What's your worst restaurant experience?

[RainbowsAndCrystals]

Had one where I was with two friends having breakfast and coffees ... they kept asking friends if they wanted another drink and ignored me every single time.

there's been worse and places I would never go back to.

About ten years ago went out for Sunday lunch with a couple of male friends (including my now dh).

Ordered. Waiter seemed a bit new. After quite a while there was no sign of our meals. Asked waiter where they were. Ages later he brought them over - literally stone cold. So, we asked if we could have fresh meals and pointed out they were cold. Waiter snapped something along the lines of "what do you expect?! They've been sitting in the kitchen for the last twenty minutes!!"

We were all gobsmacked.

Asked to speak to manager, manager came over. Brought us fresh meals. Told us that once we've ordered more drinks and desserts we could just get up and leave. No bill.

Still chuckle about it now.

Dread to think how much custom that restaurant lost that day as when we explained the issue to the manager he didn't seem surprised

13 quid

CoolCarrie - we laughed, somewhat hysterically.

Maybe we attract bad service.

In a restaurant this year in Paris, I ordered Steak Tartare and the waiter told me I wouldn't like it as it 'was not cooked'. Well durr.

Last month in Spain I ordered something or other with liver and the waiter felt it necessary to try and put me off by demonstrating on his body where the meat was from.

I obviously look very unsophisticated.

To be fair, BuzzKillington, UK tourists do have a reputation on the continent of ordering food they don't understand, won't like, and then moaning about it. It's good that they tried to explain to you what it was instead of just bringing you chips like they did to my dad in the nineties

How long should you wait for food?

2 weeks ago for DH's birthday we went for a nice Sunday dinner. We ordered some bread and hummus while we waited so the kids didn't run riot. Plates were brought after 20 minutes but an hour and 15 later (chatting away) the waitress came to take the plates and asked if we'd enjoyed the starter. Errr. It never came! Think it went to a different table. Then it arrived and we'd just literally handed the kids a piece when the main meal arrived! So we told them we weren't paying for it obviously.

Salad was manky.
Steak was not done to order e.g medium was rare or well done.
They charged us £9 for 5 scoops of ice cream with his brought from home cake (which I had to ask them twice to bring out) I have no problem paying for ice cream but nearly £2 a scoop??

Utter dog shit. Expensive stressful meal.

Don't Parisians have an idea that British people like their meat well done or something, as opposed to the French who like their food incredibly rare? I thought there was some joke/stereotype that if you ordered anything medium in France they will sigh at you and say you don't have any idea how meat should be done.

When the waitress sat down next to my then DH and started flirting with him. She ignored all hints to bugger off until I asked her to get the manager.

Having a meal with DH (pre smoking ban) at a recently opened restaurant and the man on the table beside us chain smoked throughout his meal. The tables were really tightly packed together so I might as well have been smoking. Asked the waiter for another table as I'm asthmatic and the waiter was really stroppy and moved us right beside the bar.

As I was finishing my starter (which we waited an age for) the waiter walked past and hit my head with a bottle of wine he was carrying. I said ow, you just hit me and he turned around and told me it was my fault for being at that table. Demanded to speak to his manager and he told me I was being dramatic. We then left, refusing to pay, and the manager threatened to call the police. I offered to do it for them as I was the one who'd been hit and got told to fuck off out of his restaurant.

Unsurprisingly the place closed fairly quickly.

Also had a meal spilled in my lap, totally by accident, after a waitress tripped up. They couldn't have been more apologetic and insisted on free drinks, free desert and paying to have my clothes cleaned. I was happy with just an apology to be honest. Left the waitress a good tip as she was so mortified!

Yes Snow! So fucking dark I nearly fell in the pool. I’m not a member I hasten to add. A close family member is a media type.

Last night of our holiday in Vietnam we go to a posh restaurant, for two weeks we've eaten street food which was amazing so was expecting great things. My tofu dish was like rubber it was fried and cold in the inside presented as one huge block. Lesson learnt expensive is not always better.

Went to the local -poncy- pub for mothers day lunch, which had a set menu. The only options on the children's menu were things like 'rabbit with sautéed asparagus' and 'wild venison in garlic sauce'

We sat waiting for the food for an hour, and the staff would come over and ask if there was 'something wrong' when my 6 year old wouldn't eat the food. Us adults had gone for chicken wrapped in pancetta, and it was disgusting, cold and rubbery. Not worth the £50/60 for three people we paid! I got up to go to the toilet and the snooty old hag of a manager rushed over and said 'you haven't finished your food yet? Why are you leaving?'

Never been back.

My DH (who is a very good looking chap) once got asked out by the waitress in a restaurant!! In front of me! I was DH was and said “well no as I don’t think my wife (gesturing to me) would be happy about that”. She just said “oh ok then” and smiled, didn’t even have the temerity to look embarrassed

Harvester...
Town A, food OK. Realised at the end that there were cobwebs on the fake beams... then that the canopy of the salad cart was thick grey with fluffy dust. The manager shrugged at us when we pointed it out

Town B, only option available on a Sunday evening. I wasn't in the mood for bland, chewy chicken so chose "spaghetti Bolognese". It looked and smelt like cheapo dog food. The waitress was lovely and apologetic and said that every time it was ordered it was sent back, and it was embarrassing every time a customer ordered it, but they couldn't get it removed from the menu. I did get an alternative meal served quickly and wasn't charged so it was handled well, there just shouldn't have been something so poor on the menu. Tinned Heinz Bolognese would have been much nicer!

A local pub (now razed and recycled as a KFC which is an improvement!) tended to have slow service and cold food, possibly overcooked too. We once ordered desserts at the same time as the main course to save time, waited ages, then after prompting, got served mushy, warm Sundaes. The KFC is much more reliable!

I was in a restaurant with some work colleages. We'd eaten (food good!) and were getting stuck into some post-dinner vino. First of all, they asked us to squidge up, so they could fit more diners in, then soon after told us they needed the table back because another booking was coming in. Well, there had been no mention of this when we booked or even when we came in, so we paid up but made it clear we weren't too happy and no, a free limoncello didn't make it better. More fool them - we frequently booked this location for corporate events and now we don't anymore.

Cafe rouge (does that count as a restaurant?) last December.

We went as a group and pre-ordered. The starters took 30 minutes. The mains arrived a good 30-40 minutes later. The roast potatoes were stone cold. As in, fridge cold. We complained and they offered us a free tea or coffee.

I complained via email the next day and got a £25 voucher. I didn't fancy going back so have never used it.

Christmas meal out with in laws, first time I had met his parents and some of his siblings and their families and we had just announced I was pregnant. We were at a hotel and there wasn't enough food for the number of people in the party (about 30 of us). One BIL and his girlfriend didn't like me and thought I was posh, but were seated near us. When the food came round (big serving platters to share around the table) there was only a couple of potatoes, a few carrots and peas left, and four of us still to serve. BIL served his and his girlfriend's plates with all that was left, then asked the waiter if there was any more to be brought out. The waiter said that they had run out of food, so BIL and gf started tucking in to their food while DH and I had empty plates.

FIL and DH's other siblings decanted some of their dinner onto our plates, by this time it was cold and BIL had told them to stop giving me food because I was fat enough and not part of the family.

We have never been out as a group since. The hotel refunded 50% of the cost of the meals, and apologised for the running out of food, but it really damaged DH's relationship with BIL and they haven't spoken since. Would never go back to that hotel.

On my 3rd or so date with DH we went for a curry in Selly Oak. Just when we’d ordered they brought food to the table next to us and the waiter tripped and covered us in curry. He didn’t say a word to us, even though we were coated in balti. None of the staff even batted an eyelid at the state of us and told us that it wasn’t their fault as another patron had tripped them. Needless to say we didn’t stay or go back.

Took our boys out for dinner to a new place that was getting good reviews. Walked in, half the place was so brightly lit you practically needed sunglasses, the other half was really dim. We (four of us ) were sat at a round table for ten, so it was really awkward to chat. Despite the fact it was Oct/Nov the window was open, we were shivering. We asked the waitress to close it. Not a problem, she did it straight away. Ten minutes later another waitress come and opens it again. Our waitress brings our drinks and we ask her to please close it. She does. Ten minutes later the other waitress is back opening it. Bitterly cold wind is blowing right at us. We put our coats on. Eventually catch our waitresses eye and ask to be moved.

We get moved to the dim side which is warmer too. There was a family next to us who got a sharing sized salad, ate that and left without getting anything else. Seemed a little odd. Our meal still hadn't come out so we ordered more drinks and asked how long the food would be. Apparently there was a small problem in the kitchen that night. We wait. I finish my glass of wine, order another and we ask how much longer. Not much longer she says.

It gets to the point we want to just give up and leave but it must be about ready and if we stand up and put out coats on they're bound to arrive at the table with the food. We wait. We try to get the waitresses attention. She obviously ignoring us, spends her time at the bar with her back to us or rushes to and from the kitchen without looking sideways.

Eventually 2 1/2-3 hours have passed. No one has food anywhere. It's a school night. My husband goes to the bar and asks the waitress if our order has even been started yet and she admits it hasn't. Time for us to leave.

A couple of weeks later someone online asks if the place is any good and I tell my tale, only to have someone who "is a regular, knows all the staff and was there that night" come on to say I'm a liar, that it never happened. Luckily for me, the mother from the family who had just had salad also commented saying they had had such a long wait they'd had to leave without a proper meal too.

Needless to say the place didn't stay open very long. Worst service I've ever had.

Waiter accused us of having slightly moved the table (it was like that when we arrived) then beat us over the head with a tray he was carrying.
He was fired.

waited ages for our starters to arrive at mum and dads golden wedding anniversary meal in a nice country manor, when it eventually arrived 5 out of 14 people had earwigs in their side salads, we all went home starving.

We recently went on holiday, it was our last night so we went out to a highly recommended restaurant in rural France which was supposed to be quite child friendly. It was miles from anywhere and the views were stupendous.

But we arrived at 7.30 and left at 12.30. The maître d' got drunk and dinner arrived for the DCs at 11pm!

At the next table there was a French family whose six year old DD broke her mother's iphone, she was put in time out with no dinner for the rest of the evening in the pitch dark garden, the father kept saying "Plus loin, plus loin." Awful - poor little thing.

Then at around midnight there was a huge storm and the terrace awning caved in and a man sitting near us got soaked.

At the end of the night the maître d' ran around asking everyone what they'd had and what they had drunk, he then spent a further 30 minutes trying to calculate the bills.

It was so horrendous it was actually funny.

Many allergies. Frankie and bennies. Waiter repeatedly told me the main did not have said thing I was allergic to in it. It did. Queue dash to A&E.

Another restaurant. Asked if said thing I was allergic to was in a salad. Waitress said no. Said salad came out covered in the thing I was allergic to. Pointed this out. Waitress insisted that it wasn't. Sent the meal back. Furious chef came out telling me I was wrong it wasn't. He called it by the French name. So we just left !

I reckon Soho House will be inundated with reservations

We had been there for well over 2 hours without a morsel of food or drink!

Why? Why would you do that? Why didn't you ask anyone? Why didn't you walk out? 2 hours???

Hamburger Harry's in NYC, they had spat in our burgers.

I hate it when the wait staff serve your own wine to you. The first one is ok but topping the glass so you'll buy more is annoying. So is trying to take the bottle away with 2" still in it. I want small, cold glasses of wine, at my own pace.