Boy... I would have loved attentive _or_ intrusive service from Sushi Thai this weekend. Any service would have been better than what we received. Here is my history of dining at Sushi-Thai 1st visit - shortly after they opened - good food, service was slow, but acceptable. Figured they would improve after being open a while. (Bad assumption). 2nd visit - about three weeks ago. Service was interesting... here was the order of food served: diner1 - soup diner3 - sushi entree diner1 - appetizer long wait diner1 - entree diner2 - entree long wait diner4 - sushi entree diner1&2 - salads It was not your typical order of food served, nor was any of the food served at the same time, but once again, the food was good, so we decided to return. 3rd and final visit - this weekend. The same group of four arrived promptly at 6:30. The place was about half full, and we were seated promptly. We all knew what we wanted, so we ordered around 6:40. The salads and soup came out promptly. Then about 7:00, the two sushi entrees arrived. Then we waited, and we waited, and we waited. Our waitress never came back to see if our food was OK or had even arrived. Nobody noticed (or they noticed and were ignoring us) that two of us at the table were sitting unhappy for an hour without food and that the two people with food were politely sitting not eating theirs waiting on ours. Finally, at 7:30, we flagged down our waitress to complain that two of us never received our appetizers or entrees. She looked in her orders and rushed back to the kitchen. She returned saying that the kitchen lost the order and it would be out shortly. Again, we waited and waited. Nobody offered an apology or a glass of water, or anything. After waiting fifteen more minutes (now 7:45 - over an hour after we ordered), we jumped out of our seats to grab the manager. I can't say this with certainty, but it sure seemed like the manager knew we were unhappy and was purposefully avoiding making eye contact with us. We literally had to get out of our seats to get him to come to our table after several failed attempts at flagging him down. The waitress seemed to be avoiding us too. She never gave us an update on our food. I said to him, "We have been waiting over an hour for our food. Would you please check on it." He didn't apologize at all - just started with an excuse - "The sushi comes out first." (noticing that our dining partners had their food), and he started to run off. I said "Yes, I know it comes first, but we've been waiting over an hour - an hour!!" He scurried away with no apology. Finally, our entrees arrived - about 7:50. After another 10 minutes, our appetizers had still not arrived. I tried to find the manager to tell him that we no longer wanted them, but neither he nor the waitress were anywhere to be found. Neither of them came out to make sure our food had arrived or was cooked properly. They seemed to still be avoiding us. Once again, the food was all good, but the service was just horrendous. When our bill arrived, we again got up and tracked down the manager to try to get a true apology or compensation or a promise that this would not happen again. We told him that waiting an hour on food was completely unacceptable and that we wanted to know what he was going to do to make it right. We mentioned that perhaps he could take the entrees that were so late off the bill. He became very defensive and gave excuse after excuse for the problems... people didn't show up for work, the kitchen lost the order, he was having to bus tables, etc. We never even got an "I'm truly sorry. You are completely right that this was unacceptable, and I'm doing everything I can to make sure this doesn't happen again." He got almost beligerent when we suggested something should be taken off the bill. He said we could not pay for the service, but we had to pay for the food. When I finally said, "Do you realize that we will never be returning to this restaurant". He said, "That's fine 'mam." It was amazing to me. I've never had service that horrible and not had management just groveling at my feet. We would have appreciated a free dessert, or discounted meal, or free coupon for an appetizer for our next visit, but mostly we wanted a real apology, and a real feeling that they knew they messed up. All we got was a defensive attitude and excuses. He kept saying, "There is nothing more I can do." Then my husband said, "You keep saying there is nothing more you can do, but there is something you can do. You can make this right by taking part of this off the bill." Afterall, our appetizers didn't arrive for almost an hour and a half after we ordered. Finally, after a very heated exchange of words from both us and management, he finally took 20% off the bill. That was more to just shut us up than to really make things right though. It was by far the worst treatment I've ever had as a customer. There was absolutely no notion of "the customer is always right". His attitude was that he was doing his best, so it didn't matter that we had to wait over an hour for food. During the time while we were waiting, we overheard a conversation between the manager and the table behind us too. A woman at that table got up and dragged the manager over to her table to tell him that her food was not cooked correctly. Her entire family had finished their meals and the waitress had never come back to check on them, so she did not want the food cooked properly, she just wanted the bill so she could leave. He subtracted that one meal from her bill, and they left as angry as we were. Was anyone else on this newsgroup there Friday night? Was your experience as miserable as ours? Normally, I will go back to a restaurant after lousy service and a nice apology and assume it was a bad night. I will NEVER set foot in Sushi-Thai again. They have no respect for their customers and can't assume responsibility when they screw up. Everybody makes mistakes and everyone has bad nights, but most restaurants will do something to make it right without fighting with you. Despite great food, I can't imagine Sushi Thai will stay in business without a major attitude adjustment. Sorry for the length of this... just had to vent. ann On Fri, 22 Jan 1999 17:48:00 GMT, [email removed] (Paul Heroy) wrote: >Quoth [email removed] (Paul Heroy): >>A couple of weekends back, I had dinner at Sushi-Thai in Cary ... ><snippage> >>Service was good - attentive but intrusive. > >Er, make that NOT intrusive, of course! > >BTW, for those wondering it's on Kildaire Farm Rd about a block south of >the intersection with Maynard, in the plaza with Kroger. Sushi-Thai is on >the end very near Kildaire.
Raleigh-Durham, NC