Great thread! Thanks for the chance to vent...in increasing order of annoyance to me:

1. Mispronounciation of the word Bruschetta

2. The expression "with au jus"

3. When the server quotes prices of the specials (even happens at fancy places). If I'm taking someone to dinner, I don't want them to hear and think about prices. If I'm there with my kids, fine.

4. My number one pet peeve: putting lemon in my water. If I ask for water, I want water, not lemon drink. It's now to the point where I *always* have to specify "I'd like some water, with no fruit, please." This is a hassle, and half of the time they don't even listen and when I sent it back, it still tastes lemony and still has a pit in it.

Funny true story: I was at a restaurant in the Seattle area, and asked for my water with no fruit. It came, and it really tasted bad but not lemony. I asked the server what the deal was, and he said, "Oh, we normally serve our water with cucumber juice added. Shall I bring you water without it?" So, for a while, I was asking for water with "no fruit and no vegetable!" They've stopped doing that now. (I know that cucumber is "officially" a fruit, but most people consider it a vegetable)

Comments?

I had that cucumber water once. Thought they had mistakenly given us something from the dishwashing sink. "Would you like plain water?" Yeah.

Recently had a Bloody Mary that was positively foul, and had salt on the rim and two olives. Thinking dirty martini, I just pushed it aside. When questioned, the bartender was doing "the way they are all making it on the east coast." Liquid from the olive jar added to the drink. No-oooo-ooh. Tell me this isn't so.

And here I thought I was the only person who abhorred this!

Eww. Just, ewww.

This doesn't happen often, but if there is something ridiculous on the menu it would be nice if the server would warn me about it. Here's an example: I once had a business lunch with coworkers and customers at the customer's location. I ordered what was described as a grilled tuna salad. Pretty ordinary, right? What came out was a huge salad in a large wooden bowl big enough to feed the whole table, and complete with wooden salad tongs. The server put it down in front of me but it nearly filled the whole table. I was SOOOO embarrassed.

One of my restaurant pet peeves is placing me at a table close to noisy kids ... I always ask for another table far far away, as I'm there to enjoy my meal and the people I'm there with ...

Add me to the list of people more than a little peeved with this practice. And please don't serve me a lemon or a lime with my beer. If you insist on including this, why not put the little fruit slice on a plate and give it to the customer on the side for optional use.

I have two pet peeves......

1. Assuming that Pepsi is the same thing as Coke.... Ma'am... I ordered Diet Coke.... and no, Diet Pepsi is not the same.

2. Putting a lemon in my Diet Coke. I did not ask for that...

My partner has this pet peeve that came up today.

We were in a place for breakfast. He always get coffee for breakfast.... and it is all you can drink. Today, as we were leaving, he asked if he could get a cup to go. They proceeded to add another $2.25 for a second cup of coffee.... seemed cheap.

Mentioned before, but I absolutely hate it when they ask to take my plate
1. Before I've finished, just because I've paused and am not actively shoveling
2. When my companions are still eating
3. Before my husband (who is still eating) has indicated his interest in the remains of my plate.

Also HATE when they say "Are you still working on that?" like this overpriced plate is a chore to be gotten over.

that is cheap...i've never heard of that before...and i sometimes get my pop or iced tea to go after a meal

One of my best restaurant choices: Dillworth Inn West chester PA

Professional waiters, (not college or school kiddies working part-time)
dressed in full-tails, gloved, one per table, rather just a couple for coffee and desert, or a party of 5 or 6 for dinner and drinks, stays attentive, but stays just out of ear shot, quickly delivers service. Tradition holds that the waiter
will order your "one for the road drink" and its charged "on the house."
(May as well be one "free" one, as this is a very hig-end expensive fine dining restaurant with no monkey business of goofies rubbing two nickels together
for a tip nor a place to drag rug-rats around...

But not everyone is fortunate to be able to afford that kind of luxury, even with a business-expense-account...


Biggest pet-peeve of mine with ordinary day to day kind of restaurants is the annoyance of waitstaff, interrupting mid conversation, to "know how everything is," -- whereby I let them know in no uncertain terms, that " if I or anyone at the table needs anything, we'll be sure to let you know, and now, if you don't mind I'd like to finish our conversation ..." (with that there's a general about-face to the rear of the restaurant)...

This one I'm not sure I agree with - I would say if you are in a position where the host has a menu with prices and all others have menus without prices then the waiter should not mention the prices of the specials. Most of the time I find the specials to be overpriced and this is an opportunity to juice up the revenue.

On the other hand not knowing can be good. I was at a business dinner recently where prices were not mentioned. I suggested to a co-worker that he try one of the specials as it was something you don't see often and this was probably a good place to try this dish. I inquired about the prices - the special was $50 and my friend declined. Our boss was paying and he never would have batted an eye if the special had been ordered without the price being known.

I hate seeing cockroaches crawling up the wall next to you. Been in 2 'restaurants' where this happened, but ate my meal and left

I also hate seeing curly hairs in my food (only happened once, but recently also occurred to a friend of mine. She ate her food anyway!)

I also hate it when people can't spell 'shiitake" correctly. One of the profanity filters at work objects to that and I end up dealing with confused people asking why their email was blocked.

I agree. One of my biggest pet peeves is NOT knowing the price of the specials. And, yes, they usually seem to be SIGNIFICANTLY greater than the average menu entree. It's not tacky for the server to also indicate the price of the specials. There are prices on your menu. It's no different.

Along these lines, another pet peeve is when the list of specials is so long that you've forgotten what the initial ones were. If there are more than a couple of specials, they should be printed out.

My pet peeves, some already mentioned

1) not offering or just bringing tap water, especially having to ask more than once for tap water

2) "are you still working on that?" - how about "may I take your plate?" or "are you finished with this?"

3) Any kind of comment on how much or little I ate, with one exception, which is sincere concern that the is something wrong if not much was eaten. Doubly so for any kind of comment about how much drinking is happening, I've heard this great story, probably apocryphal, about Jackie O being asked by a waiter if she would like another drink and her responding "It's none of your goddam business how many drinks I've had, but yes you may freshen my cocktail"

4) Bringing another patron's dirty dishes to my table, in a fine dining restaurant this one is a deal breaker for me, I will cut my tip to the level of the tip out and I will demand to speak to the manager