Dinner And The Worst Kind Of Show

My husband and I went on our weekly date night to a teppanyaki — a restaurant where the chefs cook and perform in front of a shared table. We decided on a new location, but it was a chain so we knew the food would be good. We had a reservation at seven pm and barely made it since I work forty-five minutes from home and traffic was bad. As we were only two people, we knew we would be seated fairly quickly when seats came available.

While we waited, there was another party in the lobby. They were waiting on one more person, so they couldn’t be seated yet per policy. Soon after we got there, about ten minutes, we sat down, and we already knew what we were going to order. The other party was seated with us. They were still missing one person, but apparently, they’d told the staff their last member was parking. First major red flag from them.

After they sat, we ordered our food, but they only got appetizers. After we ordered, we both went back to our books we’d brought, hoping they would order soon since we were starving. Twenty minutes went by and their last member wasn’t there yet. The waitress, who was busting her a** with work — she literally had to climb around them all night long to get their dirty dishes and none of them were bothered to even move or acknowledge her existence — asked them to order.

They told her to do our order first and she informed them that we had been ready for twenty minutes already. One of them said, “Oh, s***,” and they were all forced to order. After this, their last member finally arrived. Apparently, he had gone home to change and then come to the restaurant. No one before this was even looking out for their party member. Next red flag.

After five minutes, the chef arrived and my husband and I noticed he was having an off day. He was just focused more on the cooking than on entertaining, which is a big draw with these places. He did the catching of the vegetables so quickly that barely anyone had time to react. We didn’t blame him, though, since he looked down in the dumps. My husband and I were watching the whole time, mesmerized by his cooking and literally drooling over the food. Meanwhile, the other party was not even paying attention to him or anything, all on their phones in their own worlds.

Once the food was served and we were all good, we tipped the chef well since he did a wonderful job. Usually, when we go to places like this, all parties tip the chef. This time? Nothing. Not even a thank-you to him except from us. That’s when it really clicked for us what kind of people our tablemates were.

Later, we found out the table next to us was delayed because of how long our table took. They had long finished their appetizers, and were waiting since our table was barely making an effort for efficiency. They did not look pleased, but they were nice about it when the waitress said the chef would be there in a few and apologized for the wait. When our chef finally arrived at the table next to us, he was friendly to us and said hi, to which we replied, “Oh, hello again!” with huge smiles. He didn’t even say anything to the other party members at the table. I liked that little motion and wished we would have tipped him more.

We paid for our check and left a good tip for the waitress, since she had busted her a** and we really appreciated it. We left, said a reluctant goodbye to the other party — we usually say goodbye to the parties we share tables with — and got in our car. We both immediately agreed that they were “those” kinds of people — here in Arizona we call it having a “Scottsdale vibe.”

I hope that the chef gets huge tips for the rest of the week and that everything gets better for him. To the chef and the waitress, y’all are doing amazing jobs! Keep it up!