Most of us have enough experience dining out that we know fairly quickly if we are in for a bad meal. What constitutes this meal may differ from person to person, but we all know what we like and don’t like, and we learn fairly quickly how to spot it.
Reasonable people put up with some transgressions because they know nothing in life is perfect, and expecting perfection will just lead to frustration. We all have our limits, though, and certain things signal to us that it’s time to pack it up and find another place to eat.
These are people’s biggest restaurant deal-breakers.
Comments have been edited for length and clarity.
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From Redditor u/einre:
Not being acknowledged.
From Redditor u/shebbsquids:
Once showed up to an IHOP at around 1am with my brother (he works nights), and we were told by the host to seat ourselves, so we picked a booth within sight of the host stand. The host was talking with someone (I think a customer?) for easily 15, maybe 20 minutes. No one came by to give us menus or anything. We ended up walking out and weren’t even acknowledged by any staff as we left.
Even though it was about 1:30am at that point, my brother and I were like “well, we’re already out; let’s find another IHOP” and drove to the next-nearest one, which ended up being a full 20 minutes away.
So we get to the other IHOP at 2am, and on our way to the front, we get stopped by a random couple already walking in… They recognized us because they also got ignored by the first IHOP.
The 2nd IHOP ended up being awesome, but man… how bad does your service have to be to make two different parties get up, leave, and drive 20 minutes out of their way to try and get the same menu somewhere better
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From Redditor u/indigoassassin:
No prices on the menu. If I’m going to spend money, I want to know how much I’m going to spend. Just tell me the steak is $40 for f*ck sake.
From Redditor u/mr_blanket:
Yeah what’s up with that? I’m trying to find a nice (er) restaurant for me and my wife’s anniversary. Everything in the “nice” category doesn’t include prices. I feel like if I call the restaurant to ask, they’ll say something like “if you have to ask, don’t eat here.”
Even if I had a million in the bank, I’m not going to eat somewhere that’s a total wild card