Give a big tip to bad service

Yesterday, I went to California Pizza Kitchen for dinner. This is a sit-down restaurant that has a great selection of pizza and pastas. We ordered a drink called Mango Italian Soda and found it very good. The restaurant was not very full last night, and the waiter did not get a chance to walk by our booth very often. As a result, we waited more than 10 minutes for our waiter to get us a refill.

When the refill of the Italian Soda finally came, it tasted really different? It was as if it was just Mango syrup added to water. Needless to say, we waited another 5 minutes for the waiter to see us again and we talked to him about getting one exchanged. He did, and afterwards the drink still tasted very bad so we just asked for our bill since I did not want to be bothered with more white mouse trials!

When it came time to write down my tip, I remembered the great comments I got from this post on waiters deserving tips or not. Instead of giving him a smaller tip, I actually gave him a bigger than normal tip (~30%). I called him over, and told him I?? giving him a good tip and told him how I felt I was treated (long wait, unacceptable soda taste). He then sat down with me and explained about the wait situation (slow night, not enough waiters etc). He also did not really know why the soda tasted weird and suggested that it could be because of a machine mal-function. He then quickly called his manager over and explained the situation to him and the soda was taken off the bill and money refunded (they gave me cash and gave me a coupon worth $5).

I want to thank everyone that commented on the last post since I got to hear the story from the waiters/restaurant side about tips and the waiter life in general. This obviously changed how I handled the above situation. I also want to let people know that taking the initiative to make things better could in turn make your life better too. As for my example, I could have paid a ultra-low tip, stayed upset, and the waiter will also be upset at seeing the low tip. However, everyone comes out a winner this time.

Tagged as: Advice

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