So, it's been odd that one of our favorite family restaurants has failed so utterly the last two times we've been there.
We went to Macado's while we were doing our Christmas shopping. We were sat quickly, the waitress was very friendly, took our drink order and that's where it kind of fell apart. He'd ordered a New Castle and a glass of water and I ordered a Shirley Temple and a glass of water. (Yes, I'm 33 and still drink Shirley Temples.:) It took a little over 10 minutes for our drinks to arrive. Without the water. We reminded her about the water, she took our appetizer order and said she'd be back with the water. We waited for 15-20 minutes before she finally reappeared, without our water. By this time, we were out of both of our drinks. She told us that they were actually out of the appetizer that we had ordered and if we wanted anything else. We didn't, but assured her it wasn't a big deal. However, we did still want our water. She assured us she'd be right back with it.
She wasn't. It was another 20 to 25 minutes before we saw her again, with our food. And no water. We asked her for drink refills and the water. She did bring the water back right away, thank goodness. But I'd noticed that they'd left the mayo of my sandwich so I asked for some of that. She came back with the mayo 5 minutes later, but no drink refills. Fine, we've got the water. We didn't see her again until we were done eating, when she dropped off our drinks. We got our check and it was a great debate on the tip. She was wonderfully friendly through the whole thing, but she was just failing all over the place. We'd understand if it were busy, but it wasn't.
The same thing happened last night, but with a different waitress. She was very friendly, but she was non-existent. If she did go by, she went by so fast we couldn't grab her. She'd check on the tables around us and be gone. We didn't get any napkins with our food and ended up having to get up and ask the hostess for some. We had to get the hostess again to find her for refills, catsup, etc. The funny thing is that our waitress came up to the table behind us at one point and asked them if they were ready for their check, when they had only just gotten their drinks, let alone their food.
We ended up giving half the waitress's tip to the hostess. Which felt dirty, but we'd also never felt so ignored while out to eat. Even the first waitress didn't come off like she didn't care. Just super scatterbrained.
It's really been annoying. We actually only are able to go out to eat a handful of times a year, so it's rather frustrating to have those few times be such a disappointment.
In both cases, we probably should have contacted the manager after a little while, but we're so used to getting good service where ever we go, that it didn't occur to us until later on.