Trouble in the Neighborhood?

At one of our favorite neighborhood restaurants. Though our experience dining there last night might be reason enough to drop their standing on our list of preferred eateries.

Our "server" asked us for our beverage choice, I gave her mine which she acknowledged. The she asked my wife's and then turned back to me and asked me again...I repeated my request and it didn't seem to click.

The beverages were delivered by her promptly, and she took our order and left. We proceeded with our conversations while we waited for our salads to arrive. Our "server" never returned. Our main entree arrived being delivered by a member of the kitchen staff (I'm guessing). Though our "server" continued to wait on other tables, she never returned to check how things were. She delivered our salads after another customer asked where his was when the same kitchen person delivered his main entree.

She offhandedly apologized that the salads had been sitting in back and someone else was suppose to deliver them it wasn't her job. She said all of this while quickly placing the salads on our table and disappeared again not even asking how our main entree was.

My wifes salad was served with the wrong dressing. We looked around the restaurant seeing others were expressing their discontent with the service. I asked one of the hostesses to summon the manager to our table.

The manager was polite, listened and explain he was having staffing issues. Seems there was discontent between the wait staff and the cooking staff. We explained our minor inconveniences with the service, but really were mostly upset that our "server" didn't accept her duties as just that a server.

The manager apologized and offered to pick up the cost our meals. We didn't expect that, but we accepted it. We've been eating at this particular eatery for a more than a decade, only once did I ever remember this problem before. Then too it was the beginning of summer, new staff and the manager frustrated with the situation. Then too we were given a complementary dinner.

I hope they get their staffing issues squared away soon. In this time of tight economics, many people will dine out even less (we are) so it could seriously effect their bottom line.