complicated, just burgers and fries--and even then, a couple of the burgers were cold.

I finally told the server that she needed to send the manager back to us immediately. We gave him 9 kinds of hell for this whole carnival of stupid, and he comped the check.

~*~*~

I have been back in there one time... just once.
The same group of friends went with me to get breakfast after a concert we'd gone to P-burgh for. In my truck, i always kept an assortment of macabre 'toys' to annoy gawkers with-- things like rubber skulls, or those plastic severed limbs that you see for sale around Halloween.

Anyway, i brought one of my 'toys' in... a severed left hand and arm. I gave it one of the cups of coffee that i we had ordered, and then when we went to pay the check, it got 'accidentally' left in the middle of the table. *L*

~*~*~

No... as a matter of fact, i haven't been back... why do you ask?! :shrug:

My friend and I were in the one at Kenmore Square at 9 at night long before anyone comes in from the club crowd, and the waitress couldn't handle simple requests, like bringing some ketchup. She got a dime left as a tip, just to make sure she knew we didn't just forget.

The worst was at an Applebee's four years ago. Waitress was on the phone, screwing up everyone's orders in the joint, and generally giving everyone the "I couldn't care less, I'm so cute" attitude.

Mexican restaurant. It was a long time ago.

My fiance, now my husband, had no problem with his food. They did not charge for mine - DUH! But we had to pay the rest of the check.

I was pissed at dh and the restaurant. We should have been comped, and dh should have joined me in leaving immediately.

I cook for my housemates, have been doing so for a few months now
since I became homeless and they were kind enough to let me crash
in a corner of their basement.

The other week, they all decided to take me out for dinner
to "someplace special", to thank me for all the fine cuisine
I've provided them with.

Now, in light of the fact that these folks didn't have a cheese-grater,
a potato-peeler, or (I shit you not) a CUTTING BOARD when I first arrived,
it shouldn't come as any surprise that their idea of "Someplace Special"
was AppleBees at the Mall.

AppleBees has an "appetizer platter" entree option-
it's a list of 10 small things, and you can pick any 3
from the list to go on one plate.

I ordered that, I looked our waitress in the eye as I ordered that platter,
and told her I wanted: Mini Cheeseburgers, Spicy shrimp, and beef mini-burritos...
She repeated it back to as I ordered it...
and she then wrote "chicken-fried chicken" on her order pad.

I know she wrote that, because the eventual discord created by 3 waitrresses
circling the establishment with large trays of food asking for the table
that ordered "chicken-fried chicken" eventually brought the Manager out,
and the Manager dug up our waitress and her orderpad wherein she had
written down every order correctly until mine. She had every order on her pad,
and they were all correct until she got to mine.

I said "Mini Cheeseburgers, Spicy shrimp, and beef mini-burritos"
she said "Mini Cheeseburgers, Spicy shrimp, and beef mini-burritos",
and she repeated it, she wrote "chicken-fried chicken" on her pad.

Not really my WORST restaurant experience but one of my most SURREALISTIC.

I only had one bite but it had an extremely distinctive urine flavor.

I wrote an e-mail complaining to the manager and his only response was that they had passed three health inspections the previous year. No apology, no free meal or discounts in the future. I was tempted to write back "oh well, as long as you passed your health inspections I guess I wasn't served a steak that tastes like pee" but it didn't seem worth it.

I'm kicking myself that I didn't get a doggy bag for the steak and then take it for analysis in a lab. I could have had a great class action lawsuit going there.

but I do remember the last time I stepped into a TGIF. That was last year, summer I think.

I got seated, everything normal until I look at the newly revised menu. I'm a vegetarian and normally I would have ordered a really good grilled portabello-melt sandwich with a wonderful roasted red pepper soup. I was really wanting that soup as it's a favorite. Only it wasn't on the menu anymore. Okay, they dropped it. I guess I'll have a salad. However, every salad is made with some kind of meat now. At this point I don't even trust the house salad, and that's not going to be enough to eat since they don't have any veggie sides or appetizers without meat in them (that I recall.) So, after a frustrating explanation to the waitress I told them they couldn't feed me and walked out.

I only get an hour for lunch even as a "professional" and they get antsy if you take even ten minutes more than that. I wasted a quarter of my lunch hour finding all that out and went to Panera when I had thought of doing so to begin with

It was back in May 1998. My first time in the USA. I figured my then to-be wife might know of some nice Italian restaurant to go to (I sure knew of one back home... been there, wonderful place, shame it's closed down and replaced by something else now). Anyway, she said "Olive Garden". Well, I didn't know any better, and said OK, tonight we're going to dinner there.

Now I love lasagne, and my mother makes a killer lasagne (no she's not Italian but it's just excellent). The Italian restaurants round my home area make it similar, but my mother puts more meat and mushrooms in it and less pasta. In my opinion, a good Italian restaurant must be able to make a good lasagne.

So I went along with my (now) wife, unknown to her I had a ring with me and ready for a proposal (well a proposal take 2, I proposed once before in a Garfunkels restaurant in London without said ring and she said yes) of marriage. The proposal went through great and yes for the second time she said yes... the ring was a little tight ... but that's not what I remember most.

I just remember that Olive Garden's lasagne is the most disgusting excuse for the dish ever. Lasagne is supposed to have MEAT in it. Maybe a tomato sauce. This lasagne was pasta, cheese-stuff, pasta, pasta, repeat, pasta. Maybe with a splodge of tomato sauce but full of pasta... rubbery bouncy pasta! I kid you not I bet if I dropped it off the dish and onto the floor it would bounce back onto the plate! I did not throw up, it wasn't bad, and because I was hungry I ate it. I guess usually because when you want the memory to be good, if it's connected with food you want it to be at least OK... but this just wasn't. The whole experience was ruined to me by this substandard excuse for Italian cuisine.

Now Olive Garden can do some food well... but other dishes have disappointed me on occasion too... but that lasagne has left the lasting impression. I guess it's how McDonalds would do Italian, if they launched a chain of Italian restaurants.

Bottom line: Olive Garden says "Italian Restaurant". An Italian restaurant worth its salt doesn't have to say it's Italian.

I *have* found good lasagne in Greensboro. It's at a place called Pascali's. Now they make it different too but way good different. Almost as good as my mothers... I might dare say better but my mother might eventually read this...

Mark.

on my plate.

Called the waitress over....asked her, "what's this?" She looked, then looked again. She said, "looks like a dead grasshopper".

She promptly took my plate away, and of course, there was no charge for the dinner(s)....mine nor my companion's.

:rofl: It's funny NOW, but 'not so much' at the time. :-)

Seventh grade in French Class we had some type of a la carte potluck "international" food fest where different people would bring in various food items from around the world.

I remember picking up some sort of pastry type of food, turning it around and seeing some sort of beetle or insect baked right into it. Ugh!