To:
Corporate
Customer Service
Reason: The message
below was emailed on 12/27/06 after our experience *********
I am from Ohio
and regularly eat at the Restaurant near our home in Maumee. While visiting with my daughter and
son-in-law in Providence,
I suggested that we eat at the ************ that was very near her home.
Since my daughter has an 11 day old infant, we thought it
best to call ahead (we do this in Ohio
and it really cuts our wait time). I had
my son-in-law, John call ahead at 5:30pm. We requested the next available sitting for 6
(six) people which was 7pm. We were given the number “702” and requested
to arrive 15 minutes early.
We did all this and arrived at 6:45pm. I
went to the reception stand and noticed a hand written sign that said wait
time: 20-30 minutes. I gave my number
“702” and assured the woman with an orange baseball cap and retainer on her top
teeth (she will be called “Orange Hat” from this point forward) that we had
arrived and our entire party had arrived.
Orange Hat told us in an exasperated tone that we were early and would
have to wait 30 minutes. Well, we said,
okay and we planned on being seated at 7:15pm.
At 7:20pm,
my husband went to ask when we would be seated and Orange Hat said “We are on a
different clock, so you have really only been here 15 minutes”. Now he was puzzled by this and came back and
asked us what we thought this meant since he, too, is from Ohio.
At 7:30pm,
my son-in-law went and asked when we would be seated and he was told in a very
surly tone by Orange Hat that if they had known we were a large party, they
would have told us it was a 90 minute wait.
I guess waiting from 5:30
to 7 on the Call Ahead doesn’t count as even part of your wait time.
At 7:45 pm,
I got up and walked past Orange Hat and asked 2 of the 4 women standing around
in Texas Roadhouse shirts to please explain what “Call ahead” meant. They politely explained that procedure we had
done and also the same way it is practiced in Ohio. At that point I explained that we had called
at 5:30pm, got a 7pm sitting, arrived at 6:45pm as suggested and have been
waiting with the 11 day old infant for an hour and wondered when we would be
“allowed” to have a table. One of these
very helpful women took our number 702 and had us seated in 1 (one)
minute. Now, when we turned into our
booth, we noticed the clock in the kitchen that was 15 minutes slow!!!!!
Our server, Oscar was very pleasant and a helpful and the
food was excellent, thank you.
Now, which of these was most exasperating (this is multiple
choice)?
1. Orange Hat
treating us as unintelligent morons (oh, did I forget to mention that out of
the 6 of us we hold 10 college degrees?)
2. That the ************
has a “secret time zone” that is 15 minutes slower than Eastern Standard time?
3. That Call Ahead
still meant we had to wait 1 hour (60 minutes) when the sign said 20-30 minute
wait?
4. That no one even
cared and said “Gee, we are sorry this is happening to you, could we give you a
cup of coffee while you wait”?
