Sunday 11 November 2007

A Happy Birthday Blowout

I was looking forward to going out with DH to celebrate his birthday. We planned to check out a restaurant that we had never visited then head to a movie. Yeah I know, wild and crazy time.

It was a school night so we didn't need to go overboard since both of us get up at zero dark and stupid during the week.

We decided to try Montana's Cookhouse. (For those of you in the Ottawa area it's the one in South Keys) It's a restaurant with a "home home on the range" feel. I almost expected a group of ranch hands to show up for some chow. When you get to your table you find it covered with a sheet of brown paper. We weren't the only other adults, in the place, to take advantage of the crayons provided, at each table, to colour.

Everything was fine, until our food arrived....that's when the evening started to go downhill. The waitress brought us our orders and left. We sat there, looked at each other and commented how nice it would be to have napkins and cutlery with our food. The description of my meal, in the menu, didn't quite line up with what I received either. Also, if I want pasta that tastes like it came from a box with powdered sauce, I'll stay home and make it myself.

We eventually got our cutlery and napkins, I sent my meal back, things were said by a staff member and I just shook my head in disbelief.
DH : That was patronizing!

He is clearly not impressed at this point.

We finish our meal and it is now time for dessert. But wait.....another server comes rushing over to our table and, without a word, grabs our dessert menu from our table and brings it over to customers on the other side of the room.

That's it!!! I've had it!!! All I want to do is leave that place...ASAP!!!

Normally, I'd just go to the manager, complain about the service and give him/her a chance to make it right. Hard to do when he was the rudest staff member we had to deal with that night.

Montana's has a website set up for feedback where we will be entered into a draw. I don't think that we will win the $1000 weekly draw, with my comments. But at this point, I don't care!

Until next time
Yours in Yarn,
The Fibreholic

8 comments:

Susan said...

I will never visit Montana's again due to that particular location. The paper and crayons are by far the best thing about the restaurant... the food is indifferent, as well as the service.
Write a letter to the manager's manager, or the franchise owner. Watch the fur fly.

Anonymous said...

Interesting. I don't live too far from there, but I've never eaten there. I'm not a big restaurant person.
Gillian

MadMad said...

Aw, man! That stinks! I'm sorry! I hate when that kind of thing happens - and when you're trying to celebrate, too! Poor DH. (Course if he didn't go around losing his sweaters, maybe karma wouldn't come back to bite him! ;) Just kidding, of course. I just can never resist...)

Kathy said...

I've always had this idea for an invention. The Tip-O-Meter. It's a device that sits on the table and lets the server know what's coming, tip wise. I haven't decided yet whether it displays an actual number, or whether it just has a green, yellow, red system. I'm thinking if I had such a thing I would never again have to sit in a restaurant with an empty glass hoping to make eye contact with my server.

Nancy said...

Boy, they sure didn't do too well at making his birthday happy. I sure hope you did complain to the web site. Tell him Happy Birthday.
Nancy

TinkingBell said...

See in Australia, we pay our serving staff reasonable wages and the tip is entirely voluntary on the part of the customer. Good service good tip - (Aussies aren't great tippers generally) but in North America we found people expected a tip even when the service was ghastly - occasionally I didn't oblige - I really hope on this occasion you didn't either!

Georgie said...

That is totally unforgivable and its awful that it happened on poor DHs birthday.

I'll be interested to see if you get any feedback from your comments!

Oh, and Many Happy Returns to your lovely DH!

Kristen said...

Wow, I have had bad experiences in restaurants as well and it is very upsetting especially when you are really hoping to have a relaxing dinner away from home.