When it was clear a shut down was coming, I went into my favorite local place and bought a $200 gift certificate for myself. The owner wasn’t there but her dad, who runs the place in her absence, was. He’s a sweet old man and we talk all the time when I’m in there to eat lunch and hang out and grade papers. He asked…

The last night of service before our shutdown, a woman at one of my tables left a $200 tip. I almost started ugly-crying.

“tip what you can afford”

Ha ha ha! I saw this one polo-shirt-wearing snap-back-hat jerk stretching out with his WTF-iron and I said to myself, “Self, what would a busy-body white lady do in this instance?” and I pulled out the old cell phone and called the po po

I did a reverse Becky/Karen today! O yes I did!

Or, as told by a former friend of mine, a server may sneak away with a wholly untouched meal that you left on the table and just scarf it down like a goblin while hiding from management.

He also was a chef in the restaurant of a couple who decided to live their dream and open their own place without really being prepared for what that meant, and it all went fairly quickly to hell. He details it pretty extensively in Kitchen Confidential.

To be really fair, this sounds like the sort of situation where if you absolutely had to speak to the manager, you had four or even five days before your reservation date to call and make sure they were going to be open.

Nooooot really? Latinx representation is definitely lacking. But I think your stat reading skills are getting a D+ otherwise. 

Oh... You’re one of those people. Not going to bother.

Medium well steak is disgusting 

Really? If I saw a sign like that it would definitely make me want to go in! Clearly this is the kind of place that values common decency and human interaction.  Aka. my kind of place!

Whenever I am interracting with someone in a service capacity I assume that I am one of thousands of people that they talk to. Which means in this case that maybe you weren’t being rude and taking a call or listening to music really loudly in one ear... but, there are a TON of other people that this person deals with…

Oh sure. Next you’re going to say I have to look them in the eye and say please and thank you.

This is a casual little column about restaurant etiquette. It’s literally sweating the small stuff. Why take it caps lock intensely when it’s free and you don’t have to read it?  People who constantly complain about the questions here are exhausting. 

Here’s why I appreciate the question: I am almost never late for a reservation, but on the rare occasion that I have been (or almost have been), when I’ve called the restaurant, they barely seemed to care at all; it essentially felt like the response was “that’s nice of you, but it doesn’t change anything.” I assume…

“Dear Salty, what hole does the food go in? Will the server think I’m bad if I choose the wrong one?”

“When she asked me what size, I said ‘extra medium’.”

The only time this is a problem with me is with Starbucks. I refuse to use their nomenclature for cup sizes. Admittedly a strange stance given that I do regularly order from them, but one has to draw the line somewhere. 

Dear Salty,