Drenched While Dining
 

Today we went out to brunch at a mid-price non chain restaurant. Upon sitting down while waiting to order, the server brought our water and proceeded to dump an entire glass in my crotch, soaking my pants and underwear. I was flabbergasted. I was so wet there was no way I could sit through the meal and was mildly upset about it. In my thirty plus years of restaurant dining I have never had this happen before.

At the same time I didn't really know what to do. In the end we just stood up and walked out without complaining. Should I have done so? Is this a fireable offense that would have cost the server her job? Does a restaurant usually offer something when this happens? The hostess noticed we were leaving and why but didn't try to stop us. I'd like to hear how other FTers have handled this situation.

Thanks,
P

A better restaurant will usually offer something modest. If this is not the first time the server has doused a customer, they will probably be fired.

You must lead a sheltered life. I have had appetisers, main courses, deserts, and wine dumped on me.

I once knocked over a glass of red wine (as a customer) on the person next to me and ruined her fuzzy white wool suit. She went positively insane and demanded I replace her suit.

I offered to have it cleaned.

Once, years ago when I was in high school, I worked at Cracker Barrel as a waiter for a few months (certainly not a 'better' restaurant but good cheap food) and I spilled 8 glasses of tea and a couple coffees on some guy in dress slacks and a nice white shirt. For some reason, he thought it was the funniest thing he had ever seen. I got lucky there, but he got his food free. I offered to have his stuff cleaned for him but he denied. Not so lucky was the girl who dropped a gravy-covered chicken-fried steak right on some bald guys head. Needless to say he got it gratis. That was hilarious. Oh the joys of high school part time short term labor.
I guess my point is you probably could have gotten at least some sort of foodstuffs comped or added to your meal, ie free dessert or perhaps a coupon/ gift cert.

Years ago a waiter dropped a cup of very hot tea on a friend's 3-year-old daughter, an action caused solely by the waiter. My friend grabbed her child and rushed her to the nearest emergency room. Luckily the tot only suffered 1st degree and a few 2nd degree burns from the accident. When she returned to the restaurant on the way home from the ER, to discuss the ER bill with the restaurant owner, she was greeted at the door by the owner screaming at her for leaving without paying the lunch tab. Needless to say, that incident went into extra innings and ended up costing the restaurant owner a considerable amount more than the ER bill and the lunch tab.

I would have expected the hostess/manager to apologise profusely and offer you some small compensation for you trouble. However, since this didn't happen, I think you made your point in an appropriate and classy manner.

These stories remind me of an incident that happened while I was waiting tables while in college. It was one of the nicer places in town.

Anyway, one night while I was clearing the salad bar (it was my turn to close), I managed to catch a salad dressing ladle on the sneeze guard. (I should have been carrying the dressing buckets one or two at a time, but in the interest of saving time I had loaded at least 4 of the dressing containers into the large, heavy pewter salad bowl and was trying to carry the entire load in one trip.) In horror, I watched the ladle arc through the air, dripping a trail of French dressing across the carpet as it flew. I raced for rags to clean up the mess, hoping to have things ship-shape before the owner noticed my gaffe. First I wiped the side of the salad bar. Then I followed the progress of the thin pink line of dressing across the floor. I was on my hands and knees, scrubbing furiously. The head waitress, bless her heart, saw my plight and pitched in.

Just as I was thinking I was free and clear, I came to the end of the trail. It stopped on the pockets of a patron's leather jacket. I tried to wipe the glob but he began berating me. I offered to have it cleaned but he told me that I was a complete moron and that I had ruined his expensive jacket. I was almost in tears and didn't think things could get any worse. That's when I noticed the owner sitting across the table. The man was one of his "regulars". I wanted to crawl under the table but the head waitress drug me to the kitchen before I could be publicly beheaded.

PS: I wasn't fired for that episode. However, it was threatened. Honestly I doubt the waiter that dumped water on the OP was fired either... unless he had done that a lot more than the once.

Anyone who would publically berate someone for what is purely an accident is an ..., imo. Accidents happen, that's why they are called accidents. As far as the OP, yes, the restaurant handled it wrong, but I am sure that at that point the hostess had no idea what to do. That is the worse of the offences, imo, because the hostess should have been trained enough to know what to do. If it would make you feel better, just call and speak with the manager or the owner about it. If you don't want to get someone fired, use a lighter tone and emphasize that it was an accident. Say that you left because it was a significant amount of water and it would have been very uncomfortable to sit in it for an hour. But if the mgr knows, she can use it as a training process with both the server and the hostess so that it doesn't happen again. And maybe you will get a free meal out of it.

Some friends were dining at the Blue Water Grill in NYC, which is a middle high-end establishment a couple years back. They were sitting outside and the table collapsed on them, dumping both of their meals all over them.

The management offered nothing more than a weak apology and demanded full payment for the meal. My friends paid.

There's no way I would have paid for that meal. It was the restaurant's fault that the table collapsed; that's their problem. A free meal would have been the minimum; the restaurant should have offered up that and paid for the cleaning bill.

Many years ago, I had a waitress drop a personal pan pizza from her serving tray. It landed face down on the table in front of me and splattered me with tomato sauce. She immediately burst into tears and ran away. LOL

The manager comped my meal and gave me a coupon good for my next meal free as well.

One line of psychotherapy argues that there is no such thing as an accident. It's always interesting to analyze "accidents" in this light.

IMO, whether psychotherapy would call something an accident or not does not change the fact that it is not appropriate to publicly berate another person, employee or otherwise.

^^ Well said.

I absolutely agree!

The argument that there are no "accidents" is rather interesting, too

Hopefully, they gave you another pizza too. :)

Do you have a history of eating at this restaurant and tipping poorly?

In all seriousness, the waitier should NOT have been fired, unless he was a hopeless and serial crotch-soaker. As long as there was no serious injury involved (and "shrinkage doesn't count)--accidents happen.

That being said, the restaurant should have handled it more gracefully and offered some form of freebie for your troubles.