My wife and I love to eat at IHOP. Delicious food at reasonable prices bring us back for more. Today I went by myself just as a chance to get away and enjoy a good omelet, and good food is exactly what I got. The service from my waitress was unremarkable - neither good, nor bad. Unfortunately, what ruined the entire meal for me and left me with a sour aftertaste is the way that I heard the wait staff treating the kitchen staff.
My table was only separated from where the orders are dropped off my a thin half-wall, and throughout the time that I was there I constantly heard the wait staff (one in particular, though I don't know her name) yelling condescendingly at the kitchen staff. I heard things like, "I said extra crispy bacon, this is extra limp" and "I told you to add strawberries to that pancake, can't you do anything right?" and "I'm still waiting on that order of fries I told you about" and on and on. Now perhaps it is true that the cooks were having a bad day or really weren't good at filling orders properly (though my food was excellent, as usual), but there needs to be a better way to handle situations like this other than getting up attitudes and yelling across the kitchen so that everyone can hear.
As I waited in line at the cashier's station, the cashier was having trouble figuring out which table the customer in front of me was from, and the waitress who had taken care of that customer came up and with a "well duh" attitude pointed it out and brushed off some concern that the cashier had (it was all in restaurant jargon, so I didn't really understand what the problem was) and said, walking away, "she's still really new here. She's only been here a year." That kind of statement, said with a joking smile, would not affect me normally, but today it was just the last straw in a bad experience. Next time I want a good omelet, I will find a Denny's or a Shari's, or maybe if I really feel like IHOP, I'll drive to a different one.
