Send email<\/a><\/p>\nWriting online reviews without talking to the restaurant first <\/p>\n
It is a poor reflection of the national character that we are more comfortable slagging off a restaurant online than plucking up the courage to tell wait staff something is wrong. If you are that averse to confrontation, try phrasing it as a question: \u201cIs the meat meant to be served this well-cooked?\u201d <\/p>\n
I think this problem is going in the wrong direction. Serial Google reviewers and social media posters begin writing their online vents while their dinner is still hot on the table in front of them. Nobody wants to pay for a bad meal, but the first solution is to give someone a chance to fix it, not stay silent and crucify them later on Tripadvisor. <\/p>\n
Treating staff like servants <\/p>\n
This is one area in which I think New Zealanders do better than other countries. We tend to think of our barista as just some guy who happens to have a different job to us – not a coffee slave born to do our bidding. Still, respecting somebody as a human involves giving them your full attention while you\u2019re asking them to do something for you. <\/p>\n
One restaurant manager lamented \u201cwhen customers approach a counter and just say \u2018can I have a flat white\u2019 or even a no eye contact \u2018flat white\u2019 without saying a quick \u2018hi\u2019 first, nothing make service feel more like a transaction than that\u201d. <\/p>\n
One of Auckland\u2019s most experienced operators said something similar. <\/p>\n
\u201cPlease don\u2019t order while you are on the phone, by mouthing your coffee order at me. Get off the phone or at least pause, remove the phone from your ear, order and then you can carry on with your call.\u201d <\/p>\n
I think I might be guilty of this as well. I\u2019m really glad somebody is putting together this list. <\/p>\n
Booking a table and not turning up <\/p>\n
This one is pretty obvious, but we live in the golden age of ghosting. While it might feel normal to drop contact with a person or organisation you\u2019ve lost interest in, restaurants are one of the few businesses where, if you say you\u2019re going to show up and don\u2019t, you\u2019re actually denying them the opportunity to sell their product to somebody else. <\/p>\n
Doing this once is bad. Doing it repeatedly is evil. <\/p>\n
One restaurateur told me: \u201cI\u2019ve had customers no-show several times, which we can see on the booking system, and then playing dumb when we ring to confirm their next booking and mention that they\u2019ve missed the last two.\u201d <\/p>\n
Not quite as bad but still frustrating is \u201cturning up with several more or less than booked\u201d. As with a late arrival, the right thing to do is call ahead. <\/p>\n
See, it\u2019s pretty easy to be a good customer. And if you insist on keeping your bad habits, can I suggest you visit Nanny\u2019s Eatery, where the person I spoke to had a surprising response when I asked him for his pet peeves: <\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly? I don\u2019t have any. I think it\u2019s what makes my job fun and interesting. I see all walks of life in the restaurant, from the happiest to the angriest, and when I get to mess with them it makes my day.\u201d<\/p>\n
What you\u2019ve asked, and what he\u2019s shared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Viva\u2019s resident Dining Out editor has been asking hospitality staff what we\u2019re doing wrong. Are you guilty of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[27518,1558,22503,31787,32896,156,1342,3368,15557,2537,5812,48016,2538,111,139,69,10710,1516,223,24359,75513,3608,6923,49493,33057,25152,197],"class_list":["post-421620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-asking","tag-been","tag-dining","tag-doing","tag-editor","tag-entertainment","tag-five","tag-guilty","tag-hospitality","tag-jesse","tag-make","tag-mistakes","tag-mulligan","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-resident","tag-staff","tag-the","tag-these","tag-vivas","tag-were","tag-what","tag-wish","tag-wouldnt","tag-wrong","tag-you"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}