To be angry at DH for ruining Father’s Day lunch out

[Chelle882]

Myself, DH and our two teenage DC went out for lunch today to celebrate Father’s Day at a local restaurant.

When the food arrived, there was an issue with DH’s meal and he alerted the waitress to this. The waitress told him she’d arrange for this to be re-cooked and it would take 15-20 minutes.

DH asked that they also take the other three meals away so that we’d all be eating at the same time.

The waitress said she’d need to check this with a manager. The manager came over and apologised, said that they wouldn’t be able to re-do the three meals which were fine but they’d deduct the cost of DH’s meal from our bill and also give us a free round of drinks.

DH challenged this and the manager stood firm. Without consulting me, DH said that we would leave and find somewhere else to eat. So we didn’t touch our food and DH settled the bill for the drinks we’d had and we all walked out (much to our hungry DC’s bemusement).

Obviously being Father’s Day, the two other restaurants in close proximity were fully booked until this evening, so we grabbed a KFC drive through on the way home (which doesn’t agree with me so I’ve had stomach cramps for the past three hours!)

DH maintains he was correct to leave the meal and that restaurant’s should not get away with this - we’d ordered to eat together and they failed to deliver this.

For the sake of our DC’s I think he should have just sucked it up and not ruined the lunch.

Do you agree with what he did or would you have just accepted the free meal and got on with it?

Because it was a family meal out. Sometimes we put others first, yes even when we are 'celebrating' these brilliant fathers who strop and flounce like sulky kids.

It wasn't ideal that the restaurant made a mistake but I guarantee his attitude would have been a bigger problem than his precious underdone/overdone <who gives a fuck> steak.

If he hasn’t got form for ruining things, I think you probably ought to be sympathetic. It’s Father’s Day. It’s supposed to be about him. If it ruined the lunch for him, maybe it was better to leave. You are upset that it spoiled things for you and the DC, can’t you see that his treat had already been spoiled?

We had the same thing happen at a birthday dinner at an expensive restaurant. The birthday guest’s dinner had to be remade (shoe leather served instead of a rare steak). It really spoiled the evening.

They were very apologetic, gave us free drinks and pudding, and didn’t charge us for the steak but it still ruined the night. We shared some of our food while the new steak was cooked but all that did was spoil the birthday guest’s appetite 😂 It’s not much fun eating with an audience if your meal is served after everyone else is eaten. Everyone was then sitting around waiting so we could at least have pudding together. The little kids got fidgety. It was awkward for the birthday guest and we all felt bad for them. It killed the fun.

If it was going to ruin the special occasion, maybe it is better not to waste money on something that wasn’t going to be a treat. Perhaps agreeing to leave and go out another time would have been the best option.

But still edible when it’s a free meal

I don't understand what you're trying to say?
"He wanted a resolution where that didn't happen?"
So he wanted the restaurant staff to magically go back in time and stop the situation from ever happening?
Obviously that's impossible.
That's what I meant by "he shouldn't have to."
It shouldn't have happened, ideally all their meals would have been served correctly at the right time but sometimes something happens, e.g. a mistake is made or customer is fussy and demands it being redone. Because it isn't possible to go back in time and fix it that way the only options are for the restaurant to try and mitigate it by
a) bringing the meal as soon as possible
b) apologising
c) offering some sort of recompense
All of which they did, and, in my view, went above and beyond by also offering a free round of drinks.

For any reasonable person that should be sufficient. Unless the DH is completely perfect (which he clearly isn't) he should accept that mistakes happen. His meal was delayed so writing it off is fair. Everyone else had their correct meal on time so it would be completely ridiculous for the restaurant to have given them four free meals, not to mention it would just encourage everyone else to pretend there was something wrong with one of theirs if it meant their whole table got comped.

Bet the restaurant would have still expected a tip or service charge as well.

"To magically go back in time"??? Oh come on, give it a break ! a steak can be cook in 5 minutes. If they wanted to, they would have made it posssible, they wronged the order at the end of day. Stop making excuses for shit service, we pay through our nose anyway.

'We had the same thing happen at a birthday dinner at an expensive restaurant. The birthday guest’s dinner had to be remade (shoe leather served instead of a rare steak). It really spoiled the evening. They were very apologetic, gave us free drinks and pudding, and didn’t charge us for the steak but it still ruined the night'.

'Spoiled the evening', 'ruined the night'. Really?! Couldn't you just be a bit disappointed but make the most of things you know like the company, the drinks etc.

So many people with absolutely no resilience on this thread. Buck up and look on the bright side a bit!

how is throwing away three perfectly edible meals a "reasonable adjustment?"
That's a significant loss of money for the restaurant, added time, further delay on everyone else's orders. I'm not even a vegetarian but if the other meals were meat, that's animals killed for literally no purpose.

what if the other 3 meals were steak or fish or carbonara or something that's supposed to be eaten fresh as well? You can't just stick them in the oven for 20 mins to keep warm - then they'll come out and the same situation will occur with OP or her sons saying now their food isn't cooked correctly (because it's either cold from being on the side for 20 mins or dry from being kept warm). So the only option is to make all 4 meals again.

And I think four people walking out of the restaurant after refusing to pay for their meals, despite nothing being wrong with three of them, is making a scene, actually.

Reasonable adjustment I think cooking another steak which should take 5 minutes with restsing time. They could 't provide that so fair enough, he walked out to avoid the family eating separately. I would do the same especiallybif I leave a good chunk of my weekly salary there. (I wouldn't, I'm a coward and hate it)

@Gloriia

i dunno, I think a lot of people have had repeated experiences of bad service, poor quality food etc and are just a bit sick of it. Especially given how expensive it is. It’s a big treat so you want it to be right.

"they wronged?"

I wasn't commenting on how fast they could or couldn't re-do his meal as that's not the question the OP was asking - she didn't say he asked "can't you remake it any faster?" and if they had he would have stayed. I was replying to a poster who said "he wanted a resolution where that didn't happen" as the only way I could interpret that was them meaning "he wanted a resolution where his food had never come out wrong in the first place" - which is obviously impossible without going back in time!

We pay through our nose when eating out because restaurants have huge overheads these days - which isn't helped when you have to throw away and write off three meals because someone throws a mantrum about waiting a few minutes more for his din-dins.

oh okay, this makes sense now.
You're one of those people who has a lot to say on MN, hiding behind a screen but wouldn't say boo to a goose in real life. I bet if you're served the wrong food you smile and say it's lovely then go home and put a bad review online.

Whereas I don't put up with shit service in real life but I also don't fantasise about going completely OTT and demanding heads roll. I ask politely for it to be sorted in a manner commensurate with the inconvenience caused, and in my mind a free meal, four free drinks, and an apology is more than enough for what is, let's face it, a pretty minor inconvenience.

Yes, word wrong can be used as a verb means to get something wrong look it up.
Rest of it is just excuses I repeat the steak could be redone in 5 minutes, they didn't or couldn't do it, he felt the experrience ruined as they wouldn't eat together. It is that simple, why we go into semantics and overanalysing I don't know. I agree i don't agree about not talking to wife but is his right to mot be happy with his seervice abd walk out.

I totally agree with your husband. They made the mistake they should fix it appropriately. Expecting your husband to eat after everyone else is ridiculous. I would have fully supported him. Would he have behaved like this for any family member or just himself?

But nothing was stopping him from eating his steak on father's day with his family, unless you're suggesting OP and his kids would have got up and gone home as soon as they'd finished, leaving him there.
He would still have eaten his steak
His family would still have been with him while he ate his steak.
They would just be finishing their food while he started his. Not exactly day ruining if you've got a normal sense of perspective.

There's a difference between asserting yourself and walking out unless you get the exact solution you want, regardless of the impact on anyone else.
Nobody has suggested he should have just shut up, eaten an incorrect meal and paid full price. He did assert himself by raising the issue. The manager asserted themselves by offering a reasonable restitution.

Yes, I am! Not proud of that but I'm working on it. I am not hiding behind a screen, I am out here admiting my faults. And admiting that I am wrong for not being more challenging. If you want to pick on me based on this, go ahead you are free to. I am honest. This does not mean I do not admire peoople who stand up for themselves and have the courage that I don't have.

I don't want to fight with anybody though, hope you all have a great evening. Was just an opinion that I expressed I hope I didn't upset anyone. Peace and love

No, he requested a resolution where he wasn't forced to eat alone.

It's always steaks that cause the issues! What one person think is rare is another persons medium and so on. Can't see why people need to be so fussy provided it's near enough.

This. It is a basic given at a restaurant. If they are offering a choice of how to have your steak cooked, they need to supply just that.

I think he did right. Not the leaving maybe but making a fuss.

I can't help but think they were being unreasonable with the 20 minute thing. Ten max, three minutes each side. The 20 minute thing is where the pettiness is. It should have been prioritised.

You don’t want food to simply be edible when you go out. I actually get why he wanted all the meals to come out together. I wouldn’t have left, but would have been annoyed.

Well, he had a choice. He could have eaten what he had, or he could have accepted the restaurant's offer to redo his meal but not the others, or he could have walked out. Out of those three options, the one that would be least detrimental to the other three people present was the second one, and it really wouldn't have been the end of the world for his meal to come a bit later than the others.

I once had an incident when a waiter took everyone's orders but, when told I had a specific allergy, said he would have to bring me a separate menu. He took ages to bring me the separate menu and then to come to take my order. All of that meant that everyone else's meals arrived some time before mine did. It never for one moment occurred to me to insist that they hold everyone else's meals back, nor did it particularly bother me that the others were eating before I was.

Admittedly, I made a note to myself never to go to that restaurant again, but that was at least partly because my meal was pretty lousy anyway.

Horrifically selfish of him.

I would have just laughed as his partner and instructed my hungry DC to eat up!

Yes it’s not ideal that you couldn’t then eat together but would he really force his DC to wait for their food just because his wasn’t right?

I wouldn’t have wanted a well done steak either but this is bonkers.

No for acting like a big baby in front of his family.

The stupid tantrumming man child didn’t give them a chance.