Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Restaurant brawls

I would like to get your opinion on something that happened last night when my sister's and I went out to dinner.

For this story to make sense you will need to know that a. Jo is my older sister and she has a daughter who is almost 6 b. Barb is my younger sister, Mike is her husband and they have three kids, a 3 yr old, 18 months and 8 weeks c. for those of you who don't know, Christian is my husband.

Right, so I got home last night after work and Barb phones and asks if we want to go out to dinner with them to a place called Sizzler. It's an all you can eat salad bar place where you can get steak and seafood as well. We say yes and shortly afterwards we leave (as we live the furtherest away).

Christian and I arrive and the other's aren't there yet. Now, at Sizzler, you can't book a table but have to wait in line. They ask that you wait until all of your dining companions are there before you line up so we wait outside. Jo and her daughter turn up and still we waiBart outside. Finally Barb and Mike turn up and line up. The baby's nappy needs to be changed, so instead of pushing through the line of people to use the babychange in the restaurant, Barb and Mike go out to the car to change the bub. Meanwhile a group of people turn up and line up behind us.

Following so far? Good.

Barb and Mike finishing changing the baby and come back inside. A woman in the group behind us have a whinge that Barb and Mike shouldn't be allowed to join our group as they will be cutting in the line. Instead of arguing, they agree, reasoning that they did leave the line so it's only fair (when we got to the till to order, they would have been asked to come forward anyway as your whole table has to order at once). Ten minutes pass (it was a long line in front of us) and two people turn up, push past the long line behind us and join the loud mouthed woman's group. So they had just done what they had been whinging about.

Well, Barb and Mike thought 'Bugger them, they just had people cut in so we're joining the rest of our group'. Mrs Loudmouth chucks the biggest stink and starts yelling "NO! How dare you, that's pushing in!" To which Barb replies "You just had people push in front of us, I don't see how that's different." Loudmouth then shouts (and I mean shout for the whole place to hear) "They have been waiting outside having a smoke, they've been here the whole time!". At this point my older sister steps in "How is it different? My sister was changing her son's nappy, in the car, but she's been here the whole time too." Anyway, they argue back and forth some more and finally they drop it.

Then Loudmouth pushed past us and goes to speak to the manager. Well, to make a long story short, her group gets jumped in front of the six groups who have been waiting longer, immediately get a table and get their meals for free.

IS IT JUST ME OR IS THAT THE BIGGEST INJUSTICE EVER IN THE HISTORY OF EATING OUT???

I was soooo mad! The only difference between us was, as Christian points out, one was us and the other was them. To them, they felt injusticed, where I believe we were in the right! Grrr, I'm seething just thinking about it now.

Anyway, I'd like to know if you guys agree with me or not. Maybe I'm over- reacting or maybe I'm just right!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

*Speechless*

That is so wrong! I'm glad I never manage to go to Sizzlers when it's that busy...

Hieronymous Anonymous said...

That's fecking awful!
I'd have kicked up such a stink!

Mental note: don't go to Sizzlers.

Anonymous said...

Nettie, that's why they make those little poison rings with the hidden, hinged compartments. You casually wander by their table, wave a hand over their food, and that's that!

Or is dueling still legal in Australia?

Nettie said...

Now that's an idea...

Nettie said...

Sounds like great plan Mort, except for one little glitch. As these people didn't pay for their meals, there would be no credit card receipt.
*sigh*

LaMa said...

The loud mouth group are stinkers. Unfortunately, loud-mouthed stinkers can ruin the reputation of your restaurant. That's why they were helped. Any restaurant would do it this way - wave them in and help them ahead of others. Giving them a free meal however goes quite far - don't see that happen here in my country.

The best thing you could have done was to loud-voicedly complain to the management too.

I might have "accidently" dumped a bowl of well-dressed salad on the cleavage of Mrs. loud-mouthed-stinker though.