Eating out is just a waste of time and money

[Batshit1234]

Went out for dinner tonight. Husband, two teens. service was just shocking and everyone is home in bad form.
Had booked a table in a certain area ( you can pick your area)
table wasn’t ready - that’s ok so offered one in another area and took it.
Were left with one menu between 4 of us for ages.
Had to ask to order.
Ordered drinks and food after 45 minutes we didn’t even have the jug of juice.
Went to bar for two pints of water - think he went to Antarctica for the water and I walked away as seen food coming to table.
Food arrived with no drinks on table
No steak knife and I couldn’t cut my steak with the normal knife - I did try
Had to get up again and go and get someone to get me a steak knife
Son’s order was wrong had to go back they really did apologise.
Sat with dirty plates in front of us for 20 minutes
I was ready to bale at this point but kids seemed to want dessert.
Got dessert menu and ordered another glass of wine after 15 minutes no one came back with the wine or to take dessert order.
Got up again and said cancel the wine and can we just have the bill.
They ran over with the glass of wine and said it was on the house.
Bill was near 100Euro
I would have rather stood in the kitchen for two hours cooking than deal with this shite.

Why is service so shocking in restaurants. I do 99% of cooking at home and think I would just prefer to be in the house. My teen daughter was telling me to chill and I am trying to explain she would feel different if she had to pay for this carryon. We were there two hours and only got a main course. The dirty oil is repeating on me #raging Am I being unreasonable that this was shit!

But you've come to that conclusion based on one experience, in one restaurant! For that, YABVVU

One bad experience, we love eating out

Well stop going to shit restaurants lol. Give them a bad review and move on. I agree though eating out is expensive for how bloody shite it often is.

I love eating out, and it's never like that.

People place different values on different things.

If it's not worth your time or money then dont do it. That is entirely reasonable.

We all love eating out. It's mainly about being able to choose different things and that we can all sit snd chat instead of someone cooking. We go to midrange places, hate the posh places but we like quality food so independent country pubs are our main go to.

We dined out Thursday. The service was epic, food divine and drinks on point! We loved every second of it. Cost a bomb but worth every single penny and we left a good tip.

I suppose you get what you pay for.

This place had awesome reviews. We travelled a distance to go. I am starting to think I have some part of bad karma going out to eat🙈🤣

What country is this OP ?
Here in the UK, although it can be quite expensive, I usually find service and food is good.

Service sounds awful but €100 surely isn't bad for 4 people.

We all love going out to eat! It's one of life's pleasures!

Sounds like a rotten experience!

You had a bad experience. That doesn't mean eating out is bad. I eat out generally 2-3 times a week and very rarely have an experience like yours.

Are you in Ireland OP? I am, and if there were 4 of us eating out anywhere and I had even one glass of wine I'd think €100 is cheap. Not such an excuse for poor service but I do think there's some truth in the "you get what you pay for" saying.
In other EU countries your €100 for 4 people would go much further so it would depend on where you are.
Name & shame?

I think maybe you should listen to your teen daughter...

It was Ireland and I.know 100euro isn’t bad and we would have spent more if they would have just come and took a dessert order!
I absolutely hate leaving bad reviews. I just want to go out get what I pay for. I know I am ranting here but I am not naming the place 🤣

For me entertaining is the pits, so a decent restaurant is much better

I eat out on holiday every night and I holiday a lot. Prefer home cooking when at home.

Not everywhere provides this kind of service though. We live near chain gastro type pubs and they provide better service than this. Never mind the ones that are more restaurant/ freshly cooked foods.

If i’d had that experience it would out of the place involved but not every option of eating out!

I do agree it's mostly a waste and I often consider that I could have cooked a meal I would have enjoyed more at home, but mostly when I go to restaurants, it's as a social location, so I tolerate it as the location and additional cost to the socialising.

You seem to have had a particularly bad experience. My view just comes from things being obviously much more expensive than a similar meal cooked at home, yet less to my taste than the similar meal cooked at home; portions that are off (I find that often the rice accompanying the meat is too small in proportion to the share of the meat, etc.); things added to the sauce that I don't want and have to pick my way around, etc. Gripes, essentially. I don't tend to encounter the near impossibility of getting my order.

I’ve only been to Ireland a couple of times, but I can’t say I’ve ever had a bad meal. But, I’ve also never had one that only cost €100 for four people!!

We out a lot and have had some amazing meals, I can’t think of a bad one. But, appreciate we live in London so are pretty lucky in terms of restaurants.

I mostly go out to eat with friends. Friends are reliably always good company.

the food is always fine, but not the main event. That's catching up with friends.

OP totally agree with you, nearly every time i eat out i think i could do better cor a fraction of the price. Went to an apparently well regarded pub for lunch today with friends after a lovely walk. Service was shocking, food mediocre at bests, more than £20 for a roast beef lunch where the beef was full of gristle, lacking in flavour so drowned in rosemary. I could have cooked a fab roast dinner for 4 for that, and that was only a fraction of the bill.

It can be nice to have a chilled dinner somewhere occasionally - not all the time because it does add up.

Sometimes places have an off night. We'd been to a restaurant before and it was fine. The last time we went out we were seated outside and given menus and water and then they seemed to forget about us. I watched them muck up the order of table near us. After 15 min I said to my DH, "Quick. They're obviously so busy they're not coping. Let's go before they remember us and we feel like we have to stay!" I can only imagine what the dinner experience would've been like if we'd stayed.

Agree with you OP and practically given up eating out. Sick of being ripped off for very average food , overpriced alcohol and poor service ( with a few exceptions). Prefer to buy M&S special dishes instead, if I’m sick of cooking at home.

Was it in Dublin?

Maybe they were short staffed.

Have to admit, I would have been so tempted to sneak out unnoticed and leave them with the unpaid bill - except that staff might be made to pay for it.

I think the standards of food and service in restaurants has really gone down hill in the last few years. I’ve worked in restaurants on and off my whole life and I think there’s a definite shift in terms of quality in just about every aspect. Staff just not being bothered, food basically being heated up in microwaves and not cooked from scratch even in slightly higher end places, tables not being cleared promptly and properly etc etc. It drives me nuts. I should probably never eat out to be honest. I’m too critical of things as I’m always in manager mode 🙈😂