THIS POST MAY CONTAIN AFFILIATE LINKS. PLEASE SEE MY DISCLOSURES. FOR MORE INFORMATION.
Dining out isn’t always a pleasant experience. There are plenty of reasons why someone might choose to bail out on a restaurant before they even have a chance to sample what the menu offers.
Redditor u/jobokar asked, “What’s a dealbreaker for you at restaurants?”. Here are the top answers according to Reddit.
5. Uncomfortable Seating Arrangements
Redditor jimcol said, “Tables packed closely together to the point where you might as well just be sitting with the strangers next to you.”
Understandably, this resonated with quite a few Redditors as well, with LittleRileyBao stating, “I ate at a restaurant where it was like school cafeteria seating. Multiple parties sat at the same table. Haven’t been back.”
Mitochandrea agreed, “They always try to make this sound like some kind of perk too, lol. “Family-style seating!” Meanwhile, everyone just tries to keep as much distance as possible.”
4. Unattentive Staff
Redditor domin8r said, “If they just ignore you for 10 minutes. Even if you are (too) busy at least acknowledge you’ve seen me and will get to me.”
u/SetSneedToFeed shared their experience featuring this type of problem, “Huddle House is the only diner I’ve never left a tip at. I went there once on an empty Sunday morning because it was my only option. Two waitresses, one other person eating.
They failed to refill my drink or even look in my direction to the point where I went past the little swing doors and did it myself. My food came out and sat on the heater for a few minutes while the waitresses chatted. I grabbed it myself while making eye contact with the waitress. She never came by to ask if I needed anything so I went back and got hot sauce myself.”
They weren’t alone. u/Thrawaythewholeplan had a similar experience, stating, “I had a waitress forget my drink and just bring my meal, then never return. I finished my food and was going to pack up the rest to take home, but I only saw her once and wasn’t able to flag her down. I ended up walking out with the plate. I even stood by the hostess stand to pay, but after a minute I straight up went home carrying a plate lmfao. ETA: this was Dennys sometime in October.”
Related: Here is how much to tip in every situation
3. Poor Lighting
Some Redditors believe that low lighting can be a cause for concern. Onthedownhillslope responded, “When they keep the lights so low that you literally can’t see the menu. I’ve been in three places like this, and the food is always bad. The place is dark for a reason.”
u/Moice agreed, stating, “Anthony Bourdain, in Kitchen Confidential, said that if you go into a really dark restaurant, there’s a reason for it. That reason is lack of cleanliness. From many years of experience, I believe him.”
u/Seashell city shared a concerning experience surrounding poor lighting, “This is how my parents wound up with food poisoning. Their chicken was undercooked and they didn’t realize it until they ate most of it because the lights were so low. They were violently ill for three days.”
2. Hidden Expenses or Rising Prices
Many people are looking for cheap places to eat out. However, that’s not always easy to find. u/ruvol23 stated their disapproval of “Hidden fees or changing prices regularly. I’ll go once, but if that happens, I won’t return.”
u/cocoavocado talked about encountering this while dining out, “I went to a restaurant the other day and saw a ‘service fee’ that came out to like $9 so I assumed it meant the tip was included, until the waitress actually ran off crying and the manager came to ask me what she had done wrong for me to not tip her. It was overall very awkward and was my first time seeing a ‘service fee’”.
u/mamaneedsacar expanded upon this further, tackling issues like how much to tip and other surcharges, “I have major beef with this trend – especially since I’ve noticed that in my city (which has very high sales tax and now service charges) places have stopped itemizing all of the charges AND are switching to systems like Toast.
I truly think it’s because the restaurants are trying to pull a fast one on clientele – who for the most part feel rushed and will tap the “20% tip” button regardless. But there is a big difference between 20% on $300 and 20% on $300 + 10% sales tax + 3%-5% service fee + undisclosed gratuity charges.
I think I’d also feel differently if the folks who work at the restaurant actually got paid a living wage and benefitted from these charges. But it’s come to my attention that many of the employees at fine dining restaurants are ‘staging’ aka working for free.”
1. Sick Employees
u/Few-Love-2380 said, “Employees are clearly under the weather/sick but are handling food for some reason? Lord help us.”
u/YourPetHarpua agreed, “Most restaurant jobs don’t cover sick pay and will potentially fire you for calling out sick. This means if you get sick, you don’t get hours or tips and your bills don’t get paid. The worst part is that it’s almost guaranteed that most of the staff will get sick if any one person does, especially during cold/flu season so then you have no one to cover anyone’s shifts. Definitely a huge problem with the industry overall, not just the “bad” places doing this. I was really hoping changing this would’ve came as a result of the pandemic, but it’s right back to where it was pre-covid.”
u/MeanestGreenest jumped in with, “Yes indeed. Once when eating at a restaurant, they had someone from the back bring my food out (late) who wasn’t our server. Not sure why. When I made eye contact with the person, I knew as soon as I saw their face they were ill. I had a bad gut feeling at that moment, but I went ahead with my meal and…. Hours later, I had a bad feeling in my gut for REAL. I was extremely ill for several days. I very rarely eat from restaurants now. Not worth it!!”