Standing up to a restaurant

[Mamaw]

I offered a friend lunch yesterday because she had driven me to a medical appointment. We went into Friday's looked at the menu saw that 1/2 sandwich and soup was $10.00 decided this was more than we were willing to spend I knew that she would get the other half of sandwich and the bill would be $20.00. I had not been there in years and since we were close I wanted to visit. We went to our favorite Chinese restaurant had some food there and enough to take home for another meal.

[simpleyme]

I do not have a problem with walking out of a restaurant if we look at the menus a and do not like the food or the prices,when we do this we have left a small tip at the table, its not the waitress fault ;-) and I would hope they remove our waters they have brought us.

I am friends with the guy who owns our local diner he says when people want half portions and or simply buy one and share it ruins his profit

"two people walk in order one meal and an extra plate they now will only use 1 chair and half a waitress? " he is a funny guy LOL I am guessing his humor is what gets him through ;-)

[disneysteve]

We have occasionally walked out of a place due to not caring for the menu choices. I don't think we've ever walked out due to the prices as I'll usually check that before going in if it is a place we are unfamiliar with.

As for a restaurant losing money if we order one meal and share, lots of restaurants have a sharing fee to cover that. If they wouldn't make their portions so enormous, that wouldn't be a problem. Put a sane amount of food on the plate and I wouldn't need to share or take it home. We also wouldn't have such an obesity problem if they scaled down the portions.

[Mamaw]

I don't consider half of a sandwich and soup as a big portion. I didn't know we were going there or would have checked prices. No they havn't served the water.

[disneysteve]

I don't consider half of a sandwich and soup as a big portion.

That wasn't directed at you, Mamaw. I was just making a general comment. If restaurants don't want people ordering one meal and sharing, they should stop serving portions that one person can't possibly eat. We went to one restaurant a while ago where I ordered some chicken entree and was served 3 whole chicken breasts. I don't know about anyone else but that's at least 3 meals for us. The next time we went there, we ordered one entree. My wife and I shared it and I took the remainder for lunch a couple of days later. I'd much rather be served a reasonable portion for one meal.

[GREENBACK]

I've never been to a place where I couldn't find something on the menu I could eat or was willing to pay for. I've settled on an appetizer as my meal a lot of times because they are often served in meal size proportions and pretty similar to what you might order from the main menu anyway. I'm mostly speaking of chain restaurants like Friday's, Applebee's, etc.. I really never have considered walking out.

On the large meal sizes, I agree that they are way to large for the average person in a lot of cases but I almost always leave with a "doggy bag" and finish it over the course of a couple of days. I have to wonder how much less they would really charge if they downsized these big meals. I would be all for it if the price reflected what they served but I'm not sure if that would be the case.

[whitestripe]

usually restaurants in my area have their menus laminated in the windows or on a stand, so we will look at it before we go in. if they dont and i dont like the prices i will do the same as greenback and order an entree, or two sides. it shouldnt hurt their profits too much because we usually go to new places when there is a large group of us, say more than 8 people. when it is just DF and i we go to a place we already know, or like i said, look at the menu first.

[cptacek]

I had to leave a Chinese restaurant last year because they didn't have any vegetarian meals and they ran out of shrimp...and it was a Friday of Lent. Couldn't eat anything, so we had to leave. We had ordered our drinks, though, so we paid for them.

[simpleyme]

we had heard great things about Thai food but had never had it and did not know what it was,we went inside sat down looked around got the menu ,we knew we had made a terrible mistake;-) so we apologized to the waitress left a tip and went next door and ate Mexican food instead

another time we walked in to a place we thought was Chinese of some sort but I think it was Japanese,it had a horrible buffet of raw fish ;-)

we love to travel but we are not adventurous when it comes to food

[disneysteve]

I had to leave a Chinese restaurant last year because they didn't have any vegetarian meals

How strange. I've never heard of a Chinese restaurant not having a variety of meat-free options. They all serve tons of vegetable stir-fries, vegetable lo mein and such. I wonder if they would have made something without meat had you asked.

[mommyof4]

I had to leave a Chinese restaurant last year because they didn't have any vegetarian meals and they ran out of shrimp...and it was a Friday of Lent. Couldn't eat anything, so we had to leave. We had ordered our drinks, though, so we paid for them.

Most restaurants around our area are pretty Catholic friendly during lent- a lot of meatless items on the menu, so we've never had a problem. Even the public schools serve meatless meals on Friday's during lent. Except my kids have to put up with the comments from other kids "you Catholics MAKE us eat meatless food on Fridays!:

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Oh, the Lent thing makes me remember that one time I lucked out on a car trip when I was starving and had to pull off the highway where my only choice was McDonalds in a small town, a town so small they probably only had the McD's due to the draw from the interstate. It was in a highly Catholic area. When I went in, they had a special Lenten menu, that amazingly included beautifully broiled catfish that could not have been a pre-packaged, pre-seasoned, frozen item shipped out from McD's headquarters. They were actually cooking back in the kitchen. I guess the owner/manager must have brought in their own broiler oven or something.

But I can't remember a time when I left a restaurant, unable to find something on the menu to at least settle for. I'm one of those people who will order one thing, then when I see wait people bring others' orders I think, "Wow, that looks great! I could have ordered that!" I do appreciate it when they post a menu outside, though. Sometimes it entices me in, sometimes it tells me to go elsewhere.

[snowboardebater]

I don't have a problem with it at all... I doubt most restaurants even care. And I say that from experience...

[emilywebster07]

Nice thread because I have faced the situation so many times and I didn't know that people would get up and leave. Its a good idea. Glad to hear that we can do that.

[cptacek]

It is a very small mom and pop type restaurant, and they were new in town. Since that time (last year) we've gone again on Fridays of Lent and they have shrimp. They probably were surprised about all the people ordering it last year and figured it out!