Sometimes it Pays to Complain

Last week, I read a restaurant “review” in the New York Times written by Frank Bruni, which reminded me of a dinner I had with my mother and her husband a few months ago. He was writing about the new Upper East Side restaurant Bloomingdale Road. Bloomingdale Road has been on my radar screen for a while now, mainly because I majored in History and have an abiding love of New York City History. Bloomingdale Road was the old name of Broadway, well one of the names that Broadway used to go by. Despite the name, the menu seems to be a whimsical take on standard-fare comfort foods (grass-fed sliders, buffalo chicken lollipops, coca-cola glazed ham, &c.); rather than a return to the foods of Old New York…which is what I was hoping for when I first heard about this place.
Anyway, Bruni was maybe a little unkind (to the point that he didn’t actually bother to rate the restaurant), and one Times reader posted a review, giving the restaurant one star. They claimed, “the service was terrible. One member of our party didn't get his meal until the check was delivered. There were no apologies offered by the waiter, no offered adjustments to the final bill. The food was as dismal as the service.” I immediately thought back to that night at dinner with my mother and her husband.
We went to a very highly Zagat-rated restaurant in New Brunswick, New Jersey and had a meal that was nothing short of awful. Right after we were seated I snuck off to the “bathroom,” found our waiter and informed him that it was their anniversary and that while I wasn’t looking for anything special, I wanted to make sure the staff was attentive to their needs. My mother ordered an appetizer of seared foie gras, she received a Swiss Chard tart. When we alerted our server, he removed the tart (which would’ve been thrown in the trash…another pet peeve of mine) and then returned fifteen minutes later with the proper appetizer. At this point, we had inquired after her dish once before and my step-father and I both finished our appetizers. Our waiter did a half-assed job of apologizing and we moved on to our entrées. Once again, my mother was on the short end of the stick. She ordered a Berkshire Pork Porterhouse, medium…because ya’know, she wanted to taste the pork. Her entrée was the third to arrive at the table and when she cut into it she discovered that her medium piece of pork had been cooked to well done “perfection.” Dare I say, that the meat had been cooked so far beyond well done that I could have put one of my loafers on a plate and it would’ve been barely indistinguishable from her pork. A second time, our waiter had to be called over and informed of the situation. He left and returned about fifteen minutes later with a properly cooked porterhouse. Shortly thereafter, a woman who I assume was the general manager or the waiter-captain came over to our table and informed us that my mother’s glass of wine was gratis. She then felt the need to add, “I know its not a free appetizer or an entrée, but at least it’s something.” I was so shocked that a restaurant employee would have the gall to say something like that, my jaw nearly hit the table! To add insult to injury, when our waiter brought a platter of assorted “complimentary” sorbets, it looked as though the platter had spent a few minutes sitting on the pass; because the platter held nothing more than pools of melted fruit puree.
We left the restaurant that night disappointed, and I left especially pissed off because I felt like the staff let me down. But I didn’t get on the New York Times to complain (although I did get on Zagat and savage them), or sit and stew in the dark in silence…I wrote a letter. I wrote a long angry letter to the owners of the restaurant highlighting the problems with the service and food. When I was done, I sent it off and essentially forgot about it. About a week later, I received a letter of apology from one of the owners along with a gift certificate for a free dinner for three people.
I know it’s a pain to sit down and compose your thoughts on paper or even via e-mail, and I know most people in this world have an attention span of about 40 seconds, but taking the time to write a letter is actually a win-win situation. The restaurant wins because no matter how scathing your letter, it will actually improve the restaurant…so long as they have management that cares. They will talk to their staff and they will probably hang it up outside the office so that every waiter who walks by will be reminded of it when they walk by. And you win, because if they do care, they might try to make amends; and even if they don’t send you a gift certificate you will have made the experience of every person who eats there after you, better.
So the next time you go to a restaurant and have a bad meal; don’t get mad, get even.