Being a single-PL that lives alone, I eat out a lot – customer service in Miami has always been fairly-shitty but seems to have gotten worse recently particularly at restaurants – could be b/c many of the pre-Covid experienced employees are no longer at these places and w/ the recent government payments restaurants are likely unable to hire good employees.
Have you noticed a decline in customer service post-Covid or does it seem about the same to you?
I have been lucky to go to restaurants that have a culture of good, respectable, kind of friends and family type of service.
One of my favorite restaurants for Vietnamese food had beautiful college students types waitresses before Covid, now the staff is older but still very nice, but I miss the girls, because they were nice and beautiful.
I have noticed a decline in most of the mid-range restaurants, and longer waits for a table, along with slow uneven service, at places that were excellent just a few months ago. Case in point Sunday went with a few friends to Rocco's Tacos this place was not very busy at 7PM many tables were empty because as the manager told us he didn't have enough servers, took 50 minutes to get a table, then after we were seated the server took our drink order and didn't return for 20 minutes finally after we got our drinks took our dinner order, it was 8:45 before we got appetizers to our table. Finished dinner about 9:30 or so over two and a half hours after we arrived.
I skipped lunch today and hit a Longhorn steakhouse near-me in the late-afternoon – only a handful of tables being used it being a steakhouse in the afternoon – there seemed to be enough staff.
I sit and I’m not tended-to for more than 10-minutes (no one taking my order nor even bringing me a glass of water) – 10-minutes may not seem like a lot but if one is just sitting there it feels like a long time w/ no-service whatsoever and not the norm (usually they come over right away and at least ask you what you want to drink; or at least tell you they’ll be with you in a minute).
Halfway thru my 10-minute wait I see a young server (late-teens or very-early-20s) walk past me and stand at the empty table behind me (not sure what he was doing) – then he walks past me again while I’m still waiting w/ no service – a while later he comes up to me to ask me what I want (by now I had been there more than 10-minutes w/ no service and he had walked past me twice w/o acknowledging me) – I place my order and it still takes him another 10-minutes just to bring me a glass of water 20-minutes into my freaking-visit) – I had placed an order for a soup w/ my entry and the soup is usually brought out right away b/f the main-course – no soup to be seen – eventually the server walks by me again and I ask him if he could bring me my soup b/f the meal – he says sure – I didn’t get my soup until 30-f’ing-minutes into my visit after he finally brings it over – I finish my soup and still waiting for my steak (40-minutes into my visit in a mostly empty restaurant).
By now I’m pretty-pissed so I ask another server at a nearby table if they were short on staff (I was trying to be understanding b/c perhaps the kitchen was short on staff) – the other server tells me “not that I know of (w.r.t. being short on staff)” – he asks me why I asked and I tell him I’d been waiting 40-minutes for my meal – he says “oh wow – who’s your server” – I describe my server and a minute later my steak and mashed comes and is barely-warm (meaning it had likely been sitting in the kitchen all along).
This guy/server seemed like he didn’t give a fuck; he would rarely come by my table and never mentioned anything why everything was taking so long (and it wasn't b/c of lack of staff nor too-many people in the restaurant) – and there was like a party atmosphere among the staff – I was sitting fairly-close to the kitchen and could hear them talking it up and laughing like they were hanging-out.
Needless to say I was fucking pissed at the piss-poor service and didn’t tip shit which is very-rare for me – I’m not one to try to take it out on staff b/c IDK if there are other circumstances I’m not aware of but this guy just seemed like a dick that didn’t give a fuck about doing his job. I’ve also had issues at Outback near me and why I wrote this thread b/c it’s been more of an issue than in the past pre-Covid.
^^ Papi! Don't sugarcoat it bro, tell us how you REALLY feel... LOL
In today’s woke-world the wokies are all about “oppression” and how people at the bottom don’t get a fair-shake – there are def people that work very-hard at jobs that don’t pay a lot; but a lot of people are where they are b/c of their shitty work-ethic – and often times these shitty-fucks are the same ones that want all kinds of handouts like not paying rent, not having to pay for their school loans; and demand all sorts of handouts and blame others for where they are in life vs blaming themselves.
"This guy/server seemed like he didn’t give a fuck"
Why would they? Shit jobs are dime a dozen and servers/essential workers are done even pretending to care. The manager fires this server and the former server has another equally dead-end job within hours.
Customer service is deplorable everywhere. Waited 35 minutes for breakfast in Jersey and last weekend our favorite restaurant, with 44 seats, had 2 waitresses. First time ever for bad service, but not their fault as they were running like hell all night.