I stood there for several minutes by myself...

So, there are only a few things in this world that just tick me off. One of them is rudeness and the other is poor service. Combine both together, and you get me quite pissy. This guy does both.

He does say "hello" when I come in, but then puts his nose back into his ordering paperwork. I look at the menu and then realize, for 4 minutes, he has yet to ask me what I'd like. He just stands there, face down, until the cook from the back notices (that's her in the picture) and yells something. He lies that "I asked him what he wants," and then stands at the register. I order a gyro platter with a Diet Coke and pay (a rather inflated) the price.

The guy doesn't say thank you, scurries to the back, and when he comes back, doesn't give me my Coke. Instead, he puts his nose back in the ordering paperwork.

When the lady comes out with my food in a bag for takeout, I tell her "I'm eating in, you could have saved the bag." She says she didn't know. I say "And I didn't get my Diet Coke." She gets it for me, but of course, doofus isn't there to observe someone else doing his job.

Hopefully, he was just having a bad morning - but I don't think so. On three previous occasions have I come in here and then left because people were standing at the counter and either ignored or didn't see me or didn't acknowledge me. I don't like eating in places like this. In this competitive economic environment, especially for restaurants in SqHill, I feel like its asking to lose business and build a bad reputation. Hence, this blog entry.

But what's worse is that I fear this gentleman is a manager. If so, this business is in trouble because I can see where the employees are learning their customer greeting skills. He's combined two of my least-favorite social faux pas: ignoring me and bad service. The bad service, therefore, is not worth the money and the food (which I am eating now) is nothing special. Too bad.

My verdict? Head down to Aiello's or the Greek Marketplace. The prices and food are better, and the service is zipzap. In the meantime, I am establishing a rule for my blog: I will do no harm by outright naming the establishment described in this blog, or any others I have a negative experience at. But I will give enough of a rough descriptor and a picture with no logo's so that if someone is truly set on avoiding it, they can (with a little deductive reasoning).

And hopefully the establishment will see the bad blog post and take it upon themselves to change it up a bit - I hope. If I stop in and it looks like they have changed or I hear they have improved from others, I'll return. Until then, I will not be spending money at the restaurant with an "Envious" neighbor across the street with the red dining room.

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