Our waiter was efficient, but not overly enthusiastic about having the load of tables that he had, I can't say I blame him, as every table in the place was filled, and that's quite a few. Anyway, across from our table was a couple who'd apparently been sat before us and placed their order, Just as we were sat.
The waiter brought them their drinks, and took our drink order, brought us our drinks and took our order of soups as starters and sandwiches as the mains. 10 minutes pass, and our soups come out, the table next to us get nothing. 15 minutes later, our mains come out and the table next to us still have nothing. I make sympathetic eye contact with them, because by all accounts, it's been over a half hour that they've been waiting from their proposed order going in.
As we're mid-point in our meal, they still have nothing and the manager comes over, he seems to be upset that they might be complaining. The moment he comes over he postures, Hands on his hips, shoulders squared. "What seems to be the problem here?" No "how can I help" or even "I understand there's an issue". The couple asked them what happened to their order, the pointed out that we'd already been served, and really all they've ordered was a sandwich and soup. Since the Manager didn't want to help, they got up and left, not paying for their drinks.
Less than 5 minutes later, their order came out, a runner was looking for them. I told the runner, that if he was looking for them, they'd waited 40 minutes for their food and left. He nodded and found the waiter. The waiter, when he came to check on us, told us that they'd failed to tell him that they'd run out of her soup until 25 minutes into the service.