15 Restaurant Pet Peeves

Joe and I at Le Bernardin,
where I had no such complaints

The first post I wrote for this blog was full of complaints about restaurants, particularly the waitstaff. A few years later, my resentment has only grown. Restaurants have lower standards. Servers are less competent. I am grouchier. It is time to enumerate my pet peeves as a restaurant-goer once again.

Joe, my long-suffering husband and dining companion, thinks I am too touchy and finds my complaining cringeworthy. You be the judge; I am unlikely to change.

I hate it when:

1. The host or hostess seats me directly under a fan or vent, which always makes me ask for a new table.

2. The music is too loud to talk over. This makes me ask the server to turn it down. (I also hate it when the music is too soft to hear, when it's music I don't like, and when it's music that I do like, but I will save those complaints for another day.)

3. The server brings me sparkling water over ice, which dilutes the bubbles.

4. The server calls sweeteners “the pink stuff,” or yellow or blue, or even white. (The “white stuff” is sugar.) You are in the serving business. Learn that pink is the dreaded Sweet’N Low (or saccharine, the worst), yellow is Splenda, and blue is Equal. When a restaurant tells me they only have “the pink stuff,” it enrages me and makes me want to leave.

5. The server refills my iced tea without asking, disrupting the balance between my preferred sweetener (the yellow stuff) and the tea.

6. The server explains the menu to me as if I’ve never eaten before.

7. The server rattles off the specials so quickly that they sound like one continuous item - a nebulous concept rather than a bulleted list. 

8. I tell the server my soup is too cold, and the kitchen sends it back so hot I can only call it “f@ck-you” hot. This happens to me all the time.

9. The server brings out all courses at once: appetizers, salads, and mains.

10. The server asks me how my food tastes while I am eating. (I included this pet peeve in my inaugural blog post. This is my #1 pet peeve.) Aside from not wanting to talk with my mouth full, I wonder why they are so unsure about the food that they have to ask how it tastes. My usual response is a thumbs-up, but I might start giving a "so-so" gesture instead. That would rock their world.

11. The server thinks they’re doing me a favor by bringing two forks for dessert. Forget that. I don’t believe in sharing dessert.

12. When clearing, the server stacks the plates. The only thing worse is when they stack the plates on the table. My mother would have driven a fork through the back of their hand.

13. I ask for the check because I want to leave, and the server brings it and says there is “no rush.” If I wanted to linger, I would not have asked for the check in the first place. Then they disappear without taking my card. I have often seen the server standing around, talking. They think they are doing me a favor by dilly-dallying.

14. The server hands me a box to pack my leftovers. This started during the pandemic. In what world does expecting a customer to pack their own food count as good service? Then they expect a tip.

15. The server asks whether it’s one check or two. If I ask for “the check” in the singular, it’s safe to assume it’s one check. Additionally, I believe there’s some latent homophobia in the way two men, Joe and I, are always asked whether it’s one check.

Given all these complaints, you might wonder why I still dine out. I ask myself the same question.

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