Even though we all now have phones with handy calculator apps, some restaurant diners are still confounded by the math when trying to sort out the tip, particularly when splitting the bill. Many restaurants now do the math for you and print a suggested tip on the receipt, but some Cheesecake Factory customers say the popular chain is enriching itself by suggesting misleading tips on split bills. [More]
dining out
Waitress Receives “Tip” Telling Her To Stay Home With Nonexistent Husband, Kids
By 10.18.16 — Updated: 10.19.16
Here at Consumerist, we’re no stranger to the occasional restaurant receipt story: whether it’s a customer leaving a rude message, a discriminatory tip, or an employee calling customers names. In the most recent incident, a couple reportedly left a note to inform their waitress “her place is in the home.” [More]
Food Trucks Win First Legal Battle Over Rule To Keep Them Away From Restaurants
By 9.29.16
A restaurant might already have enough competition from other eateries next door, across the street, or even in the same building, so they probably don’t want yet a competing restaurant on wheels parking on their block. But when restaurants and food trucks share a similar menu, can a city require that they not share the same general space? [More]
We’re Spending More At Restaurants, But Not Because We’re Dining Out More
By 8.31.16
In 2015, the average household spent around $3,008 to go to restaurants and have someone else do the cooking and dishwashing for once. That’s a slight uptick over the previous year, but spending more money at restaurants doesn’t necessarily mean we’re eating out more frequently.
[More]
Grandfather Of Waitress Confronts Customer Who “Only Tips Citizens”
By 8.22.16
A Virginia restaurant customer not only refused to tip her waitress after a recent meal, but left a note on the receipt that implied the server was not a citizen and therefore somehow not deserving of a living wage. When the waitress’s grandfather heard about it, he called the customer out online and confronted her in person when she complained to the restaurant after the picture of the receipt went public. [More]
Here Are This Year’s 9 Most Calorie-Filled Chain Restaurant Meals
By 8.1.16
You have to know that when you’re tucking into some huge plate of pasta, fried food, bread, sauce, cheese, and meat at a chain restaurant, that’s probably not healthy, but do you know how unhealthy? [More]
These Restaurant Employees Should Probably Stop Mocking Customers On Their Tabs
By 5.9.16
Here’s the problem with making jokes about your customers in the point-of-sale system at a restaurant: you really should make sure that you erase those jokes before there’s any chance that your customer might see them. Better yet, maybe stick to making fun of customers the old-fashioned way. In the kitchen or the break room. Where they can’t hear you. [More]
Science Says: You’ll Order More Food & Booze If Your Waiter Isn’t Skinny
By 1.15.16
It’s a stereotype of the swanky metropolitan restaurant — only hiring wait staff that looks like they just slinked off the pages of Vogue or the runways of Milan — but the results of a recent study seem to indicate that restaurants could pad their bottom lines by hiring servers with a little more padding. [More]
Restaurant Critic Rails Against “Stupid And Broken” Star-Rating System
By 10.27.15
We’ve said before that star ratings for restaurants are often arbitrary and may not be an accurate representation of the review’s content or of other diners’ standards. You might think that critics who get paid to give such ratings would defend the practice, but at least one of them has come out swinging against the stars, bells, and other dingbats he and his fellow reviewers are often compelled to use. [More]
Diner Owner Defends Yelling At Crying “Beast” Of A Child
By 7.20.15
The owner of a diner in Portland, Maine, does not appear to be terribly concerned about the social media backlash resulting from her admitted hollering at a crying child and then later dubbing that youngster a “beast” and “monster” on Facebook. [More]
Americans Are Spending More To Dine Out Than On Groceries For The First Time
By 4.14.15
In a first for Americans, a new study says we’re spending more as a country eating away from home than we are on groceries. Why slave away over a hot stove creating something that may or may not end up tasting good when you can pay someone else to do it for you? [More]
5 Reasons Restaurants Should Think Twice About Shaming Bad Customers
By 3.9.15
Running a restaurant — which is often a narrow-profit, high-risk operation with frequent staff turnover — is not easy, and those employees and owners who do work hard sometimes feel like they only hear complaints from customers. So it’s not entirely surprising that some restaurant folks choose to use social media to shame bad customers, especially those who don’t tip well. [More]
Shuttered Restaurant Lashes Out At Former “Incompetent” Staff In Yelp Farewell
By 2.26.15
Yelp is usually a place for restaurant diners to vent about bad service and food — and occasionally for restaurants to start ill-advised social media wars with those who complain. But it’s rarely the place for a restaurant to publicly point the finger at its own employees. [More]
Dessert Is Good For Your Taste Buds, Bad For Restaurants’ Profit Margins
By 2.11.15
Most restaurants offer dessert, but depending on what time of day it is, they might not want you to actually order it. Profit margins on desserts aren’t great, and restaurants would rather you left your table to more paying customers or ordered something more profitable if you’re going to stick around and take up space. [More]
Harvard Business Professor Apologizes For $4 Overcharge Feud With Restaurant
By 12.10.14
Earlier today, we told you about the Harvard Business School professor who engaged in a lengthy back and forth with the owner of a couple of Boston-area restaurants over the issue of a $4 overcharge. Apparently the Internet didn’t side with the prof, who is now apologizing. [More]
When You Overcharge A Harvard Business Professor $4, Don’t Blow Him Off
By 12.10.14
One of the worst things a restaurant can do when it learns it’s overcharged a customer is to shrug it off and say “Oh, we’ll get around to fixing that.” This is especially true when that customer is a Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard. [More]
Restaurant Accidentally Overcharges Customers Anywhere From $8K To $99K
By 11.12.14
Some Knoxville, TN, residents are fuming mad at a local chain restaurant after seeing that their debit and credit cards have been charged 1,000 times what they should have been for their meals, leaving people in the red for anywhere from $8,000 to $99,000. [More]
Chef Who Threatened Yelper Over Negative Review Issues Public Apology
By 11.3.14
We recently brought you the story of a restaurant customer in Cleveland whose one-star Yelp review of a new eatery led to the chef/owner sending the customer angry, threatening messages via Facebook. The Yelper subsequently told us that he’d received a private apology from the chef, but that the restaurant continued to mock him through its social media outlets. After weeks of not directly addressing this story in a public forum, the chef posted an apology late last week. [More]
