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I … send food back all the time? Not 100% of the time that it’s not perfect (just tonight, I scraped the unrequested ketchup (blecch) and mayonnaise (BLECCCCH) off of my Wendy’s drive-through burger and got on with my life), but much of the time that my order is wrong, especially in a seated restaurant, I politely send it back. It’s not rude to send your incorrect food back, it’s just rude to do it rudely.
I do suck it up if I just am not crazy about my meal or it’s just kind of mediocre, or if I made the mistake. If I forgot to make my special request, that’s on me. If I can fix it easily, I usually do (like just picking a big piece of bacon off a sandwich). But if I KNOW I said no bacon or asked for dressing on the side, and I have bacon or dressing, or if I asked for medium well and it’s rare*, or if I asked for broccoli and I got fries, I bring it to the server’s attention either when the food arrives or when they ask how everything is.
Note, I don’t punish the server by tipping less, as long as they take steps to fix the issue. They didn’t make the food (…although there are times they should have noticed the issue before bringing the plate to me). I also fully expect to pay for it if I ate it and/or didn’t comment on the issue in time for them to fix it. But … I often send it back if it’s wrong.
Also, I have had plenty of garden-variety bad restaurant experiences. A sampling: I absolutely have gotten food poisoning from restaurant food; I thought I was going to die because of some diner pancakes about 20 years ago, and once my sister and I both ordered the salmon and both threw it up about 18 hours later. I once was eating at the bar of a bar and grill when a fight broke out; the staff threw several people out and they kicked in the glass door, sending glass flying all over the restaurant. I have been out with a group and the server forgot a whole meal, leaving my diabetic mother with no food (45 minutes went by before the manager asked whether we wanted the food brought out or taken off the bill. Me: “Um, at this point, you should bring it out AND take it off the bill.”). Et cetera.
*Re rare: once I was in a restaurant on the outskirts of Paris, notable because I don’t speak much French, and the staff of the restaurant did not speak English. I received a hamburger that was extremely rare, and I was trying to figure out what to tell the server. Clearly, I did not make myself fully understood, because the lady took the burger away, and brought it back a few minutes later, still just as rare, but now with melted cheese :/ (I have plans to go to Paris for the Olympics, and I now know to request cuit or bien-cuit.)
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Service to all mankind
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