We were seated right away and the waiter brought out glasses of water immediately then took off. The place was pretty dead, we were his only table at that point. He waited an inordinately long time to come take our order. I saw him come out of the kitchen and look at us a couple of times and it became clear he wasn't going to come over and take a drink order or appetizer order until we put the menu's down. When we did put the menu's down (my wife likes to keep looking and I suggested that if she knew what she wanted she should probably put the menu down so we could get some service) he came over.
My wife ordered a beer (I was driving and sticking to just water), we ordered our meals, an appetizer and my wife order soup. We asked that the appetizer and soup come out together. The soup came out by itself and by the time my wife had finished it I had finished both our waters. He never checked or asked about drinks other then the first order, I had to track him down and request a pitcher of water for the table.
The appetizer came out with the main meals, he mixed the food up and we switched (he had done that with the drinks too). He never checked on us again after dropping off the food. I offered to get up and hunt him down to get my wife another beer (or go get it from the bar) but she said water would be fine since we had the pitcher.
I thought I was going to have to track him down to get the bill but I managed to get his attention when he was at another table (at this point he had us and two other tables...at least I didn't feel like he was singling us out since he was giving the same slack service to all three two tops). He did eventually bring the check and that's the last we ever saw of him.
It's not like he dumped a bowl of hot and sour on my lap or something like that but I think taking a drink order, checking on drinks and checking at least once after you serve the food are pretty basic to a waiter job. I know it was when I waited tables.