Jeff and his wife had been sitting for 20 minutes, waiting for their order to be taken at their local steakhouse. Nauseated on eating only peanuts and only having their drink orders filled, they finally got up to pay for their drinks and skedaddle. But when they threatened to walk off, probably never to return again, all of a sudden the restaurant swung the pendulum and started giving them incredible customer service.

Jeff writes:

We were amazed at the lengths the manager at a local Logan’s Roadhouse went to to provide us great service recently.

We were hungry for steaks this last Sunday. We proceded to the Logan’s roadhouse in Athens, AL just off of I-65. We were seated, but didn’t see a server for almost 10 minutes. I approached the hostess to mention this, and she said she’d take care of it. Someone came by to get us drinks, then told us due to a large party things were busy. That’s fine, we had drinks and waited. Another 10 minutes went by with us sitting there, and our server still hadn’t seen us. My wife was feeling nauseated after having nothing but peanuts, so we decided to go somewhere where we’d get a bit quicker service. We approached the hostess and said we’d like to pay for our two drinks and go someplace less busy. The manager on duty immediately approached us and asked how he could make it right. Long story shorty, he personally waited on us, brought us our appetizers within a few minutes of ordering, and before we’d even had time to really eat our appetizers had our steaks out. He also gave us the meal for free, not wanting to lose customers.

Although I’m at times accustomed to waiting to be seated and understand when things get busy, this was the first time I was seated then ignored. The manager went above and beyond what I’ve come to expect from service, and even refused payment when we wanted to settle up at the end of the night. I see so many stories of awful service, I wanted to share one of great service. My wife and I have always had great service at this restaurant, this just supported that opinion and we will definitely be loyal customers after this.

Good on the manager for doing the right thing. You guys probably would have just been fine with the swift, personal service, but then he went over the top and gave your meal for free. Awesome. Also, good job Jeff of deciding to leave. If you guys had just sat there and taken it you wouldn’t have gotten anything at all.

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.