Cafe Madison [for the last time]
I had not ever dined at Cafe Madison until this year. Earlier in the year, Cassie began recommending it, and we went and enjoyed brunch on quite a few weekends. At a certain point in the summer, the quality of service and food dwindled away. It prompted Cassie to blog an open letter to Cafe Madison to express her own personal disappointment with this diminished quality. I added my two cents to that post just to clarify how bad things really were. As Cassie indicated in her post, she was taking a break from the establishment and would revisit one day.
That one day was this past Sunday (sooner than I had expected), and happened to be her birthday.
Pay attention…
We arrived at 10:04 am, and were informed of a 25-30 minute wait. We decided to wait and stood in the small area in front of the restaurant. A family of three indicated to us that we should put our names down if we wanted a table. We told them that we did, and they were seated not long after this. At approximately 10:20 am (significantly less than the total wait time originally given), we were seated. This family of three was seated adjacent to our table. The waiter immediately approached the table and asked what we wanted to drink. Only, he didn’t just ask us what we wanted to drink; he made this gesture like he was shooting a basketball into our empty coffee mugs. Ok, I can understand having a little personality.
When he delivered my soda, we placed our orders. The time was 10:24 am. Cassie ordered one of the specials on the front page, apple walnut French toast with a side of home fries. I ordered corned beef hash with scrambled eggs and a short stack of plain pancakes.
[Aside: if you could not notice, we ordered a lot of food. We were both very hungry the morning after our Finger Lakes Wine Tour, and this will be explored further in a future post]
If you follow my chain of comments on Kristi’s recent relevant post, once I place my order, it’s all over. The time is ticking, and things better be prompt. Especially when it comes to breakfast items, which are all basically short order.
After two trips of servers topping off Cassie’s coffee, I started analyzing the situation. The family next to us were getting up to leave. Each time our server exited the kitchen, the look of disdain on his face that our table was not yet served was obvious. The time was 11:01 am. Our server emerges from the kitchen one last time with three plates. He places Cassie’s meal in front of her, and my meal in front of me, then walks away with my pancakes. I say, “that’s mine too.” He responds, “ohh yea” and makes a goof ball face, at which point I thought it was appropriate to notify him that I noticed it had been approximately 40 minutes since ordering breakfast. I actually said, “after 40 minutes, I would hope that would be mine.”
Now, if you are in a service industry and I get to decide your compensation based on your service, NEVER ARGUE WITH ME. The server made a mistake. He argued with me. His response was, “i don’t know if it’s been 40 minutes but” and I don’t remember anything else that he said. I don’t know why you’d argue with me when you were visibly noticing the same exact thing.
Nevermind that my corned beef hash was burnt. or that my pancakes came out with blueberries, chocolate chips, raspberries, and oatmeal (it was disgusting). At that point I wanted to get out of there and quickly. We ate our meals and were given the check. $26.18. I remember taking out a twenty, a five, and a quarter and asking Cassie for a dollar. At the end of it all, I was the better man and replaced the dollar with a five.
That guy didn’t even deserve the seven cents.
Good bye and Good Riddance. Cafe Madison. I work for my money, and I won’t give you or your terrible staff any more of my money.
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