Customer Disservice

"Fuck!" said a bartender the other night at the elegant West Village restaurant where a friend and I were enjoying some pinot noir. I turned to him with a look on my face that suggested I'd swallowed sour milk. "Did you hear that bartender say 'fuck'?" I winced again when, a few minutes later, I overheard the conversation between another bartender and a patron peppered with the f-word.

I never gave the language of restaurant employees much thought until that night. I curse all the time, so why can't they? But at a restaurant that serves $25 entrees, the f-word seems out of place. Without directly accusing the bartender, I asked him, "Is management okay with the bartender on duty saying 'fuck'?" My circumspect question received a predictably vague reply. "They don't have a policy against it. I guess I would say it if I dropped something on my foot, like 'Fuck!'" said the bartender, who, as far as I know, did not drop anything on his foot that night.

In a fine-dining environment, the expectation is one of comfort, solicitation and smooth sailing all around. Crudeness creates friction, which ultimately goes against the grain of good customer service. But these days it seems that customer service is open to interpretation. In my world, it remains clear cut. I believe, with few exceptions, that the customer is always right. However, recent experience has shown me that not everyone agrees.

I remember one night at the Upper West Side restaurant, Celeste, a friend was dissatisfied with her pasta Bolognese. It was too bland, she told the waiter, and asked to send it back. What followed was a painful confrontation with the owner who came to our table to prove her wrong.

"This is not bland," he said, and shoved a forkful of her linguine into his mouth.

Above the din of the tiny restaurant a shouting match ensued. We tried to explain to the owner that what he thought was beside the point-it's for the customer to decide. When it became clear that he would not budge, I pulled the maneuver I save for true emergencies. I told him I was a food writer. The macho owner blanched, and proceeded to remove the pasta from the bill and ply us with complimentary tiramisu.

But what about civilians who can't pull the food-writer card? At the end of a very expensive meal at an Austrian restaurant in the Village, a cockroach parked itself on the table where a friend had just finished her meal. The roach sat there while she screamed and the waiters went about their business, unfazed. Finally, the manager came over and, without apology, brushed off the insect and presented the bill in one swift motion. Until she demanded an explanation, the management overlooked the roach incident completely.

Alex Susskind, Associate Professor of Food and Beverage Management at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration and 25-year restaurant-industry veteran, is an advocate of good customer service who does not believe that the customer is always right. "In the service equation it doesn't matter who's right. It's about finding the best way to correct the problem."

Unfortunately, the "best way" to correct the problem is largely contingent on where or who you happen to be. "There isn't an industry standard for dealing with these problems because there are multiple things that make customers unhappy," says Susskind. "When I teach customer service in class, I always use the example of the free dessert. Just because something goes wrong with your meal, a free dessert doesn't necessarily fix the problem. I am more an advocate of working with the customer rather than hoping a free dessert or appetizer will satisfy them." Susskind says that, more often than not, if the manager asks the patron what they need to remedy the situation, they usually come up with a reasonable demand.

"You have to trust the customer until you have reason to believe they are not on the level. And most people are honest, when it comes down to it. But to be fair," says Susskind, "There are customers who behave badly." Fuck yeah.