Talk about bad customer service!

I've worked at a restaurant and the situation you describe sounds insane, it never would have happened. The manager where I worked was also a girl in her middle 20s, but she was so careful and so worried of leaving a bad impression on any customer- and we tried hard to make sure all reviews left everywhere online were positive! The restaurant I worked at was local, the owner had only two restaurants so he was just a small business owner so that could have to do with it. Large chains could care less most of the time...
What happened sounds soo rude, sounds like they just tried to keep your friend quiet and avoid any consequences of having a fly in the drink!! I think you should call health services on them...

I have never heard anything good about the customer service at Moxie's, a few of my friends go there specifically for the martini night thought.

My parents got Mike and I a gift certificate for The Keg for Christmas (my other sisters and their SO's got certificates for Cara Foods lol). Anyways, a few days later we went there. Our gift certificate was for $100, our total bill for 2 entres (1 steak, 1 prime rib), an appetizer (tempura), 2 drinks (1 glass of wine, 1 beer) and tip was something like $92.

Anyways, to continue on with my story, lol. We had to wait 45 minutes to get a table, which wasn't a problem, then we were seated at the wrong spot. We could hear the floor manager very rudely telling the person that had seated us to move us because there was a very important customer coming in. The seater (I don't know what to call him), was very polite and moved us to a table just over from where we were but didn't help us with our drinks, menus or coats. Our actual server was very nice but the floor manager was horrible. We saw him grab her rear 3 times and while we were chatting with her she mentioned her fiance that worked somewhere else. He was also extremely rude with telling her to move while she was serving us and other customers so that he could seat people. It was definitely a negative experience. I got his name from her and told her that I was going to file a complaint, she was very nice about it and said that she understood, I also made sure she knew that we were going to give her a very good review because she was so nice and dealt with it all well. I emailed the head office the next day and the response I got back was something along the line of, "I'm sorry you had such a negative experience at one of our restaurants, I sincerely hope your next one is more pleasurable.". We won't be going to that particular one again.

Last year at Woofstock, in Toronto, Mike, my friend, my mother and myself had lunch at a patio restaurant that we always eat at during the festival because they allow dogs on the patio. It started raining part way through so we gathered under an umbrella. Next thing I know, one of my dachshunds is yelping in pain, sparks are shooting out from the umbrella and there's a burn mark on her pad! I informed the manager, all she said was "oh, we put that over a spot where a lamp post was knocked down. The power was supposed to be off.". No discount on our food, no offer to pay for emergency vet care, nothing. Luckily, there was an emergency vet stationed just down the street that looked Sadie over for free and said she appeared fine, but to have her checked out when we got home by our regular vet. I emailed the head office of the company when I got home, and scheduled an appointment for the next day. I received a response from the same manager a few days later stating that she had said that she would pay for any vet bills that were a result of the incident. After the vet appointment I emailed her copies of the bill with no response. A few days later I emailed them again. This went on for a few weeks until I finally just accepted that they weren't going to pay the bill. We won't be eating there next year during the festival, that's for sure. My dog could have died, she's small (11 lbs) and she's epileptic. I suppose one positive thing that came out of the experience is that she hasn't had a seizure since it happened, lol.

Mike has worked in the hospitality industry for years with various restaurants and was horrified in both situations.

One word of advice, if you do file a complaint with their head office it will probably go to the manager of that particular restaurant. If it does, find the phone number for their head office and call them. Keep at them, these things are not acceptable.

Exactly. I'm glad that you're calling them instead of emailing. Unfortunately for me, I usually work during office hours for those types of things so I am forced to email.

It's funny how different people interpret experiences though. Personally, I hate hearing crying children/babies when I go out to a fancy place to eat. I don't particularly enjoy it at "family" restaurants, but I'm more understanding. My sister and her husband went to a local, more upscale, restaurant with one of their children (at the time she was less than 1 year old) and were offended that they were seated away from the majority of the customers. So she saw that as bad experience, whereas I would see it as a positive one because I wasn't being bothered by a baby crying while I enjoyed a night out.

We don't go out often, but when we do we want it to be a positive experience. I must say that the two experiences that I posted about above have definitely made us eat out a lot less.

Save those emails where she said she would pay for the vet bills. From what I've heard, (I could be wrong), emails are admissable in court. Maybe a threat of court would help her remember that she said she would pay.

Their behavior was inexcusable! I see more and more of this, though.

DH and I went to a Mexican restaurant a few years ago. The food was good, but something made him vomit (in the bathroom). When he told the manager, all the guy did was say he was sorry, and gave him his business card, telling DH to call him and let him know how he was doing later on. DH still got charged for the meal! Needless to say, we've not been back since.

Does anyone remember my "Hair salon rant" from last October? I've not back back there, either, and never will go back, unless the salon changes hands.

Very rude waiter. I would definately go over the managers head. We had a rude girl at Red Robin, she refused to seat us because there was 7 of us. She thought we had to many people. We have been to that restaurant with a group of 12 before with no issues. I emailed head office. The manger phoned and apologized. He said the girl had been written up. If it happened again she would be fired. A few days later I received a gift certificate for $50, in the mail from the manager, with a letter of apology.

I've heard enough bad about Moxie's that I will never go, not that it is my style anyways....afraid I am more a frequenter of locally owned places rather than chains, although Boston Pizza and The Keg are places I will go. I've had enough bad experiences in many of the middle to high end chains that I just don't go: why can cheap places like KFC, Boston, etc be consistant in food and service while the top end chain eateries suck in all aspects? It isn't that I do only junk food at restaurants, but have been to some pretty decent places but decent and chain for higher end dining rarely go hand in hand.

Did I understand right that your friend was not charged for the aruba martini? There was nothing wrong with it. She just didn't like it, right - and she was not charged. I think that was nice for the restaurant to do.

I agree, though, that the waiter was rude.

I'm in Montreal,qc and i don't think we have a Moxie's.....but after reading your post i would not touch that place with a 10 foot pole!

Good for you for doing something about it, you should have been comped big time, no questions asked.

I went to the Moxies in London (Ontario) once and the service wasn't very good. I also found their waitresses looked like they belonged in a club rather than in a restaurant. I haven't been back since then, and don't ever plan to.

If I want to go out for an expensive meal, I will go to Milestones. Thats my favourite restaurant and they always have great service. Last time I went there, my steak was cooked to medium and I like it medium well and told the waitress. She apologized and they fixed it right away and the manager even came and apologized and gave me a coupon for a free appetizer.

I think too much is being made of this. Your friend ordered something and sent it back because she didn't like the taste. She wasn't charged. She also wasn't charged for the drink with the fly in it.

As for the waiter ignoring your friend, I'd like to believe there's two sides to every story, considering that none of us were there. So the waiter, who is probably barely paid minimum wage and who gets by with tips, is going to be written up.

The service industry seems to receive the worst of customer behavior. They see the side of human nature that isn't always flattering.

I've heard stories where a diner would eat almost half the meal and then send it back saying it wasn't any good. It happens quite a lot, actually.

Wait staff in a place like Moxie's gets paid pretty decently here, even Rotten Ronnie's.....er McDonalds staff gets more than minimum wage in Canada; min wage in most provinces is around the 10/hour mark.

It's not like that so much where I live, although years ago it was in some places. I bartended/waitressed from 1978-1997. At first, we gave away the last shot in the bottle. That changed a long time ago. I can't imagine in this economy, bars and restaurants surviving if they didn't charge customers for things that were not their fault. Your friend knew what ingredients were in the martini and ordered it anyway.

So let me ask you, how long ago did you bartend?

I agree that customer service is important but I would also ask how your friend spoke to and/or treated the waiter. It's a 2-way street and having a daughter in customer service I've heard some horror stories about how the public sometimes treats the persons doing the service. Some are very condescending and nasty. As a waiter, if someone was rude to me about the food or drinks which I personally did not prepare, I would probably ignore them as well.

I had a waitress one time that fairly drooled over my husband and catered to his every wish and treated me like I was invisible. When the bill came my husband handed it to me and said, "Thanks honey for the treat". The look on the waitress' face was worth a thousand words. I left her NO tip, not a penny and told her why. She just shrugged and said "whatever".

ewwwwwwwwwww, so they were like fruit flies, right?

Sign of a very unclean bar, or bartenders not cleaning up completely. I mean, the floors back there get so sticky, they're supposed to clean the matt completely, pull that up and clean the floors underneath completely, the sinks, the outside of the bottles.

So many lazy bartenders.

Refund was in order and deepest apologies, that's for sure.

It seems that since jobs have become more scarce, people are hiring the less-abled for much cheaper, so the services is much worse.

Sorry to hear this happened!

Julie O'

No need to get offended. If you reread my first post I already agreed with you about the hospitality. I didn't feel a need to go on and on about it.
I only questioned why you are so adamant that the restaurant should absorb the costs of an unwanted drink, although they were clearly not at fault for that. Because you believe this is common practice, would you have expected that drink to be free if the events of the evening were better? It seems like that is what you are saying.

As far as why I laughed when I asked you how long ago you bartended, we are approximately the same age, I bartended a long time ago, as I said in the post you quoted. I moved on to another field and figured the same was likely true for you since I know you work in the health industry now. The laughing was a friendly laugh because (I thought) we had some common ground there. You don't have to answer the question "how long ago did you bartend?" I was just curious.

A lot of things have changed in our world, including the hospitality industry. I illustrated this using the example that bars used to give away the last shot in the bottle. Many can not afford to give away product anymore.

I went to KFC Friday to bring home some chicken. My dad loves their chicken so I thought that would be a nice treat for him. I ordered the family bucket and three extra legs. My daughter will only eat legs. I get home and there are no legs. I paid close to $5.00 for those three legs. Yeah, its not a whole heck of a lot of money but I didn't get what I paid for.

When I called them they told me they would take my name down and give them to me next time I come in. Uh....no. Either my name will not be taken down or I will forget about it. The KFC is way out of my way to go to and I don't frequent it much. I called the main office and they are supposed to be sending me some sort of certificate.

I did have a very good experience with Amazon.com though. I had ordered a game through their warehouse and everytime I checked my order it was in the process of shipping. This went on for a week. I called them up and there was some glitch in the order. They gave me priority shipping so it will be here tomorrow as well as refunding half the cost of the item. That is the kind of service that will keep me coming back.

Speaking from a customer service reps point of view, even though I work in retail and not food service, they generally remember a customer that they've had problems with. We have one cashier at work that gets so flustered when we have a customer in that's caused a scene or had a problem before that she tries to rush and forgets things because of that. It's not something that should happen, but it does and I understand why. It can be a very stressful job. I'm glad that he remembered you and tried to make it right... was it the same shift manager as the last time as well?

Since you have had two negative experiences at that particular location, I would go to another one and see if it's better. The Keg near our house has horrible customer service and the shift manager is horrible - he's been there every time we have, but the one downtown is much better in regards to service and there tends to be fewer families there. We don't go to it as much because we either have to take the bus there or pay for parking... if we're really ambitious we walk there and bus/cab back.

Was it a gift card specifically for Moxie's or was it one that you can use at other places?