Are Young Diners Doomed To Get Poor Service?

I'm just speaking from experience here. Although not having been in many fine dining restaurants, I have noticed a common trend in most "nice" places I've been to: bad service. Now, I understand that not all fine dining have good service, and everyone has a bad day once in a while, but when most the places that you go to have this common theme, you start to wonder "Is it me?" There have been a couple of times when Darren and I actually got up and left due to having been ignored for so long. I shall share some of these bad experiences.

Two of the places in which we have been ignored at, which actually made us leave, included Pogue Mahone's and this Mexican place (forgot what it is called) at the corner of Yonge and Maitland. Both times we were nice enough to be seated, but no service came. At Mahone's, we waited around 20 minutes for water. We even had to flag down someone, in which case she said she would return and never did. At the other place, we were seated, waited, got annoyed and went up the front to order (it was a cafeteria style place), and was told to seat back down and wait for service as the front was for take-out only. We waited for another 10 minutes and eventually left. Now, these two are not the best examples of fine dining, so I will also share other examples.

The first one that came to mind is Bistro 990 (See review). I did research before deciding on that one restaurant. First because it was close to where Darren worked, and second because people raved about the food and the service. Darren was in his work clothes (dress shirt and dress pants) and I wore a white dress shirt and black dress pants, so it wasn't as if we showed up dressing like hobos. The speed of the food and service were decent, but when compared with the rest of the people in the restaurant, ours differ significantly. During our whole meal, we were not offered bread at all. There were people designated to walk around with baskets of bread, and not one came to our table. I saw several bread-servers go to the same table a couple of times offering bread. The dessert menu, desserts and the bill themselves took a long time to arrive. However, I guess we had it better than the tourists sitting next to us, as they had to get their own pepper.

The second one was a restaurant called Quince (See review). I planned it for my best friend's birthday with the 7 of us (between 21-30). It was recommended both in Toronto Life and by a friend whom came once with his parents (in fact, the friend was within the party). Most of us were dressed causual elegantly (the males wore jeans with dress/golf shirt). We arrived 5 minutes early, and were told to wait by the bar, which was fine. We continued to wait an additional 20 minutes at the bar while they got our table set up. We were seated, and shortly the waitress came and introduced herself. She got our drink orders, and 30 minutes went by before she came back with our drinks. She then hurried off to take care of other customers. After another 20 minutes of waiting, she finally came back to get our meal orders.

From this point on until the meal got there, for around 45 mintues, we were ignored. If someone wanted to add food, or get more water, or get another drink, it was impossible. Interestingly one of the restaurant owner was there on the floor and serving people as well, but despite us trying to maintain eye contact with her, she just looked away quickly. When we tried to stop waiters/waitresses, they either say, "I'm busy" or "I'll be right back". We had to watch as neighboring tables gets filled with different rounds of patrons, and as other people's courses come one after the other (I actually saw our server go back to the same table 3 times to see if they wanted more coffee). Everyone tried to stay in a good mood (because it was a birthday), but the grumpiness and hunger really put a strain in our conversations. When the food came we gobbled it up without really caring how good it was (everything was good at that point). Even during our meals, no one even stopped to ask how we were. We passed on dessert as it was close to 10:30 (our reservation was for 7:30 pm). The party tried coming up with excuses as why the service was so bad, but none of them stuck.

The last example was from Bodega (See review). Darren loved Bodega. When he worked closer to the restaurant, his company would get lunch there and he had a really good time. After hearing good things from him, I expressed interest that I wanted to go. He eventually took me and I was expecting a night of good french dining. Again, we dressed decently for the occasion. The server was helpful but not friendly. After we placed our orders, it was when it started going down hill. My order of rabbit came as lamb. The server went to check with the kitchen and came back asking if I wanted the lamb. I didn't complain and just settled for the lamb. I don't have allergies and I eat most things, so food mistakes usually don't bother me, and I don't like waiting for food while others are eating theirs. Now that I thought about it, I don't remember if he apologized or not.

After dinner, I ordered dessert and Darren ordered a glass of Taylor Fladgate Tawny. The server came back with a ruby port. Darren (knowing his port) took a look at it and told the owner that this wasn't the tawny but a ruby. The waiter snobbishly told Darren that this was indeed what he ordered and wanted to leave, but Darren insisted that it wasn't the tawny, and they almost had an arguement. The waiter went to the bar to confirm and came back with a sour look on his face. It seemed the kitchen had used up all the tawny and without informing Darren they poured him the ruby and, I guess, assumed he was okay with the ruby. As they only had the ruby, Darren could take the ruby. Darren opted for something else in the end, but was very displeased with the place and vowed never to go back again, a farcry from his previous reaction about the place.

These were some of the worst experience we've had, and I've tried to think of reasons at each place as to why it happened. The common denominator to all these experience was me. Not me personally, but the diners, or rather, the age of the diners. Is it because we are young we don't demand respect? One of Darren's coworkers had gone to Bistro 990 and said it was a good place, and many reviews on the internet said service was exceptional, but yet our experience was the opposite. At Quince one of my friend personally said it was a good and yet the evening turned out horribly. At Bodega, Darren personally had a good experience going with his company but for us he almost got into an arguement.

Are finer restaurants stereotyping young couples (or diner)? If not, then why do Darren and I always get bad service? If it is so, is it because they feel as if they wouldn't truly understand the essence of the place, or is it because they wouldn't be good tippers? For the former, I believe that tastes, etiquette and knowledge have to be acquired. The more dining experience you have, the more knowledgable you will be about food, wine and restaurants. You cannot expect everyone to walk into the restaurant and automatically know about food or wine. You don't expect your some your older patrons to know (that's what sommaliers are for), why would you for your younger patrons?

As for the latter, tipping is a continuous cycle. You get good tips if you provide good service. I guess in this case because the servers had bad experience with young tippers in the past, they assumed (or they just assume without the experience) we'd be poor tippers too and gave us mediocre service. However, because we don't usually get good service, we don't go overboard with tipping, and the vicious cycle continues. I understand that most young diners are unable to provide an outstanding tip (most likely due to their occupations), but tips are not mandatory and they are meant to be earned. If you provide bad service, you should get a bad tip, young diners or not. You don't expect all your older diners to pay well, why should you expect poor tips from all your younger diners?

These experiences have really discouraged Darren and I from eating at fine dining restaurants. We only do it for special occasions now, and even then we might have an internal debate. In fact, it is like we automatically associate bad service with fine dining restaurants, and when we get decent service we look at the waiter as if he was the last of an extinct species (See Stone Road Grill). Darren and I try not to screw over the waiter or next young couple by, usually, leaving an average tip, and we hope that someday the "pay-it-forward" thing will kick in, but so far no luck.