Vacation was a blast. We went east, driving through Illinois to Detroit, through New York and to Acadia National Park. We also hit my family reunion in New Hampshire and K and I got engaged! Not a bad trip! As a bonus, we also received a hotel room upgrade in Sault Ste. Marie on the way home, getting an in-suite jacuzzi for the price of a regular room! Now that's service. Contrast that with an experience at Don Pablo's this evening...
Our waitress comes by quickly to bring us the requisite chips and salsa. Good. Then she assumes that since we've cracked the menus we are ready to order. After placing a drink order (prices not marked in the menu...), we politely ask for a couple more minutes. Now I am known to complain that the extra minute you ask for often means five, but I also like more than 20 seconds to peruse the menu. What's the hurry, anyway, we sat down to eat at 8:30pm!
She gets our food order and then disappears into the ethers. Drinks are emptied, chips are depleted. We see her once, with fresh chips and salsa, but she doesn't hang around long enough to see beverages running low. That requires a flag down, at which point we tried to ask for waters as well as refills. Except that she takes off like the starter's gun just fired. She comes back next with the bill. "I'm not trying to rush you," despite the fact she never asked how the food was and didn't ask if we wanted take-home boxes despite rather full plates.
So we tipped low. K, having worked as a waitress, also left a note on the receipt about poor service so our waitress doesn't mistake a low tip for service for "low tippers."
Not the worst service I've received, but it's never good when the wait staff makes you feel like it's problematic to ask them for something.
I'll just reminisce about that Days Inn back in Michigan...
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