Most annoying and irritating situations for restaurants owners and staff members

I always see blogs and reviews about restaurants, whether being about service, or ambiance, or food... But all critiques are always given about the restaurants... have you ever thought of the restaurants owners themselves?!!!

In fact, all bloggers are food critiques, are only talking and reviewing ONE SIDE of the "table"... restaurant owners are always in the defensive mode or waiting for judgement from the food writer about the food..

What about the owners or the staff working in restaurants??? what are their frustrations? what is their daily hard work consist of?? what they are facing from guests???

This is why I decided to write this post!!

The most annoying situations for restaurants owners are staff members. And recommended etiquette of restaurants:

• No Show No Call... some people make reservations for the restaurant, book a table of 4 or 6, and then NO SHOW, NO CALL. Is it difficult to make a small 1 minute phone call to cancel your reservation?!!!! Remember, a booked table means it cannot be re-assigned to others who want to reserve, which is a loss of business.
• Lateness: A client coming 45min or 1 hour after his reservation time, without calling back to give heads up, will lead to a canceling reservation... and when the client comes late without notification, then there is no space for him/her. Avoiding this situation is solved again by a small 1 minute phone call
• A group is booking for a restaurant, and people joining them without ordering: Restaurants are for eating. If you occupy a space in a restaurant, this means you want to order food. If you want to just join your friends or chill out with them, you can invite them to your home, or go to their homes. Be prepared that when you go to a restaurant, you are ordering food, restaurants are not NGOs.
• Gratuities are not included: In North America, gratuities are between 15 - 20% of the bill value. Be prepared to have this on top of your bill. In some restaurants, they automatically put 15% or 18% on the bill to be paid as gratuities. You can ask if gratuities are included or not.
• Staff members are at your service, they are not your slaves: Talking to the server or the waitress in a rude and superior way, as if she/he is your slave is not acceptable. Those people are here to serve you; being nice and friendly to them will make your and their life easy. They work a hard physical job to better serve clients, and they deserve to be treated well.
• Separate checks, when you order one plate: Expect a plate is recorded on the cash machine as one plate. It cannot be divided into pieces to make you separate checks. You can always pay in two different cards or two different ways, but separate checks for one plate?!!!
• Clients over the phone asking everything about the restaurant for a 30 min phone call: When you call a restaurant, you need to know information about the restaurant, or at least check their website for the menu and style ...etc. Waiters or the person receiving your phone call are serving guests in the room, they cannot just talk for 30 min over the phone to explain the restaurant concept and menu and decor and options ...etc. Please have a look at the restaurant's website, or if they do not have a website, search on the net to check more information. Another way is to go check it yourself.
  
• Asking the staff or the chef's nationality and judge based on the answer: This is simply racist. If you will treat the waiters/waitresses based on where they come from, or judge the food based on the chef's nationality, not his/her capability or food taste, then next time order your meal as a "passport". It is so offensive and rude.

So next time you reserve a table in a restaurant, remember those annoying situations and avoid them... Life is much easier than giving people a hard time, it will neither make your nor the staff life easy to act like that.