There is service and then there is Service.... a short food story experience

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Before I leave the day behind and crawl in my bunkbed for what I hope is going to be an amazing night sleep, I just wanted to share the story of dinner tonight...
Thomas and I were starving and we wanted to find some food. We really enjoyed the donor kebab we had the other which was filling and cheap so we went on a hunt for a place that has them here. Moving around the small streets, looking at evrry restaurant menu, we bumped into a few people we met before. They were looking for a good place with vegetarian food, since one of them only eats what my food eats... which is pretty hard to do around here. We knew there was a paella place down the street that has a non meat version of the known Spanish dish. We found a table outside in the shade of an umbrella and looked at the menu... the waitress came over and gave us a heads up on the dishes that were not available tonight. Little attitude, but ok. We ordered our food and drinks and within a few minutes she came back to tell us that the vegetarian paella was not available either (read: they were out of that kind of microwaveable bag pf paella). So some of us ordered a vegatarian pizza instead. In the meantime our drinks arrived, and the waitress mentioned that they were out of the veggie pizza as well. So the vegetarian lady decided to not eat at this place anymore. Mind you when she asked the waitress if there was any other vegetarian dishes, the waitress rudely said no and pretty much tossed the menu on the ground amd walked off. Well, not the kind of service I would like but nevertheless our food was ordered so we decided to stay and meet up with the others at the Flamenco festival later. When our dishes finally came out, the waitress set them down and apparently wrote down the wrong one for one of us. She ran inside and started a discussion about what was ordered in Spanish, knowing very well we did not understand her. At this point she was getting very upset and so whoever ordered the dish, refused it. When the waitress grabbed the plate, she was so aggressive about it, grabbed the plate and the placeholder and pulled it away, which caused one of the glasses of wine to fall down on the rockhard ground, break and spill everywhere. Everyone around us stared at us and the waitress, while the waitress had this look of blame in her eyes. While she was getting the tools to clean up her mess, we paid for the drinks and left. Worst.... service....ever....

The people in these towns, specifically restaurants and bars, must live mostly of pilgrims and tourists. Why not show the respect a customer deserves. Not sure what her problem was but as a customer service coach I can tell you this was unacceptable and I wish I was able to explain myself better in Spanish, cause I would have taken the time to coach her a bit...

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Comments

[taracloud]

Pretty pitiful!
What a terrible story, but good thing you were with friends! I walked the Camino in 2003, and being a poor pilgrim, I stayed in dorms in the refugios that always had kitchens and ate pasta with veggies every night. It's a fun thing to make pasta and salad and wine with a group, and then there's no attitude. Seems the "pilgrims' menus" were the same yucky flesh, white rice and fries offered here in South America where I'm now traveling! You may be near where they have the free wine flowing--don't drink it in the morning--I got really lost that day. I'm keen now to follow your journey--Buen Camino!