I'll have to diasgree. Her haircut is pretty bad. But then again, it's a $37. haircut. She got what she (didn't) pay for!

I have a feeling that this woman must be a pain-in-the-butt customer. The article says she been a customer there for 6 years. There's no way that an establishment wouldn't want to make a steady customer happy. Any salon would offer to fix it. She may be one of those customers that business' don't want.
I've been going to the same hair stylist for 15 years and she bends over backwards to keep her clients happy. She also works by referrel only and any new customer that she doesn't feel happy with, she politely asks not to come back if they call for a 2nd appointment.

Sorry, I digress...............

Back to the OP.

While I'd love to know the name of the restaurant, I certainly respect that you're not giving it out.

If I were in your situation, I'd write a letter to the owner and have the manager's lack of professional skills be the target rather than the mishap of the waitress. As we all know, "stuff" happens. Once it did, it was the managers job to make things right and he didn't.

Although no one wants a tray of drinks on them, it's really the reaction of the management that's bothering you, not the incident itself. If that's clearly expressed in your letter, the waitress should be fine.

I had an incident with a manager once in a trendy NY spot. I wrote a letter to the owner and got a personal call from him. Before calling me, he looked through the charge receipts from that night and thanked us for not taking our anger for the manager out on the waiter. (ie - we still left a big tip because it wasn't the server's fault that the manager was a jerk).
We were comped a nice dinner as well as given the unlisted number of the VIP list which were still on after 5 years!