UPDATE: I received a call from the general manager at the store. He is sending out a formal letter of apology along with a gift card. He was very apologetic on the phone and genuinely seemed concerned that there was a problem with my food and experience. I don’t think I’ll change my mind about revisiting the location. The whole situation was very surreal, like I couldn’t believe it was happening. It also made for a somewhat awkward rest of the night.
Megan and I try to go out at least once during the week so that we can get out of one of our apartments. Usually this means dinner and a movie (AMC has $5 during the week 
). Tonight I had planned on going to Green Mill, but at the last minute changed my mind and decided on Cheesecake Factory instead.
It started out well enough. We were greeted and seated immediately with friendly service. Our server was at our table within a few minutes of being seated and took our drink order. Overall throughout the entire dinner service, our server was very kind. I’m just going to get that out of the way now.
I ordered the American Kobe burger. Figured, I might as well really enjoy my meal since I was hungry for a burger and nothing else seemed right at that moment. I ordered it medium, because I normally do. The meal made it out of the kitchen in pretty good time (Megan ordered the Thai Chicken Pasta).
So I go about eating my burger. First off, I was disappointed that they served very greasy and overly sauteed onions and mushrooms right on the burger. A light sautee would have been good, but this left a big pool of grease in the middle of my burger. I thought this a bit strange since the chopped lettuce and extremely fresh tomato were placed neatly next to the burger. I ate the mushrooms and onions off first and scraped away the little pool of grease since I wanted to actually taste this Kobe burger (Bulldog in NE Minneapolis serves a really nice American Kobe, btw). After biting into it, I noticed immediately that not only was my burger well-done it was a bit crispy inside. I like a good burger, so when the server came back to the table I told her that my burger was overdone. She apologized and took it away to get a new one.
Cue the manager. He was very nice and explained that he would see to it personally that the burger wasn’t overdone the second time. Pretty much 10 minutes later my burger was delivered to the table. Again with the onions/mushrooms, I suppose I could have asked for them not to be on the burger, but I didn’t want to be a bother too much. By this point I was hungry, and was munching on the delicious bean sprouts that covered Megan’s pasta dish. I noticed that my burger was overdone again. Howeever, we were kind of on a deadline at this point and I was hungry so I decided just to shut up and eat it. The manager had already comped the burger so I figured a free overdone burger wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world. The server noticed that my burger was overdone (unbeknownst to me) and informed the manager that my burger was overdone again.
The manager came to the table and offered us both a free dessert (we were at the cheesecake factory afterall). So, we both ordered some cheesecake. Time now for the bill. When I got the bill I noticed that both of the desserts had been charged to the bill. I told the server, and about 10 minutes later she came back with the redone bill. I looked, and 1 of the desserts was still charged.
At this point I was really frustrated. I’ve been a short-order cook in my life, and cooking a burger right isn’t really that difficult. Yeah, the Kobe burgers were much thinner, but you have to adjust your cook time and char-broiler placement to match the thickness and sensitivity of the meat. This goes for anything: Steak, Chicken, Fish, Pork, and Ground Beef. I don’t order medium because I want to be a pain, I order medium because I hadn’t eaten at that restaurant before and didn’t quite trust their medi-rare/rare yet. However, even as far as well-done standards go, this was overdone. The manager copped to the “Heat Problems” that the cook had been having (I don’t know why he shared that).
I should point out that while I had this more expensive burger in front of me, the fries served with it were the same cheap-ass fries that are served with the other meals, and were just slightly better than Dairy Queen fries.
I paid the bill because I’m not “THAT” guy. I’m not going to sit and argue. I just won’t go back. I’ve been to my share of greasy spoons and nice restaurants, and have only ever had 1 experience worse, but that involved food poisoning and crappy service (at a very popular chain, twice in two visits over two months. Also another that I won’t go to).
Btw, I gave a 15% tip. The server was great the entire time, and I know that in order to comp food she needs management approval. So this one wasn’t on her. Even though there was a Comp/Server line on the ticket… which tells me that it’s coming out of her check, which I really hope isn’t the case.
The aftermath/lesson
Customers are the only way service business stay in business. If you are going to offer a higher quality product than the rest of your fare, I suggest that you actually deliver. If you offer something in exchange for mistakes made you really had better deliver on that promise and be available when the time comes for the bill. As it was, the manager had come out twice during dinner, but when bill time came, he couldn’t be found (the server said she had to go through another manager).
This one eating experience turned a very great start into a horrible service experience for me. Enough that I’m not going to go back. To any.
–dez
(Update: desert is a dry, sandy place. Dessert is an after meal treat: spelling corrected after writing around midnight.)